A while ago I told you about New Yorker Colin Beavan (No Impact Man) who inspired me with his blog about living a totally sustainable life in the heart of NYC. Not to be outdone Manny Howard has created a farm in his small garden in the suburbs of Brooklyn, where he plans to grow everything he and his family need to survive for one month. The whole experience has been chronicled in an amusing article in this month's New York Magazine. You can read about his exploits which include a freak tornado, killer rabbits, stinky chickens and a marriage on the rocks.

The Tree Council’s Seed Gathering Season starts this weekend, Sunday 23rd September and runs until 23rd October. This is a lovely Autumn activity for all the family, and is important for conservation too.

Gathering seeds now ensures the survival and continuation of all the species of trees and plants we have come to know and love in the UK. Seed Gathering season encourages everyone, especially schoolchildren and families to go for long walks in their favourite places to pick up seeds from their favourite plants. The seeds can then be used in your garden at home, at your school, to replace old hedgerows, trees that have been blown down, or planted on pieces of land which are bare.
The Woodland Trust, local Tree Wardens, Wildlife Trusts, and the Hedge Tree Campaign can all help with places to plant the seeds you find if you haven’t room in your own garden. The Good Seed Guide is a great resource for identifying the seeds and places suitable for growing them, and it’s a great way to have a walk, but with a useful aim.

For those of you who are eagerly planning your Autumn planting for over-wintering, or painstakingly gathering seeds or placing orders for Spring seedlings, this is the book for you. Organic Gardening the Natural No-Dig Way by Charles Dowding is a classic guide to organic gardening and has been tried and tested by many gardeners, both new and experienced.

If no digging seems too good to be true, fear not – not disturbing the structure of the earth really does make for a better growing medium with more worms and other helpful organisms to turn the soil for you and keep it healthy. And mulching with compost allows the nutrients to break down into the soil in a natural way, as well as keeping the weeds at bay over the Winter.

You still have a chance to register for the Tree-athlon events in London – on Saturday 15th September - and Leeds - on Sunday 23rd September in aid of Trees for Cities, a charity which aims to beautify cities and combat global warming through tree-planting.

The Tree-athlon events, like the more traditional triathlons, have three different parts to them: a 5km run, a ‘Tree Wish’ which will be printed on participants’ running bibs, and a fashion swap to recycle clothing you no longer want or need.
In addition to benefiting a good cause, you can challenge yourself with the run, reduce your carbon footprint (and need for wardrobe space) by getting rid of old clothes, and express your wishes for urban treescapes. Tree-athlon will soon be unveiling this year’s celebrity supporters so you never know who you might run into on the day. At the very least, you may just have a good day out and meet some like-minded souls.

If you think lemon grass is only grown in exotic lands then think again. Thanks to Greenhouse Sensations you can now pick-your-own lemon grass in an industrial estate near Ormskirk! The company, based in Mawdesely, has an 18 metre greenhouse and inside they grow what is essentially everything you would need to make the most delicious Thai curry, plus some exotic fruits for afters. In addition to the lemon grass they grow ginger, cardamom, chillies, bananas and papaya. If you're already pondering a trip to Mawdesley this weekend perhaps the fact that you can pick all of these things totally free might help you decide. Yes, there is no charge for tasting, and taking home the fresh produce. A very refreshing change from the usual overpriced pick-your-own farms.

The Thames Estuary is one of the UK’s biggest development sites at the moment with thousands of new homes planned for this stretch of marshland, but actually it is already a home to millions of creatures, albeit ones you can barely see. There are in fact 7,500 different species of insects calling this part of the UK home, including scores of rare insects. And this amazing biodiversity has, for a change, been helped by mankind’s propensity for dumping waste products. Marshes, covered with industrial waste such as ash have burst out with grassland and scrub supporting an astonishing number of species.

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan, the UK’s early-warning system for species at risk of extinction has been enlarged with a raft of new plants and animals, it was reported in The Guardian. The list, which is updated every ten years, has more than doubled to 1,149 at-risk species since the last review even though some species have been taken off since 1997 as their numbers have been stabilised and are no longer considered at risk.

The house sparrow, harvest mouse, cuckoo, garden tiger moth, grass snake and hedgehog have all been added with the hope that habitat loss and decline in numbers can be halted within three years.

The weather may have been less than ideal for you and me this summer, but for slugs it’s been perfect – warm and wet! This has caused record numbers of the beasties in gardens and crops throughout the UK, with estimates of numbers up to 15 billion. Research this year suggests this figure is a 50% increase on previous years and could rise even more if the weather continues wet and warm, as long-range forecasts indicate.

The period of hot, dry weather which we usually see at some point during the summer kills off a large number of slugs before the harvest season, but as this hasn’t happened this year, wheat crops could be affected. Conventional farmers are using twice as many slug pesticides as normal. As for the rest of us, join me in my twilight prowl round my garden, picking off the slugs by hand!

See BBC News for further information.

If, like many people you prefer your own listening choice on the way to work or while out for a walk, but don’t always fancy music or radio, then podcasts are for you. And there’s so many out there to choose from! But here is one you really should tune in to: The Alternative Kitchen Garden is the brainchild of Emma Cooper, a writer and podcaster who lives in Oxfordshire with her husband Pete and their two hens.

Her podcasts, blog and articles are friendly, informative and very readable. A keen organic gardener, Emma has been growing food for five years and has amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. Covering everything from gardening books, compost, famous botanic gardens, keeping chickens and updates on how her own plants are growing, it is like a having a friend to chat to about urban gardening.

If you have an interest in wilderness living, survival skills and primitive crafts and technology, then this is the show for you. Now a three day event, the Wilderness Gathering at Bush Farm, West Knoyle, Wiltshire is now in its fifth year. Running between the 30th August and 2nd September, the price of this family-oriented event remains the same as the previous years’ two day events.
There are masterclasses in skills as varied as arrow-making, tracking, wild food and moving silently in the landscape, and you can also learn how to procure and purify water, know your trees, fish, make shelters and herbal tea making.

Various Bushcraft and Survival businesses have stands, and for the children there is the Coyote Kids Club running events throughout the weekend. The Food Court includes drinks by the Sussex Cider Man, which should be something to look forward to.
This really is a unique event and deserves to be a great success. Maybe you should join in.

Despite some of the country experiencing glorious sunshine this weekend, it’s already being suggested that this will become known as the "year with no summer". Experts in many agricultural fields have been commenting on the signs of autumn coming. Blackberries are ripening, conkers are falling, holly berries are red and mushrooms are springing up. Ian Johnson, of the National Farmers’ Union has expresed his concern in The Telegraph that global warming will increasingly mean such weather disturbances affecting crops unpredictably.

This year’s early harvest is partly due to one of the hottest springs on record which set plants flowering early and animals breeding and migrating sooner than usual.
However, according to Met Office forecasts, we shouldn’t despair yet, as they hint at some hotter, drier weather yet to come in the latter half of August. What that will mean for fruits and crops already ripening ahead of schedule will remain to be seen. We will also have to wait and see if this year’s unpredictable weather is part of a pattern of global warming weather fluctuations or merely a one-off aberration.

Most people automatically put their daily newspaper straight into the recycle bin once they've read it, but if you're a gardener there's another way you can use them. This Paper Potter gadget allows you to make little biodegradable seedling pots from strips of newspaper. Once the young plants have hardened you can transfer them, in their paper pots, into bigger pots or straight into the ground without damaging their roots, and the paper pots simply degrade. It's a good way to introduce kids to sustainable living, while getting them involved in green gardening techniques. The Paper Potter is made from 100% FSC certified wood and is available from ECOutlet.

Related: More plants and gardens

Gardening isn't traditionally the greenest of pursuits, with pesticides, weed killers and all manner of chemicals designed to wipe out anything that threatens the plants. Luckily things are beginning to improve and people are starting to realise that not all bugs are pests. Gardening Naturally sell ladybird larvae, which will hunt down and mercilessly kill any aphids that dare to set feet on your precious plants. An adult ladybird lays 20 to 50 eggs per day, and they take 4 to 8 days to hatch, depending on the weather. Then it's history for any greenfly or blackfly in the vicinity. Eventually you will end up with some rather pretty ladybirds, which will continue to scoff the evil leaf eating bugs until they eventually hibernate around September/October time.

30 larvae will treat around 5sq.m and cost £9.95. The latest batch of larvae are available from the week commencing 30th July.

Related: Bugs up close and personal with an insect study centre

If the wet weather is making your kids stir crazy, send them along to your local library to take part in The Big Wild Read. It's challenges kid's to read six books and to keep track of them in a special folder. For every book they read they can stick a tree token to their folder, and at the end of the challenge all of the tree tokens will go towards planting trees via the Woodland Trust Trees For All campaign.

Related: More Kid's stuff

Natural England have joined forces with UK's leading wildlife and horticultural organisations to sign a wildlife gardening manifesto to help save Britain's gardens, especially those in urban areas. In London gardens are being concreted over to make way for car parks and entertainment venues. It is having a direct and devastating effect on wildlife and could be increasing the impact and risk of flash floods.

Sir Martin Doughty, Chair of Natural England said: “Through this manifesto, Natural England is calling to action businesses, the public sector and the public to play their part and give gardens a future – for the benefit of our own health and the survival of declining species, such as hedgehogs, frogs and bumblebees, that live on our doorsteps.”