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Free UK Gardening Field Guides

Printable cheat sheets for the jobs UK gardeners actually do — clear, practical, and written for our climate. No signup to read.

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Field Guide 01

The UK Compost Cheat Sheet

Which compost for which job, how much, and when. Multi-purpose, peat-free, ericaceous and soil improver each have a place, and this sheet tells you which bag to pick up for pots, beds, raised beds and mulching, so you stop overbuying and second-guessing at the garden centre.

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Field Guide 02

The Raised Bed Soil Recipe

What to fill a raised bed with, in what mix: 30–40% compost over 60–70% topsoil. Get the ratio right on day one and the bed drains properly, holds its nutrients, and grows well in the first year instead of slumping by midsummer.

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Field Guide 03

The Mulch Timing & Depth Guide

Which mulch, how deep, and exactly when to lay it. Bark, wood chip, compost and gravel all behave differently, and depth is easy to get wrong. This sheet helps you lock in moisture and keep weeds down without smothering your plants.

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How the guides and the calculators work together

Each field guide answers the "which and when" half of a garden job. The calculators answer the "how much" half. Used together, you walk into the garden centre knowing exactly what to buy and exactly how much of it, which is where the real savings are.

Reading the compost cheat sheet? The Compost Calculator turns your bed or pot sizes into litres, bags and bulk bags. Planning a raised bed with the soil recipe? The Raised Bed Calculator works out the exact topsoil and compost split for your bed's dimensions, and the Topsoil Calculator covers the loose-fill maths. Laying mulch? The Mulch Calculator converts area and depth into bags, so the timing guide's advice lands with the right quantity.

Everything here follows the same rules as the rest of GardenCalc: written for the UK climate, metric units, checked against published sources like the RHS and Met Office data, and free with no signup to read. Print them, stick them on the shed wall, and come back when the season turns.

Why cheat sheets instead of long articles?

Because in the middle of a job you do not want 2,000 words, you want the number and the next step. The long-form detail lives on the calculator pages, where each figure is explained and sourced. The field guides boil that down to the one-page version you can hold in a muddy glove. If a guide leaves you wanting the full reasoning, every sheet points back to the calculator page that goes deeper.