As the days get longer and the flowers come out, it's time to start thinking about the garden, as Suzanne Elvidge finds out.

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OK, I am a little obsessed. If anything stays still too long in my house it gets recycled or composted. This does make my cats a little edgy… But for a good garden you need a good compost. Read carefully – there will be a test at the end.

There are hundreds of websites on making compost (making compost got me 1.3 million hits on Google). The basic things you need are a space in the garden, a compost bin (make your own or use a plastic sack) and things to compost. For fast composting (with a bit of work), go for a hot heap, ready in about 12 weeks.

A cold heap is easier but can take one to two years to be ready. Worms make great compost (well, not the worms themselves, obviously…) and having a wormery can speed the process up.

You can compost bedding from vegetarian animals. Don’t compost soiled cat litter or dog faeces as it can attract rats and carry disease – however, you could dig a do it yourself cat and dog waste composter in a corner of the garden.

Certain Gardener’s Question Time panellists (and apparently certain MPs) recommend ‘recycled beer and cider’.

One of the biggest rules of composting is never to put cooked food in compost bins, because it attracts flies and vermin. However, this was until the arrival of Bokashi composting using Effective Micro-organisms.

This uses bacteria, fungi and yeasts to begin the composting process. I got my Bokashi bins from my council as part of a local scheme, but you can get them from a range of places, including EvenGreener or Recycle Works. You can use the liquid that collects in the bottom of the bucket for plant food and keeping your drains clear.

And now the test!

Planters

Plants not directly planted in the soil need pots, from tiny seeds to huge great trees. You can make biodegradable seed pots from newspaper (or try origami) the insides of toilet rolls. Yogurt tubs can be used as small pots, and plastic drinks bottles make little propagators.

There is a huge range of things you can reuse as planters – tyres, wellies, buckets, chimney pots, toilets and anything else that comes to mind!

Fertilisers

Composting and using Bokashi ‘juice’ recycles nutrients back into your garden. But if you need a bit extra feed and humus (not hummus) , there are a number of alternatives to chemical-based fertilisers:

• Green manures
• Well-rotted animal manures (poultry, sheep, cow or horse)
• Seaweed (or buy it ready made)
• Blood, fish & bone (or veggie alternatives)
• Make your own liquid feed

Watering

Watering the garden became a bit of an issue last summer, because of the water shortages. Insure yourself against any hosepipe bans by fitting a water butt to capture the spring rain. These can be space savers, water columns, underground, recycled or flat-pack. And try to save water too.

Planting for wildlife

If you want to attract birds and wildlife to your garden, include plants that will provide food, such as cotoneaster, teasels and holly.

Provide them with homes too – there are houses for hedgehogs (or just make sure there are piles of twigs and leaves), frogs (or make one from a pot), insects, including lacewings, ladybirds, mason bees and butterflies, and of course bird boxes.

Sitting in your garden

Now it’s blooming, it’s time to sit down on your recycled wooden bench at your recycled plastic table under your recycled umbrella.

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