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Sending compostable waste to landfill is criminal, and while many gardeners do their bit to compost kitchen and garden waste, I'm sure many people could do more.I'm keen to recycle everything I can. This makes sense on two counts: it reduces

... round shrubs, roses and flowers, along the base of the hedge, around fruit trees and bushes, and over the veg plot. Beans get a good, deep mulch of compost to help conserve soil moisture, too, but it's not just water retention that mulching is good for

Who could ever produce enough compost for all their needs? I remember watching the late Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale week after week on Gardeners' World, using countless buckets of beautiful home-made compost. Every planting hole was filled

distraction. Last autumn I stopped watering my begonias and left the plants to die down on their own, thinking their tubers could safely overwinter in pots of dry compost. How wrong I was. I've just tipped some out to replant into fresh compost but discovered

-seeded readily. Once they've flowered, the seed heads ripen and split, scattering their contents onto the soil below. I've rested pots of compost around them to catch the seed in the past, or it can just be collected by hand.Freshly sown foxglove seeds germinate

have to repeat the process several times.The autumn free fall is a real bonus. Leaves rot down into gorgeous compost, so I'll make the most of my free supply. On lawns they're easy to collect. I simply raise the cutting height on my mower blades

terracotta pot for about six years now. Like any permanent planting I used John Innes No.3 loam-based potting compost, as trees need compost with real guts. Even so you'll need to feed them - my acer gets a weekly liquid feed through summer along with all

, loam-based compost, a warm position, and once they're growing you must make sure their compost never dries out. This is one pot plant I don't think you can overwater.Many varieties have wonderful speckled leaves, while others have dark leaf stalks

thing is just how you can ignore them and they'll still flourish. Despite my heavy clay soil I've just left them in the ground, and they've grown up again every summer. If I was more conscientious I would have spread a mulch of compost over the area

of newspaper in a warm, dry place they'll continue ripening, and I'll be able to shake out the seeds.The best germination comes from sowing right away, and not saving for another day. Just sprinkle seeds onto the surface of compost in a large pot and cover