14 Simple Gardening Tips and Tricks (lawn, bugs, insect, vegetables)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1. To remove the salt deposits that form on clay pots, combine equal parts white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the pot and scrub with a plastic brush. Let the pot dry before you plant anything in it. 2. To prevent accumulating dirt under your fingernails while you work in the garden, draw your fingernails across a bar of soap and you'll effectively seal the undersides of your nails so dirt can't collect beneath them. Then, after you've finished in the garden, use a nailbrush to remove the soap and your nails will be sparkling clean.
3. To prevent the line on your string trimmer from jamming or breaking, treat with a spray vegetable oil before installing it in the trimmer.
4. Turn a long-handled tool into a measuring stick! Lay a long-handled garden tool on the ground, and next to it place a tape measure. Using a permanent marker, write inch and foot marks on the handle. When you need to space plants a certain distance apart (from just an inch to several feet) you'll already have a measuring device in your hand.
5. To have garden twine handy when you need it, just stick a ball of twine in a small clay pot, pull the end of the twine through the drainage hole, and set the pot upside down in the garden. Do that, and you'll never go looking for twine again. 6. Little clay pots make great cloches for protecting young plants from sudden, overnight frosts and freezes.
7. To turn a clay pot into a hose guide, just stab a roughly one-foot length of steel reinforcing bar into the ground at the corner of a bed and slip two clay pots over it: one facing down, the other facing up. The guides will prevent damage to your plants as you drag the hose along the bed.
8. To create perfectly natural markers, write the names of plants (using a permanent marker) on the flat faces of stones of various sizes and place them at or near the base of your plants.
9. Got aphids? You can control them with a strong blast of water from the hose or with insecticidal soap. But here's another suggestion, one that's a lot more fun; get some tape! Wrap a wide strip of tape around your hand, sticky side out, and pat the leaves of plants infested with aphids. Concentrate on the undersides of leaves, because that's where the little buggers like to hide.
10. The next time you boil or steam vegetables, don't pour the water down the drain, use it to water potted patio plants, and you'll be amazed at how the plants respond to the "vegetable soup."
11. Use leftover tea and coffee grounds to acidify the soil of acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, gardenias and even blueberries. A light sprinkling of about one-quarter of an inch applied once a month will keep the pH of the soil on the acidic side.
12. Use chamomile tea to control damping-off fungus, which often attacks young seedlings quite suddenly. Just add a spot of tea to the soil around the base of seedlings once a week or use it as a foliar spray.
13. If you need an instant table for tea service, look no farther than your collection of clay pots and saucers. Just flip a good-sized pot over, and top it off with a large saucer. And when you've had your share of tea, fill the saucer with water, and your "table" is now a birdbath.
14. The quickest way in the world to dry herbs: just lay a sheet of newspaper on the seat of your car, arrange the herbs in a single layer, then roll up the windows and close the doors. Your herbs will be quickly dried to perfection. What's more, your car will smell great.
Great tips, thanks! Especially #2. I found out when I had dirt under my fingernails, a strong squirt from the hose got rid of it, but you should have seen my reaction when all that water splashed back on me, soaking me to the skin.
I was going to do #9 for aphids once. Everyday I would go out and look at all the aphids on the roses and every day I would say tomorrow. After about a month of this I noticed I had a million lady bugs instead of aphids. I guess being lazy worked out OK that time.
This is something I did in my garden. Did I mention that I'm the laziest gardener ever? LOL I spent the first year pulling up weeds and said there's got to be something better and I found it. The next spring, I laid newspaper down on the garden and then threw more dirt on top of the newspaper to hold it in place. The rationale for this was the newspaper keeps the weeds from coming up, keeps the soil cool, and also disintegrates into mulch.
It was pretty good in keeping the weeds down (I still had to go out and pull a few), but I especially liked that I could cut back the watering a little. In my area when it got hot, I was looking at about 2 hours of watering daily, and since I didn't have a watering system, I had to do it by hand with the hose. To be honest though, that was one job I liked doing, plus I was able to personally check on my plants every day. And the humming birds would come drink out of the hose.
My friends who live in the same place decided to start a garden after I left. I asked them how it went and she said, "Well, we're not going to do another one. We spent too much time weeding." So I told them about the newspaper trick. Loooong silence. Then, "Why couldn't you have told us sooner? Do you know how many hours it takes to weed a large garden?" Why yes, yes I do.
Word of warning: do not water corn with a lawn sprinkler if you live in a dry area. It seems like a good idea, but when water is dropped on the corn from above, the ants will go up the stalks to get to it and never leave. Walking through stalks of corn with billions of ants on them is not fun. Better to keep the corn watered at the base.
Wonderful list of tips peachrose! #3 is a keeper as my line never seems to release evenly. #4 is one I have used for quite a few years. My bow rake, long handled shovel, and hoe are all marked accordingly.
Excellent tips! All tips are really useful for home gardener but not for the professionals.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.