A few years ago I went LOOPY in the garden, and decided to keep all my weeds – here’s why I value them as much as my plants

Amanda Jones is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on sustainable living and decorating a home in way that is good for the environment. See the rest of her articles here.

When I say loopy, what I’m referring to is the ‘Closed Loop Waste Management System’, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. It’s a term used by industry to refer to systems they have in place to recycle, or reuse any waste they produce, preferably on site.

As a keen gardener, I had spent years filling up my council garden waste bin, which was duly emptied every two weeks. In the summer months, there would often be trips to the local skip too, my medium-sized garden produced so much ‘waste’.

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Several years ago, I started to learn about permaculture, and it made me rethink my garden waste, understanding it as a resource, rather than something to be taken out of my garden ASAP. The more I understood about soil building and enrichment, and how it improved the health of my plants, the more I realised how precious those weeds, grass clippings and plant prunings really were.

So, I set myself a challenge, initially for a year, to not let any garden waste leave my garden. I cancelled my waste bin collection and set about building my own LOOP system. That was several years ago, and now I value my ‘weeds’ as much as my plants. Here are some of the changes I made to reduce my garden waste.

Compost, compost, and more compost

As most of my waste was garden detritus, I was going to need to significantly increase my capacity to make compost. My two beehive bins may have looked fab, but they just weren’t going to cut it.

My neighbour built me two large compost bins using recycled wood. These have been a fantastic addition to my composting abilities. Each year I now produce almost a builder’s bulk bag of good quality compost which I use to mulch beds and fill pots. I still buy a few bags of compost each year, for seedlings.

Weed/comfrey bin

Weeds, especially those with long tap roots are full of nutrients, and if captured, makes excellent liquid fertilizer. I have a dustbin with a lid (to stop the smell) and put in all my perennial weeds, alongside the comfrey I grow in the garden, fill with rainwater, and let them steep. I make a ‘tea’ out of it and give all my planters, and hungry plants a drink. It smells foul, but it’s an amazing nutrient dense fertilizer, and my plants love it.

Every spring the bin gets drained, saving this precious liquid in 5-gallon plastic containers, recycled from the eco cleaning products we buy, and empty the rest into my compost bin, then I start the cycle again. The weeds have effectively been in water for months, so safe to add to the compost bin.

Lawn clippings

We don’t often cut our grass, preferring the more naturalistic look, but when we do strim it, the clippings are spread thinly on our garden beds, or used as to earth up potatoes.

You can of course add clippings to a compost bin.

Chop and drop

This is a permaculture term, and references what happens in nature on the forest floor. When I prune plants, I just drop the detritus straight onto the bed, it breaks down naturally mimicking nature.

At first this felt counter-instinctive, surely you in a compost bin, not on your garden soil, but I’ve found the plants love it, especially when I chop up a comfrey plant directly onto the roots of its neighbours.

There’s a certain messy look with this method, and that can take a bit of getting used to, but if you chop plants up a bit smaller it looks tidier, and soon goes back into the soil.

Leaf mould

Every autumn, instead of sweeping up fallen leaves and putting them into a garden waste bin, I now make them into leave mould.

It takes a few years, but stuff them into an old compost bag with holes for drainage, pop them behind a shed and you’ll soon have your own black gold.

Plastic waste

For an industry that’s all about nature, it certainly produces a LOT of single use plastic waste and doesn’t seem to be making any real strides in changing that any time soon. That said, there are a few companies now that are really trying to ship plants and seeds in recyclable materials. Over the last few years, I’ve bought from Sarah Raven, Real Seeds, and Rocket Gardens, all working hard at reducing their plastic waste.

I reuse any plastic compost bags; I’ve grown potatoes in them, used them to make leaf mould, my neighbour also takes them to his allotment. They also make good linings for pots, helping with water retention. I reuse any plastic plant pots I acquire, until they are literally falling to bits.

Using empty toilet rolls, which make excellent pots for beans and sweet peas which require a long root run. I never buy and new plastic plant pots now.

Freecycle, freecycle, freecycle

I’m a big fan of Freecycle. Over the last few years, we’ve had to dig up a lot of topsoil, all has been picked up by local people after being advertised on the platform.

I’ve put plant pots on there, seedlings and unwanted plants, all of which have been accepted in the spirit of community and sharing. One person’s ‘trash’ really can be another person’s ‘treasure”.

I’m so pleased I challenged myself all those years ago, I’ve literally prevented tonnes of green waste leaving my garden, I’ve learnt to harvest the nutrients trapped in my weeds and by reusing and recycling saved a lot more going into landfill.

Yes, I still produce some plastic waste, but each piece of plastic I bring into the garden gets reused, until its no longer reusable. I wish the industry would do much more to reduce its reliance on single use plastic.

Going forward for me at least, I’m looking to grow more flowers/plants from seed, to reduce the amount of plastic plantpots I acquire, and I would also like a worm farm, like this from Wiggly Wigglers, it would be a great addition to my LOOP system, making my own liquid gold fertilizer, from my kitchen scraps. These are quite expensive, so I’ll probably make my own DIY version.

If I could encourage you to do one thing, to reduce the waste you produce, it would be to learn how to make compost, or maybe get your own weed bin going, you never know, you too could learn to love your weeds.