Favorite gardening tip

You all may have done this in the past, but I'm new, and I'd like to hear your favorite gardening tips.

Mine is cut-up nylons. When I get runs in hose, I cut them for garden ties. I just used some to tie up a tall dahlia. I love how they stretch, don't hurt the plant, and blend into the scenery!

I know I'll learn a lot from you all!

I've used them for this, also they make a pretty good strainer for compost water that you might want to put into a sprayer and use for folier feeding.

Let me see... I think my best gardening tip is always about watering -- to actually check the soil before watering, since it may look dry on top, but be cool & moist down by the roots.

Can I add another? I garden by this one: "There are few absolutes in gardening!"

Oooh, and DH's constant tip for me: "You don't have to do it all today." LOL

Ruby, I try to remember that last one too; but sometimes weeding, planting, trimming, gets like potato chips - just one more! My DH and DD drag me in at dark like I was eight years old!

hmmmm, gardening tips ... lemme think

Newspaper instead of landscape fabric.

Cheaper (as in free), better for the soil (decomposes into good stuff), better for the plants (won't choke 'em when the base gets bigger than the hole) and a lot easier to deal with when you change your mind about a bed or a plant didn't work out (just lay a 'patch' on the old hole and start a new one). Works just as well.

Obviously, you want to avoid color inks ...

I use old panty hose for ties, too, but I don't generate enough of 'em! I hardly ever wear them anymore. What do guys do for garden ties?
lol

Cheri'

MaryE: Thanks!!! I had just stopped using my worm tea in the sprayer for the leaves due to the particles clogging up the tip. Now I just have to go and find some hose in the back of my drawer!

Delisa

I'm with sundry with using newspaper instead of landscape fabric. Works a sight better and LOTS cheaper!

Then there's mulch, mulch, mulch and then mulch some more...

Best tips: Contact your local horse trainer, boarder, breeder - check your yellow pages. Ask them about coming and picking up manure. If you don't have a truck, bring a garbage paid and shovel. Take the stuff from the stalls as it is mixed with straw for bedding. If you think it's too "HOT", throw it in a pile in your yard and turn it once a week. You will achieve black gold and they usually give it away free for the taking.

Tip2 - Go to your local Starbucks or any coffee house - ask if you can have their coffee grounds and pick them up daily or several times a week. Your acid loving plants will thank you!

To tie up my tomatoes I cut strips of knitted fabric with my rotary cutter for quilting. I sew and have alot of fabric left over or use something I was going to throw away. The rotary cutter makes it real easy.

elsie - good idea. I cut up old t-shirts for headbands (when gardening) and to use as rags. I could cut some up for garden ties. cool!

My favorite gardening tip? DEADHEAD those perennials! Not too glamorous, but your plants will love you for it, and many will reward you by blooming again later in the year.

One of my favorite things is a gardeners (shall I say apron) I got it at ACE several years ago.It is a heavy duty mesh material, which I've had to patch at the bottom with duct tape, where my pruner-clippers and shears poked holes. I carry my labeling pens, pencil,and other markers, a few labels, tie string, an old knife, an old short screwdriver. Poke my gloves in with other things. I can't garden without it around my waist. Donna

Oh, a tip place! How neat!

Loved the idea of pantyhose but I had to look up what it meant, it's been so long since I have worn them. The tee shirt idea is great, and we have a lot of those! I macrame a bunch, and end up with short strands. If the cord is really soft and stretchy, I use that for ties.

I have tried so many methods for toting around tools I have given up and toss everything in a basket, but ot does get a bit heavy. I made a few vests with super big pockets and when I get to an area I am going to be in for a while, I put just what I need in my pockets. Never enough pockets!

We have lots of new members since eanders started this thread last year. Maybe we'll get some new and great tips!

My newest tip is use ALFALFA, whether tea or just dug in around the plants. See definitions in the Garden Terms. http://davesgarden.com/terms/search.php?search_text=Alfalfa

Hmmm, Darius, tell me about your results using it please!! :) Better than compost tea?

Gardening tip: Planting lots? Get your hubby a power drill for Christmas and then go buy yourself the hole digging attachment! I really love drilling into the prepared, ammended soil for those fast holes in large beds. You do it standing up and slightly bend over instead of on your knees for long periods. The only draw back is that if the attachment hits a hard spot and wants to stop turning- your wrist will get torqued, so you must have a firm grip on it and know that it could happen.


Susan McCoy

Susan if you do a Search on the forums, you will find several threads on using alfalfa tea and alfalfa meal with astonishing results posted by many folks here. Yes, I think it's better than compost tea, and I alternate with a tea made of fish emulsion.

I'm wondering if Messenger might become my second favorite, though.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/451274/
http://edenbio.com/hg/hgmain.html

ooooooooohhhhhh Messenger sounds wonderful!
Darius, thanks so much for posting that link! Still haven't searched alfalfa--going now :)

Susan

This message was edited Aug 24, 2004 11:24 AM

Okay Darius, I have been all over the forums seeking out the search results for alfalfa tea. (I even saw the TN round up- fun!) I've read lots about it and am certainly willing to try it. I see that there is no "exact science" for the recipie, but could you please post the method you use pretty please? Thanks!

Susan McCoy

Suisan, I can only get alfalfa pellets around here. I put about 2 cups in a 5 gallon bucket of water and let sit at least 8 hours… but usually overnight. Stir, and use to water plants. I have LOTS of plants in pots and I use it on all of them, plus some plants in the garden. I try to use it all up in a day or so because it begins to stink otherwise.

I use it about every 2-3 weeks early in the season and once or twice a week on my pitiful 3 brugs. On the alternate week or so, I mix up a mild fish emulsion solution (I tsp/gallon water) and water with that.

On new plants I acquired after I read the first threads on alfalfa, I dug some in the dirt nearer the top, staying away from the rootball.

Will try that Thanks! :)

Alfalfa is great stuff - and you can get it at your local feed mill cheaper than a nursery...

Isn't Rabbit poop just composted Alfalfa - I hear it is great stuff too and won't burn plants.

You are correct, Azalea. It's harder to find around here, though.

Darius-alfalfa pellets? Is that the same as guinea pig/rabbit food? I have been cleaning cages right into the compost pile, it would be great if I could use left over food too.

sylvi, yes I believe rabbit food is usually alfalfa pellets. Some have added molasses so read the label. (but I cannot see where the molasses in moderation would hurt anything)

Thanks for the tip on the Alfalfa tea...and as for "rabbit poop," maybe I'll have to follow the critters that raid my garden and "clean" up their poop piles. :-)

~julie~

Great thread! I followed all the links and now feel armed to do battle with the elements here.Thanks, eanders! Jen

Old (or really cheap) panty hose is terrific! We make an open tube, put chicken manure in it and then tie it around the tree trunk just above an orchid/hoya/epiphyte...they (the plants) grow like crazy...and it doesn't smell, just leaches the "tea" out every time it rains.

Also all the pickle/olive juice and tea leaves/coffee grounds go on the gardenias ...you can hear them sing with joy. I have found fewer mealies/scale/ants involved with this acid treatment.

Powdered Sevin around the trunks of citrus at the ground level kill the ants farming the pests as they go into their nests in the ground at night...kills the whole tribe including the queen.

A mango a day keeps the doctor away.

Aloha

Amend that yucky clay soil! Dad's angus herd helps with that also when you plant trees or shrubs bury a plastic water pipe at the roots, leaving it just above ground. When you need to water Cut the bottom from a 2 liter coke bottle and invert in the pipe and use it as a funnel. It goes directly to the roots and you have no runoff. I lost several until I started this.

Here's one I had forgotten about, until I cleaned out a patch of garden where I had planted a lot of Cordylines. Slugs love young Cordyline so: cut a ring from a pop or beer can, put it on the ground with the "trunck" of what you are planting coming up the middle. Slugs hate going over that rough edge so won't climb up and chew away....

Have used it with a lot of success!!!

For garden ties, I use the plastic grocery bags cut into strips. They last the whole season and then some and are thrown away in the fall. I seem to always have to many plastic bags and can cut 4 to 6 strips from each bag.

Here's a few that might be helpful to some newbies:

Prepare your garden bed first...get the best soil you can afford...it will make your plants happy and save money in the long run.

Buy the biggest plant you can afford and then make cuttings off of it/or divide it . Helps especially if it gets a bug or something at least then you have a back up plant to replace it.
Find out the delivery day at your local plant shop and go shopping for plants the day after...before they have a chance to over water, sunburn etc,,,

Don't just take plants people offer you... check and see if they have pests /diseases or are invasive before you bring them home..lol ( I never had a snail unitl I brought home free plants from a fellow gardeners yard. ;>)

Skip exercise class and rake your leaves or grass clippings for your compost pile....:)

Snails hate copper and I do stain glass, soooo.....I put the copper foiling around my deck pots. It looks decorative and nary a snail make it to the plant. You can buy it at any stain glass shop, real or online. Reasonable, a few dollars for many, many yards.

When we vacuum out the fish ponds I just drain the water into the garden. Boy, it shows! Those plants grow like crazy.

Save those heavy plastic bags that you get with compost, steer manure and peatmoss, cut them into long strips and use those to tie up heavy plants. Usually the outside of them is very colorful and they don't look that bad.

Buy paint and paint all the handles of your garden tools bright colors-so much harder to lose them in the grass!

Hint:
Instead of sprinkling your snail bait around the beds & then letting the water render it inactive, take a small plastic tub with a lid, like a butter tub, and cut "doorways around the sides at the bottom. Then pop off the lid, put in about a tablespoon of snail bait, pop on the lid & tuck it away into their favorite spots. Was every week that I would go around and dump/refill them, now its once a month. Amazing how far a container of snail bait will go now! And the last container I bought was also claiming to kill ants too. So now when the ants go in to clean up the snails & slugs, I get them too. What a bonus!

Wow- great tips.. keep em coming!

Painting handles- I have gone on plant resques and others have lost tools in the woods. Great tip.

Since I've never bought copper foiling, I'm unsure of what this looks like? Is it like tin foil only made of copper? And do I wrap it around the base or the top lip of the pot?

Snail bait hotel coming up!

Going to buy the alfalfa and fish emulsion today.

Susan McCoy

This message was edited Sep 2, 2004 1:17 PM

This message was edited Sep 2, 2004 1:22 PM

On the copper that Anne mentioned, it can be just plain old copper wire that you buy at the hardware store. The snails actually get burned because of a chemical reaction when their slime hits the copper. So just put it wherever you want on the pot, as long as the snails get to it before leaves.

oooooooohhhhhhhhh!
Wonderful... Like a "barbed wire" for snails..

Susan McCoy

Wonderful ideas!! The copper tape comes in rolls in different widths from 1/8" - 1/2"wide and it is adhesive on the back. It is usually about $10.00 a roll, but you get several 100 ft. Michaels & craft stores carry it too.