A healthy organic garden should be a diverse one. Growing a variety of flowers, vegetable, shrubs and trees will mean you have a variety of habitats, shelter and food for all sorts of wildlife - insects, birds, mammals and invertebrates.
Encouraging wildlife into you garden has several benefits
Bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and even wasps are all great pollinators as they travel around from flower to flower. The RHS has helpful list of plants to encourage pollinators.
Many birds, mammals and insects act as natural predators for pests in the garden - ladybirds eat aphids, frogs and ground beetles eat slugs, blackbirds and thrushes just love snails!
Studying the lives and habits of wildlife is fascinating - for adults and children alike
Here are a few ways to encourage wildlife in your garden:
Keep your soil healthy - and it will be full of microorganisms, invertebrates and fungi
Start composting - it's amazing how many creatures live in a compost heap, dealing with your waste and turning it into lovely compost. Find out more here.
Create a small pond - or even just sink a bowl or saucer into the ground and add water, and you will soon get all sorts of creatures living in it, or just coming along for a drink
Build a bug hotel - here are some tips from The Woodland Trust
Feed the birds!
Don't be too tidy - leave some grass to grow longer, leave some piles of old wood around, don't cut everything down in the autumn, all of which will encourage insects, invertebrates and small mammals to take up residence
Some wildlife can of course cause damage in a garden, and may need to be controlled - we will be looking at organic methods of pest control in a future blog!