A few years ago, I started working on my dream garden. It’s been a good three years of making mistakes, learning, and enjoying our beautiful plants and delicious veggies. Now, we want to impart the knowledge to you so you too can create a beautiful and healthy garden.
Here are some tips and ideas we picked up along the way.
Improve Garden Soil with Eggs
No more throwing out eggshells! From now on, keep them in a pile and grind them in the blender. Keep the blender on until they become eggshell powder. Then, all you have to do is sprinkle the powder in the garden for an easy calcium boost! This works similarly to compost, but without the uncomfortable smell.
Create a No-Stick Shovel
We got this idea from a professional gardener. This is the best way to avoid wet snow or soil sticking to the shovel. All you have to do is spray the shovel with a silicone or Teflon lubricant. With one good coat, mucky soil just slips off of the shovel.
Use Fibreglass Flower Pots
Little known fact: pot materials influence the health of plants and flowers. For example, some materials are just not a good fit for particular weather patterns – some of our outside pots broke into pieces mid-winter! So we learned to get the right flower pots for our plants: fiberglass flower pots. They are low-weight, weatherproof, UV-resistant, stable, and very resilient. Plus, they are very sleek and add a look of luxury to the garden. They have become our go-to potting options. No more broken, water-soaking, or over-heating pots for us!
Use Plastic Forks to Keep Animals Away
Oh those pesky animals that nibble at the veggies and plants in the garden, or worse, use the area as their personal litter box. Well, the solution is quite simple. This was my little daughter’s brilliant but unintentional idea: she planted plastic forks in the garden for fun, but we soon realized that they kept all the animals out!
Improve Drainage with this Smart Idea
Fill the bottom of very large pots with foam peanuts and you get two smart benefits: better drainage and a much lighter pot. This should cut the weight in half but the pot still looks great, especially with flowers blooming on top. Foam peanuts are inexpensive so it’s a cheap DIY solution. Take a look at how to do it right here!
Restrict Aggressive Plants
Some plants have roots that can take over an entire section of the garden. At first, we had no idea that this could happen, but plants that were being regularly watered seemed to be slowly drying out. Turns out, one pesky plant had developed roots so extensive underground that it was stealing other plants’ water and nutrients! To ensure that plants like these don’t crowd the garden, plant them in a plastic container underground. The roots do need to grow out, so cut out the bottom of the plastic container so the roots can grow down.
Salt the Garden
Epsom salt can help create a beautiful and healthy garden. The salt is rich in sulfate and magnesium, which plants need. You can place the salt in potted plants by mixing a few tablespoons of salt into the water can once a month. For vegetable gardens, you can sprinkle it in the soil so seeds germinate better. Peppers and tomatoes grow much better with Epsom salt, as they lack magnesium.
