Garden

Gardening Hacks That Will Make Your Neighbors Jealous

kelleysdiy

DIY Seed Tape:

Image: Garden Betty

Would you like a quick and inexpensive way to make your own seed tape? Well, all you need is some flour, water, and toilet paper. Make a paste with the flour and water, 1prt flour, 3 prt water, and gently paint it onto the toilet paper. Then space out your seeds on the paste, and lay out the seedling tape in you garden beds!

Protect Your Fragile Plants From Frost

 

Brrr…cold and overnight frosts can kill your plants in the blink of an eye. To protect your young plants from the frost, place a milk jug, with bottom cut out, over your plants. The plastic will not only help regulate the temperature, but will keep your plants safe during the harshest of cold snaps. You can also use 2 liter Soda bottles

Heart and Star Veggies

Just in case you didn’t know, you can mold your veggies in different shapes? If you want heart shaped tomatoes or even star shaped ones

Image result for heart shaped kit for growing vegetables

Did you know you can mold your vegetables into different shapes? If you want heart-shaped tomatoes or even star-shaped ones, you can purchase kits that will grow your tomatoes and other fruits and veggies in neat shapes!

 Grow Your Basil in Water

What makes gardening easy? If you desire to grow your own herbs, there is no reason to buy them already potted. All you need to do is buy some fresh basil and soak the stems in water. You’ll begin to notice thin translucent roots begin to grow after a couple of weeks, which means they are safe to plant.  I have done this so many times. Love fresh veggies.

 

Roses and Potatoes?

If you want your own rose bushes, but can’t afford to buy one, all you need to do is buy a few individual roses and cut an inch off the stem. Next, dip the end in cinnamon and then place it inside a potato.  That right, a simple potato! Finally, you just need to plant the potatoes and in a few months you’ll have your own rose bush!

Slope Your Garden for Proper Drainage

There’s nothing that will kill a garden faster than over-watering. Thankfully, if you slope your flower beds and garden spaces, it will create a natural drainage system that allows extra water to flow away from the roots. This way, you avoid root rot and your garden stays water and healthy 24/7!

Say Goodbye to Weeds

We love our gardens, and weeds can become a real pain! Here is a simple solution, SALT! Chemical weed killers can not only kill the weeds, but sometimes your entire garden as well. By simply sprinkling salt on your weeds, will take them out quickly without running the risk of losing your prized potato plant!

Do You Want Sweeter Tomatoes?

Now if you’re tired of tasteless tomatoes that are overly acidic and lack the punch you crave, this hack will easily save the day. All you need to do is sprinkle baking soda over the tomato seeds when you plant them.  After they flourish and produce fruit, you’ll have the sweetest and juiciest tomatoes on the block.

TP Rolls Offer Biodegradable Planters 

I am always saving my TP rolls. Not only do I use them for crafts, but for gardening also. Using this neat trick is a great way to reuse your TP rolls and allows you to make small biodegradable planters for your seedlings. You can even plant the seedlings, in the planters, straight into your garden and they will break down over time.

Salt Deposit Removal

Salt deposits can be a real pain to remove from clay pots. Thankfully, there is a simple solution you can make from vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water. Mix it together in a spray bottle, then apply it to your pots and scrub. The salt deposits will easily wipe off and you can get to replanting in no time.

No More Dirty Fingernails

For some unknown reason, I love to feel fresh soil in fingers. Am I alone in this???Gardening can be a dirty job at times, and getting the dirt out from under your fingernails can be a real chore. I found this hack that will make you smile. Simply dig your nails into a bar of soap prior to gardening and wash your hands when you’re done. The soap will act as a barrier so the dirt won’t accumulate under the nails.

Stone Garden Markers

If your a new with gardening, then you may need markers to help you remember what’s growing where. Paint and letter some garden stones into beautiful markers like above.

Soak Those Seeds

seeds growing

I remember when my son was young, this was part of a class experiment. We wet and folded a paper towel, put the beans between the layers, then place in a baggy. This will help the seeds to take root and grow strong, we suggest soaking them in warm water for 24 hours. The water works as a catalyst for sprouting quickly; so when you plant the seeds, the roots take hold faster.

DIY  Sharpening/Cleaning Garden Tool Holder

Keeping your gardening tools in a pot of abrasive sand you’ll be sure that they’ll always be sharp as well as rust-free, thanks to the sand’s natural oils. Simple and effective, this little hack will keep your tools sharp at all times.

Keeping Pests Away

Used Coffee Grounds Sprinkled around your garden plants will help to prevent pests from taking over your garden. Do this and you will no longer have to

id you know you can use coffee grounds to prevent pests from taking over your garden? Simply sprinkle them on top of the soil and you’ll never have to worry about aphids destroying your tomato plants. The coffee also helps enrich the soil too, I sprinkle my used coffee grounds on my acid loving plants also, and grass.

TIP: Go to your local coffee place. Ask them for any used coffee bags. They will love to donate them to you, since they were throwing it out anyway. What I do with the leftovers is put in a 5 gal tub (like the ones at a home improvement store) and add about 4 cups of the coffee to it. I fill with water and let sit in the sun a few days. This makes a ‘tea’ to pour into my gardens.

Easy Herb Garden

Line the bottom and sides of a box with black landscape paper. Then pour in your moist soil and plant your herbs.

Diapers Meet Soil

Your potted plants will thank you for this one. If you want to maintain adequate moisture levels in your clay plots and not worry about root rot, simply place diapers, absorbent-side-up, at the bottom of the pots, before adding the soil. Your plants will stay hydrated and you’ll never have to worry about over-watering again. This is a wonderful idea especially for hanging planters!

DIY Birdbath

This is a seriously simple way to make a birth bath without any hassle. If you happen to have a tree stump in your yard, simply place a clay bowl or tray on top of it. Next, weigh it down with a heavy object, such as a rock, and fill it up with water. Done! That’s it. This bird bath will bring all the flock to your yard!

DIY Watering Can

This is a wonderful hack and an inexpensive way to reuse your milk jug. Poke some holes in the top of the lid, and fill with water. You will get a gentle flow of water.

Do you have any old rain boots? Here is an adorable idea. Just remember to poke small holes on the bottoms of the boots so the water will drain out!

Need a great way to keep your seed organized?

You could even file them according to season!

Egg Shells

STOP !Don’t throw away your egg shells if you have a garden! Wash them off and crush them up, and then sprinkle the shells around the roots of your plants. Not only will this keep pests at bay, but when the egg shells breakdown they will enrich the soil with calcium.

I bet you never thought of this next one:

Lemon Rind Seedlings

Such a cute idea to grow your herbs. The lemon rind actually enriches the soil as your seedling grow. Cut the lemon in half, scoop out the center, and fill with soil.

Tomato plants need to be tied to sticks when they start growing, in order to keep them straight; and what better way to make rope than by cutting up your old t-shirts? Simple and effective is the way we like our gardening.

Another hack I do in my kitchen is Ice Cube Herbs. Keeping herbs fresh for cooking has never been easier. All you need to do is harvest the herbs from your garden, dice them up, and place the herbs in ice cube trays. Next, fill the trays with water or olive oil, and freeze. It really is easy as that.

Beer Slug Killer

When it comes to gardening, slugs are the bane of every gardener’s existence. Why? They devour plants. Thankfully, there is an easy solution to destroying them–a dish of beer. Simply place the beer in your garden and the next morning you should find a bowl full of very dead (or very sedated) slugs.

Another trick I do is put a coffee filter on the bottom of your pots. This will help the soil from coming out of the hole and water from coming out too quickly!

Cinnamon powder on seedlings to prevent diseases.

Make a butterfly feeder and grow a beautiful butterfly garden or flower bed with this simple project! And the butterflies also serve as flower pollinators in your garden

DIY Butterfly Feeder is More than Just a Pretty Garden Addition

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Published by kelleysdiy

I love creating new ideas. And now that I am happily retired, I have lots more time to create them! Whether its crafts for decorating my home, or up cycling items I find at garage sales, thrift stores, and even on the curb, and turning them into something wonderful. The creative juices flowing in my head are almost always in overdrive....so many ideas! I love sharing my new ideas with all of you! So please follow me and let me know how I'm doing! I hope I can inspire you.....and if I do....send me a pic. I would love to see your creation.

60 thoughts on “Gardening Hacks That Will Make Your Neighbors Jealous”

    1. I had to remove a mesquite tree from my yard. I advertised free firewood on Craigs list. I had a guy come and remove the whole thing…roots and all. He makes furniture out of the wood. Amazing…didn’t cost a penny!

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  8. I can’t wait to get my hands in the dirt! It’s still a little early for planting here yet though we have started some indoors. I think we will try the beer for slugs this year. If it works well I may have to learn to brew beer. LOL!

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  14. Some fantastic ideas, a few I have tried and some new ones. Will be trying the basil as not had much luck with it in the ground, and the roses in a potato! I love having dirty hands, happy gardening x

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    1. Oh thank you so much Claire. There seems to be a lot of us who like to get our hands dirty in the soil. Basil is easy, so is mint. Parsley is another easy one. Happy Gardening Clair! Happy Easter to you as well! ☺️❤️️🐇🐣

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  15. Soaking seed is redundant, and likely to damage emerging roots. I mean, there is no advantage to soaking them in wet paper until they extend tender roots, and then move them to the garden in such a manner that their roots could be broken, and then let them resume the process . . . . when they could instead be sown directly into the garden and soak in damp soil there. They can extend their roots and continue to grow without any potentially dangerous interruption. \

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    1. I remember my sons in elementary school. Their teacher taught the children science, watching how a bean, wrapped in a damp paper towel, would grow.Each of the children did this. My boys loved watching the bean grow roots. They were impatient of course, but I thought the bean was an excellent medium. Grows fast!

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      2. We didn’t plant theirs either. I think the neatest science project when one was in kindergarten. We took a celery stalk, and put it in a glass of water, then added red food coloring. He was so surprised when the celery turned red. Gosh, I loved raising my boys…best of times!

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  16. Pingback: Gardening Hacks That Will Make Your Neighbors Jealous — kelleysdiy – HealthNuts.club

  18. Great hacks! I’ll have to try the basil-in-water technique because I’ve been having issues getting my basil to start from seed. And I’ve found serving beer to the slugs to be quite effective. To combat slugs, we also use copper tape around our raised beds and line the paths with pea gravel. Thanks for the great tips!

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