Jackie French: Spring is time to put the holes into holistic gardening

My gardening is definitely holistic. I've dug a lot of holes. Thousands of big holes for trees, even more holes left when I've dug up a carrot or spuds.

This is the season to dig holes, to get in the last of the bare-rooted trees and the first of the potted ones, so they can establish new secure roots before the heat of summer. Dig your hole a third wider and deeper than the root system; sprinkle good rock-free soil at the base of the hole, mounding it slightly so the roots point down as well as out.

Tamp soil well, and give five minutes of gentle soaking so the loose soil compacts over the roots. Don't stake your tree unless you think some twit is going to back into it - you want the tree (or shrubs) to rock slightly in the wind to encourage even more roots to keep it steady. Good planting means good growth.

But other holistic measures? I do think of my garden as a single unit, each bit helping to shelter, feed, warm or cool and provide tucker for pest-eating predators in the rest of the garden ecosystem.

This needs books to explain, which is why I wrote them - search your local library. But to sum up:

Pests: Focus on growing plants, not killing pests - but be hospitable to all the critters, from microscopic to rat-eating owls, who will do the pest control for you. Grow masses of salvias, native shrubs like bursaria and grevilleas for year-round blossom and at least two thick thorn bushes, like rambling roses, or once again, bursaria, so small birds can nest.

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Weeds: Mulch - at least 60cm high. Now mulch again. Don't mulch right next to tree trunks or it may trigger rot, and mulch about a metre beyond the drip line, or where outer leaves drip, to encourage those wide roots. Mulch soaks up small rainfalls, so bring out the hose in dry times. Once the soil is wet the mulch will help keep it moist, friable and well fed.

Feed: If you are dedicated and have free time, green manure crops, from ground covers to slashed greenery from trees like wattles with nitrogen-fixing bacteria at their roots, will do much of the feeding for you. But work at what suits you, from chooks wandering the garden for a few hours each day, leaving droppings, eating grass and pests, without time to turn your backyard into a scratched-up desert, to something packaged and organic spread on top of mulch. Water in well or the fertiliser may burn tree roots. I speak as one who killed a grapefruit tree with too much hen manure in a drought. I mourn it still.

Seeds: Save seeds and let plants go to seed. Grow at least one variety of non-hybrid seeds. Let the best plant go to seed in spring, then stake it to sprinkle its ripe seed offspring around the garden. Save the bean seeds when the beans dry out or monster zucchini with hard seeds inside. Ditto pumpkin seeds. Our most hardy veg come from the plants we have let re-seed for decades. They are the Great Survivors, exactly suited to the extremes of our garden, ie: cold, heat, drought, neglect. I love them.

Dig your holes really well, then cosset every tree or shrub you plant for five years. If you've done the "holistic bit"- and dug good holes - they'll be feeding or delighting birds and humans for decades to come.