tips and tricks

This is my first year gardening,. I read that sunflowers can be used as bean poles. What are your gardening tips no matter how unusual?

Some people say putting bananas in the hole before planting a rose is rather beneficial.
I wish I'd known before planting 45 roses this past winter-going-into-spring.

You need strong support for your pole beans, sunflowers stalks once harvested and dried make a great tripod. No reason you can't make a banana slurry for those roses, MistyPetals. And given them some coffee grounds as well. Earthworms love coffee grounds and they aerate the soil around your roses, plus worm casting are great fertilizer.
Use diluted epsom salt water on your tomatoes and pepper plants to make them set fruit faster (1 teaspoon to a quart of warm water). Maters and peppers love the extra magenesium in the epsom salts.
To draw off cuke and bean beetles, plant radishes outside your rows. Pull up all damaged and diseased radishes discard and plant some more. I also use radishes as row markers between my wide rows. Because they germinate so quickly it's real easy to see where I left off in the row.

I put a few earthworms into my large houseplant pots to help arriate (sp?) the soil. As long as I dont over -do it with the plant food they do just fine and are great little helpers! My plants seem so much happier with their friends too.
Actually, I cant take all the credit for this idea - My 2 year old put a worm in my houseplant last spring (dirt is dirt to him) and after thinking about it I realized he had a great idea!
Bre

In this case it's out of the "fingers" of babes LOL

lol. yup!

We have a worm bin in my laundry room. Just got this set up about a month ago, but my 4 year old grand daughter is fascinated. She got past the "oh, yucky worms" in a big hurry. She and her Granddad were in there playing with the worms. LOL kids! This is the man I had to "persuade" to do this, now I can't get close unless he's at work. I have to laugh, he says hi, pets the dogs and goes in to check on the worms. LOL Men! Whatca gonna do???

Thats too funny! Sounds like my husband ~
I cant wait to start a worm garden... prob late summer. Lol. you should see when it rains here - I have my 3 kids running around the walk & driveway "saving" the worms, getting them off the cement and putting them in a safe place in the yard. Im sure my neighbors think were nuts :)

WTG barhea7!! I got the directions to make the worm bin off the vermicomposting thread on this site. I think we spent maybe $11.00 total. And it was very simple to put together. Another DGer who raises worms sent me a pound to start with and we've laid down wet cardboard "worm traps" in the yard. My neighbors know we're nuts!! Now they're wondering what we're going to do next...........LOL it's good for em, they need somebody to talk about and I like being the center of attention. LOL Just wait, I have 500 gladiola bulbs to put in as soon as the weather breaks. We're going to try selling some things at the local farmer's market this year. And glads are one thing I never see there, so I'm hoping with those and some other flowers as well as my "naturally" grown veggies we can do well. :) Glad you have you little one's involved. They are our future gardeners :)

Thanks for the lead on the worm garden! Cant wait to check it out. ROFL, gotta love neighbors! Last fall I planted tons of Spring bulbs... apparently not many people know that you plant spring bulbs in the fall b/c they all kept asking me what I was doing planting bulbs that time of year...omg.. But I think I topped all of their lists when I was going at a nasty picker bush with scissors... I KNOW that was ODD but it was a spur of the moment thing and I couldnt find anything else at the house... hee, hee you shoulda saw the looks on their faces ~
Im sure we will be talked about when they see our beautiful gardens!!

The first time the neighbor ladies saw gladiolas in my veggie garden they about flipped, but I noticed a whole bunch of neighbors with flowers in their gardens the next year. LOL What a concept, hey??? My mother use to do it all the time and do show quality peonies. All the neighbor ladies were so jealous! My dad had access to composted horse poo and would "sneak" it in in the truck in the evening. I don't think they ever figured that out. LOL

Thanks doccat. I'm going to make a banana Slurpee for the roses.
And, do earthworms like decaf or reg? (LOL)

Another good thing to plant at the base of your roses is garlic, it repels greenfly, the roots take up the pungent oils and the greenfly dont eat the roses, but you dont smell it yourself. As for the Banana skins, just bury them under the soil so they rot down, the plants love this mulch. I'll try remember some others for a laugh. WeeNel.

All good stuff and you're roses will love it!!!