The website is currently undergoing a makeover. Although it is up and running, a few links are not yet functional.
What is the Garden Shop Calculator?
Bees (and other pollinating insects) are needed for many of our garden favourites to produce a good harvest, but the impact of insect pollination varies by crop (essential for apples, for example; beneficial for tomatoes; not doing much with lettuce). With the popularity of 'growing your own' on the rise, many people are thinking about how to make their gardens/allotments more wildlife friendly, and we want to show why that is so important.
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The Garden Shop Calculator is a simple spreadsheet which helps you get an idea of:
1) How much your harvest would have cost you to buy in a supermarket.
2)What proportion of that is directly a result of insect pollination.
e.g. how much your local insects 'earned' that year.
How do you use it?
Our Garden Shop Calculator is simple to use and free to download below. Click on the buttons below for instructions as to how to use the calculator and for the calculator spreadsheet itself.
How does this help our research?
The Garden Shop Calculator gives you a clearer picture of how much your garden wildlife helps out with your harvests; and your results gives us a better understanding of how much UK relies on insects. Being able to directly demonstrate how important insects are - on a personal level, for that grow-your-own goodness - helps us to have even bigger conversations about conservation and supporting these vital creatures.
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The warning message you might get
Please note: the spreadsheet may open in ‘protected view’ when you’ve downloaded it – this is because it has come from an internet location. This can cause validation errors with newer versions of Office (see the Microsoft Support Page on these errors). The file should be fine, although do give it a quick scan with your virus-checker if you’re uncertain!
Save it to your computer to get rid of the error.