Gardening 101

[Jennie@ifish]

Just thought I'd start a gardening tips section, here for fun.
Anyone have any neat tricks?
Ways to get rid of pests naturally?
Ways to grow things in small spaces?
In the shade?
Ways to get more sun?

I love gardening stuff, so let's spill the beans!

Here's mine:

Grow potatoes:

A friend of mine had a stack of old tires in his yard, so he took one, filled it with potatoes and dirt. As they grew, he'd add another tire and more dirt/straw mix.
At the end of summer, his "stack" was 5 or 6 tires high, and all he had to do to harvest them was to take the tires off, one by one. There was potatoes throughout the stack!
COOL!

Jen

[pearl]

Pearl's gardening tip

Get your wife involved with gardening. Mine loves to putter around the yard. It gives me time to go fishing, the yard looks great and the lawns always mowed when I get home

[Thumper]

Jack's gardening tip. If you don't have a wife, at least have three strong sons who are not very smart.

And never, ever pull up your dahlia bulbs in the fall. It is miserable back-breaking muddy work. If they ain't tough enough to weather out the winter, let 'em die. The boys can always plant more next year.

Finally, always use a maximum of chemicals and a minimum of actual work.

[Abalone]

Weeds:

This really works.

If you have just a few Dandelions or what ever in your lawn and you want to get rid of them without mixing herbicide pour boiling hot water on them. It will kill the weeds down to the root but won't harm the grass.

Whenever we boil some water for eggs or something I take the water out and dump it on the weeds in the lawn.

[Pete]

Horseradish will keep potato bugs off potato plants.

Plant potatoes you like from the grocery store instead of from a garden supply store. Set the potatoes out on the counter until they start to sprout eyes. Cut each potato so that each chunk has one eye. Let the chunks sit on the counter so the exposed surfaces harden for a day or two, then you can plant them.

Johnson Grass will over-run anything - dig it up and pull all the roots you can find before rototilling! (See last tip.)

Don't use ground cover, like straw, around tomatoes, as it provides a home for slugs.

Margoram and sage make great ground cover, but only in contained areas, as it will spread and it's thick roots will choke off almost anything. Use it as a decorative around the house, but not in the vegetable garden.

Plant a foot or two of lettuce and salad greens every two weeks to have fresh salads all summer.

Buy garlic and onions at the store.

If you have a compost heap by your garden, turn it regularly to prevent rats from nesting in it.

If you grow something well, grow extra so you can trade it with other gardeners for something they do well.

Plant things you enjoy.

Don't plant too much of anything.

For $5, I'll let you work in my garden for an hour.

:grin:

[Rocky]

Instead of killing your Dandelions have your kids, or your friends kids pick them (we pay a penny apiece), and make dandelion jelly....some of the best jelly I have ever had:

Dandelion Jelly

2 cups dandelion blossoms
1 qt. water
1 pkg. ( 1 3/4 oz.) powdered fruit pectin…… (I use low or no sugar pectin)
5 1/2 cups sugar………….. (for sugar I follow the recipes for grape jelly on the low sugar pectin)
2 tbsp. orange or lemon extract
4 to 6 drops green food coloring (optional)…….. makes a nice yellow color by its self
(make sure u don’t get any green in with the blossoms for they are bitter)
In a saucepan, bring dandelion blossoms and water to a
boil; boil for 4 minutes.

Strain through a damp jelly bag or cheesecloth,
reserving 3 cups liquid.

Discard the blossoms. In a large kettle, combine dandelion
liquid and pectin; stir well. Bring to a full rolling boil over
high heat, stirring constantly.(follow the grape jelly for the rest ) Remove from the
heat; add extract and food coloring if desired.

Skim off foam. Pour the hot liquid into hot sterilized
jars, leaving 1/4" head space. Adjust lids.
Process for 5 min.in a boiling water bath.

Yield: about 6 1/2 pints.

[OceanBlue]

Marigolds repel Mice. Plant marigolds around the foundation of your house and mice will find some other home much more appealing than yours. :grin:

[Jennie@ifish]

Marigolds also repel bugs! Did you know that?
I plant them all the way around my garden and it really helps keep the bugs and slugs down!
Jen

[yankemnbankem]

Yank ems tips:
When making a pond, after digging out the pond area, take and place several layers of old newspaper down first before your liner. This turns into lika a presto log and makes leaks harder to start and when you do get a leak it seals up the leak.!

Also, if thinking of putting in a water feature, if you have small children... add rocks to fill up the water feature, this way they wont drowned and as they get older you can take more rocks out.

Always plant in three's for a more natural looking appearance.

never plant larger growing plants in front of windows.
leave at least 1-2 ft open between your plants and your house.

Dont go to the nursery only in the spring when planting your yard.... go at different times for different colors and blooms and you will have color all year round.

If you have Rhodys or azaleas dead head them after they bloom (pinch off heads) and they will fill out more and sometimes bloom twice.

A bar of Ivory soap shaved up will sometimes keep the deer out of your garden.

design your grass so it doesnt have square corners so when you mow it will be easier. And if you have islands in your lawn, make them so that they are bigger than just around a tree, be able to plant a few other things with it...remember the threes or odd number plantings for more natural look.

And if you dont want kids clowning around in some areas... plant barberry.

1 more tip...... dont buy more land than you can take care of...... dont know why I know this.

[Snapset]

I start my own Habaneros and Romas for salsa, because they can be hard to find and too pricey if you do find them.It is almost too late for this year, but, not quite if you hurry:
Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants can be started in square 2" peat pots filled with potting soil. They do very well if you put the bricks of 8 pots in a cookie pan, plant the seeds just deep enough to not see them, and water by filling the cookie sheet with water, not pouring water from above. This keeps a reservoir of water that will keep the soil st a much more constant humidity. I like to start all my long season plants in early march, just in case we get an early warm spring.
If we have a late spring, and the tomatoes get tall and leggy, I plant them by laying them down in a trench with just the top 6" of the plant coming out of the ground. Then I cover the stem and roots. I think this makes for a larger root system and increases my yields. For early planting, when the nights are still cool, I sometimes use a wall-o-water, these work well, but a plastic gallon jug with the top and bottom removed works well also.

If the peppers start to get weakly looking, I put a few grains of epsom salt around the roots, for Potassium. This almost always perks them right up.

[happybrew]

If you have a problem with slugs, beer will kill them. Put out saucers of beer around around your plants. The slugs will be attracted to the beer, crawl in, and drown. It sounds far fetched, but it really works. I wouldn't waste a microbrew on them, though.

happybrew

[bucketmouth]

Yes, for the last 4 years I have kept the bugs away and used the marigold trick in and around my garden vegtables. Works wonders. Have had the best results ever since I started using them.

I like the boiling water trick for the weeds out in the front yard. I will try it very next time I have left over boiled water.

[Jennie@ifish]

I have some leftover boiled water, but it has turned cold.
Whatever should I do?


Jen

[Abalone]

Last night I had one Dandelion growing in my lawn.

10,000 square feet one dandelion aint bad, so I boiled a pot of water and it's gone along with the clover next to it.

So much easier then mixing weed killer.