Gardening tips

Ornamental Veggies: Urban dwellers and other small space gardeners can make better use of their space by tucking veggies and edibles in amongst their bedding plants rather than separating them out into distinct gardens, or grow some in hanging baskets . There are lots of unusual edibles available with gorgeous flowers and foliage. Try 'Red Burgundy Okra', 'Bull's Blood' Beets, 'Mascara' lettuce, and 'Lipstick' strawberries, to name a few.

Hold Dirt in with Coffee Filters or old tea bags

You can use coffee filters and tea bags as an alternative to rocks or terracotta shards over holes in containers to keep the dirt from falling out.

You can collect Free coffee grounds at Starbucks or ask your local coffee shop to save you some.

Coffee grounds can provide a valuable source of nutrition for your garden.
Applying coffee grinds directly to your garden:

Coffee grounds can be applied directly as a top dressing to acid loving plants like blueberries, hydrangeas, and azaleas (acid loving plants thrive in areas where rainfall is common in the warm season).

Adding brown material such as leaves and dried grass to the mulch will help keep a balanced soil pH.

Mixing coffee grounds in your compost:
Coffee grounds act as a green material with a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1. Combined with browns such as leaves and straw, coffee grounds generate heat and will speed up the compost process. Don’t make your coffee grounds more than 25% of any one pile’s content.

Using coffee grounds in your worm bin:

Worms fed with coffee grounds and other vegetarian materials will flourish.

Lighten Your Containers and Save Soil: To decrease weight and for really good drainage, use foam peanuts or broken pieces of styrofoam in the bottom of your pots, then fill with soil. While no one should go out and buy the stuff, it tends to sneak up on you anyway -- at least this way it can be useful and reuseable.

Pepper Plant Spray: A great way to help along your pepper plant blossoms in setting fruit is to add a bit of espom salts to a spray bottle and spray it directly onto the leaves and buds as they are just developing. Epsom salts contain magnesium which pepper plants need to produce healthy peppers.

Magazine Subscription Cards Put to Good Use:

Instead of throwing out all those annoying subscription cards that fall out of every magazine, turn them into seed packets. Just fold them over and seal the edges with glue or tape. Make sure to note what is in each packet- unless you like surprises.

Weed Control in Vegetable Gardens: A great way to avoid weeds around vegetable crops such as tomatoes or squash is to plant low growing, quick harvest crops such as lettuce or radish around the base of the larger veggies. This will fill up the empty spaces until the late harvest plants have filled out more, providing less places for weeds to grow. It will also keep the soil around the plant shaded and moist which means less watering.

Natural Herbicides: If you have small areas or cracks and crevices that you need to weed try these natural herbicides. They won't damage the environment and are nontoxic to mammals and beneficial insects. Vinegar and salt is great for places where you won't be growing anything in the near future. Spray directly on plants. To remove young plants, pour boiling water directly on them. This is the simplest, yet safest herbicide there is. Just be careful to avoid plants that you don't want to damage.

Super-size Your Basil & other herbs .

Tired of waiting until midsummer to harvest basil & herbs fresh from your garden? While waiting for your seedlings to develop into plants, buy a basil or herb plant which you purchased at grocery section at your local store.
Just dived the plant into small bundels, place in to pot or straight into the garden & water well.

Herbs also grow & look great in a hanging basket

Growing Tomatoes in Containers: There are two types of tomatoes, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate ripen their fruit all at one time. Indeterminate have fruit production throughout the season. Determinant plants are better for container growing because they will stay compact (also the Husky variety, a dwarf indeterminant, is also great for containers). Indeterminant plants get huge and will need support.

Fast Rooting: When rooting cuttings in water, you can actually speed up the process by placing a piece of willow branch in the water along with the cutting. Willow contains natural auxins, a hormone that stimulates root growth and development. These chemicals are synthetically produced and used in powdered and gel rooting hormones.

Shredded Paper Mulch:

After using your paper shredder, store the paper until you have enough to use as a base layer of mulch with compost or manure spread over it to winterize your plants. Remember not to use glossy paper ads.

Super Sized Containers: Large pots can take a lot of soil to fill and they weigh a ton once they are full. It is unnecessary to completely fill a container with soil if you are planting shallow-rooted plants. Place some styrofoam chunks, styrofoam peanuts, old plastic pots or soda cans in the bottom of the container as filler. It will make the container lighter for easy moving, and save money too.

Save Money: Purchase perennials in mid /end summer.

Many garden centers will have sales at this time of year and by next summer they will be larger and in full bloom. Look at the reduced section even if the plant looks a bit on it's last legs ,floppy or dull these plants will go in the reduced sale section ,but with a bit of TLC they will look great next year .

Quick Space Fillers: Often when you start a new perennial garden it will take some time for the plants to grow and your garden may look a little bare. Plant fast growing annuals in the empty spaces until the perennials grow large enough to take over.

Save Your Flower Seeds: You can save money by harvesting seeds from your flowering plants for next year. Snip off seed heads when they are ripe and shake them into a brown paper bag. Make your own seed packets using paper envelopes. You can write the name of the corresponding plant onto the envelope or decorate them to give away to friends. Seeds should be stored in a cool, dark and dry place.

The Mint Pot: Don't let mint and other invasive herbs take over your garden.

Curb their wild tendencies by planting mint in a pot, then planting the pot into the soil.

Get Your Indoor Plants Out of the House:

Houseplants love a warm summer rain much more than cold tap water.