Gardening is a satisfying experience. But mastering the art of gardening requires a lot of experience and knowledge. Whether you’re a professional gardener or a beginner doing it just for fun, we have some tips and tricks in store for you that’ll make you wish you’d have known them sooner. At the end of this guide, you’ll be armed with 6 gardening hacks that will make everything easier.
So no matter if you want to keep your plants safe from slugs and snails, or prepare your fertilizer, this article will guide you through some incredible hacks to add fun to your gardening experience.
1. Best Way To Keep Insects at Bay
If you’re tired of your plants constantly falling victim to the vicious attacks of snails and slugs, some household items can be of extreme help. Ground coffee, tea, and even beer are known to discourage snails and slugs, in eco-friendly ways, from damaging plants. Apart from these household goods, grapefruit skin if peeled and placed upside down around the plants deters the incoming leaf-eaters. And, if you place the above-mentioned things around the bottom of your precious plants, you’ll be able to keep snails away from them. These items will harm neither the insects nor the plants. It’s a truly humane way of preserving life.
2. You Can Control The Color Of Your Hydrangeas
No, it’s not alchemy, it’s basic science. Hydrangeas are magnificent and fascinating. The color of hydrangeas flowers depends on the pH level of the soil they’re planted in. If the soil is acidic, the color of the flowers will be blue. And if the pH of the soil is alkaline, the flowers will turn out to be pink. To make your soil more acidic, you can add pine needles or ground coffee. Or else, you can add mushroom compost to make it more alkaline. Go wild, color them up as you desire!
3. Using Eggshells For Calcium Boost
Even plants need calcium to carry out their processes and functions properly, and for healthy growth. Much like humans, plants can absorb calcium from eggs. You read that correctly. You need to grind eggshells into a powder and sprinkle it in your garden to boost the calcium in your plants. Your plants must get 100% premier worm castings, nature’s perfect plant food. Even milk is rich in calcium and can help boost the levels in plants. Although, mixing the powdered eggshells with compost before planting the seeds gives better results overall. Because of their sharp edges, crushed eggshells are extremely useful in fending off soft-skinned crawlers like snails and slugs.
4. Speed Up The Germination Process
To break seed dormancy, you must soak the seeds in warm water for at least 24 hours before sowing them. Soaking the seeds in water will speed up the germination process since all plants need to absorb water before germination happens. However, not all seeds need to be soaked. Large and hard seeds, when soaked, lose the hard outer coating, but small seeds don’t need soaking. That said, some seeds even require refrigeration to imitate cold weather and help the germination process take place.
5. How Do Cuttings Help New Plants Grow?
Some twigs, sprigs, and cuttings can effectively grow new plants. Basil, lavender, and ginger are some examples of plants that can grow if the cuttings are used as good quality compost. Different plants require different growing conditions. You need to be exact in how and when you cut plants if you want to grow healthy plants. This method may be a bonus if you’re looking for cost-effective ways of growing plants, but it is equally labor-extensive.
6. Make Your Fertilizer
Maybe one of the best tricks in this guide is making your plant feed or fertilizer. Making your plant food or fertilizer will help you provide an excellent source of nitrogen to your leafy plants. You can use rice and nettles to make your fertilizer. All you need to do is cut the nettles, put them in water, and leave them for a few days. You can use this water as a fertilizer for your plants. Similarly, you can keep the water used in cooking rice and use it to nourish your broccoli or kale plants.
Some other easy tricks include using vodka to inhibit the growth of bacteria, making your compost from organic waste, laying nappies in a flower-pot to keep the soil moist, and so on. Depending on the type of plants you grow, you can read gardening books to learn tricks relating to your requirements. The hacks listed in these guides are just a few out of the many hacks for gardening that can be carried out by any newbie gardener.