Gardening can be as simple or as challenging as you want it to be. Whether you are a new gardener or have decades of experience, there is always something new to learn, or some new hint to try out. Why not try out one or two of the following great hints?
An easy way to transport tools to and from the garden is to use an old golf bag. Many golf bags have a stand built into them so it makes grabbing and organizing the tools a breeze. Use the pockets in the sides of the bag to store all kinds of assorted gardening tools, seeds, and gloves, or just use them to store a refreshing beverage.
Grow vegetables and fruits to drink. Often overlooked yet easy to grow are items that can be made into fantastic and nutritious drinks. These berries and fruit juices can be frozen or canned or made into wine and hard cider. A well made apple wine or blueberry wine can start at -12 a bottle, so this can also be a profit available with the garden.
Keep a garden journal and take photographs of your garden as it grows. It’s easy to start the season with high expectations for your gardening. But as the time wears on, it’s just as easy to lose steam. A journal and photos can help inspire and engage you along the way!
Protect your seedlings from frost with clay pots. Early spring is a perilous time for a new garden. You want to get your plants going as soon as possible to ensure plenty of grow time, but a single frost can wipe out your fragile seedlings. To protect your tiny plants from frost at night, simply place a small, upside down clay pot on each seedling. They will insulate from the cold and protect from the wind.
If space is an issue, try vertical gardening. Even with the limited space of condos and townhouses, many people have thriving gardens in the small area they have using vertical gardening. By using trellised gardens one can grow pole beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers in a small place during the summer, and in the fall a wide variety of greens can be grown in the same space.
To save money, consider making your own garden fertilizer. For instance, broken eggshells make a great fertilizer for small gardens, indoor plants and container plants. Mix the eggshells throughout the soil to get the best effect. Eggshells even have the added benefit that they aerate the garden soil as well.
To make a dull plant look greener, bury match heads near the plant’s base. The primary reason for a plant looking dull or faded is sulfur deficiency. Putting match heads in the soil around the plant will allow the soil to absorb the sulfur and feed it back to the plant.
Repel leaf-eating insects with chili pepper. If your plants’ foliage is being ravaged by hungry insects, add one tablespoon of red chili pepper or hot mustard to one quart of water in a spray bottle. Spray the foliage evenly, making sure to get the undersides of the leaves too. One taste of this spicy spray will send bugs on their way.
When gardening, don’t use any broad-spectrum pesticides. It’s true these pesticides kill the pests you don’t want, but they also lay waste to the advantageous insects that make those same pests a regular meal. Good bugs are often more sensitive to pesticides than their bad counterparts, so if the population of good bugs goes down, the pest problem can grow. You will need even more pesticides to deal with the problem, and it will never really go away.
There is so much that you can do in a garden, whether it is big or small. It truly is a wonderful hobby, and the possibilities are endless. Maybe some of the hints that you just read about are ideas that can get you even more enthusiastic about it!
