The Spectre of 2020

It’s imperative every year to not wait to the last minute to order your supplies, but, before we dive in too far, we would be remiss not to mention that this year is going to pose even bigger challenges for the entire horticulture industry. The pandemic that begun in 2020 continues to rage, and we are continuing to feel the effects of that. In our industry, no where is that more clear than the strain on supply chains. Production of product and raw materials has been seriously restricted and demand is HISTORICALLY SKY HIGH! We at Greenhouse Megastore have been busy doing absolutely everything we can to make sure we have the right products at the right time, but we definitely foresee shortages and long lead times for many items, even common and mundane supplies.

As such, we absolutely cannot implore you enough; if you want to ensure you have the supplies you need for the 2021 growing season, buy them now. Like, RIGHT NOW. We will continue to communicate this message through late winter, but it’s very likely by the time spring really hits, so too will the supply crunch. There’s nothing we’d hate more than to have growers hamstrung by product being unavailable. Please, consider this your warning. Ok, now for the fun stuff!

What Exactly are You Planning?

Before you’re able to jump in and start planning though, you need to determine what it is exactly that you are planning in the first place. Obviously if it’s your first garden there probably isn’t a whole lot to plan, but you would be wrong to think there is nothing to plan. For instance, in the middle of summer you’ll be sorry if you planted anything within about 3 or 4 feet of your zucchini plants, trust me!

If you’re a veteran, you might be considering things like a spring or fall garden using season extending techniques. Or, you might be trying to maximize production with succession plantings. Maybe you just want to put in a cobblestone path and some bed borders, or make sure your not planting in the same place every year. No matter what it is that you intend to do in the upcoming season, having it thought out and saved for reference is key to your success!

Our Favorite Garden Planning Tools

Pencil and Graph Paper

Really the tried and true method, and the one we’d most recommend if you’ve never put down a garden plan before, is just simple pencil and graph paper. It’s simple, portable, and very versatile. The squares can be scaled to whatever dimension you need, and it really gives you a great visual idea of what your final layout is going to look like.

One drawback of pencil and paper though is that, without adequate experience or reading (and adhering to) seed packet recommendations, you don’t have a great idea what the final size of any given plant is going to be. That makes it possible to space plants too close together when they are young so that they are crowded when they mature. As a rule, your garden should look pretty sparse when it’s young. Don’t worry, it’ll grow!

Spreadsheet

Another planning tool that I’ve used and like is a spreadsheet program, be it Excel or Google Sheets. These are nice because you can run formulas in the cells. For example, if you’re planting a succession planting and you plant beans on May 12th and they take 70 days to mature, then you can run a formula in another cell that displays what date to plant your bean follow-up crop. You can color code, run logic, and so much more. And, you can save these from year to year so you can compare and plan things such as crop rotation.

The drawback to spreadsheets is that they are not visual. It’s possible for you to make them visual, by using the cells in much the same way you might the squares on graph paper, but that’s a step to far for many people. Overall, I’d say spreadsheets are an advanced planning method, and maybe work best paired with something graphical that you can see and feel.

Mother Earth Planner

Our favorite garden planner isn’t free. It’s $40 for a year or $29 with a recurring yearly subscription. However, it’s affordable enough and the benefits it offers greatly outweigh that cost. The Mother Earth News Garden Planner (co-branded as a variety of other names as well) is an incredible tool for those gardeners wanting to have a better idea of how much space to allow, who want to plan succession crops, or are trying to remember what crops were planted where from year to year.

This isn’t an in-depth tutorial, but this Garden Planner makes it easy enough. You simply enter your garden size and start building any beds or hardscapes you might have. Then select plants from the toolbar and drop them in the bed. The Planner accounts for mature size and gives you helpful tips on when to sow, how long till harvest, and much more. If succession planting is your thing, you can even plan every single one of your turns in the garden and see how the garden changes throughout the growing season. You’ll easily be able to spot empty spots to fill, crowding, or double booked garden space.

If you save your plan and use the Planner again next year, then it will remember the locations of your plants and warn you that you planted the same crop in the same place. This planner even has stone path and greenhouse textures for you to apply and use, so your planning can be as complex or simple as you want.

Lastly, the Planner features a huge variety of plants to choose from. Every major vegetable crop, flower, and even fruit tree is available. Want to plan a windbreak with evergreen shrubs? Got it. Planning out a new orchard. Yup, got that too. You’ll find it fun and entertaining just to plan gardens that you’ll never plant, and it makes planning the one you will plant even more rewarding.

Also check out this article for more ideas, including some mobile apps. We’ve tried several on this list, but always come back to the Mother Earth Garden Planner. What planners do you use? Let us know what you use in the comments below!

January is our favorite month to begin thumbing through the catalogs and dreaming of exotic new fruits and vegetables to place in our plots, so to help all our growers (maybe) avoid a little bit of that madness, we’ve compiled some of our favorite seed catalogs to browse. We’ve personally used every one of the recommended catalogs with always excellent results.

Keep in mind that this list of recommendations heavily favors catalogs that specialize in heirloom, native, and rare seeds. At Greenhouse Megastore, we’re big believers in the need to shrink the food production and ornamental plant supply chain by supporting more small local growers, farmers, and producers. Heirloom and native plants are some of the best ways to help those growers. Heirloom varieties allow growers to save seed from year to year with varied levels of effort, and saving seeds allows growers to specifically breed plants with properties favorable to their specific location. Native varieties often require little or no maintenance once established. And rare seeds are, let’s be honest, just a whole lot of fun! Check out our seed catalog recommendations below and subscribe to them all now!

Baker Creek Seed Catalog

Baker Creek seeds is, hands down, my favorite place to get seeds. Just look at their mission statement and it’s not hard to see why:

At Baker Creek, our mission is to provide the seeds of a sustainable food supply for everyone and keep heirloom varieties alive for future generations.  We believe that farmers, gardeners and communities have the right to save their own seed, and in so doing preserve seed diversity and food security in an age of corporate agriculture and patented, hybridized or genetically modified seeds. All the seeds we sell can be saved, shared and traded, and we encourage people to save their own seed.

I mean there’s honestly not much more to add to it, as that lines up very closely to our mission here at Greenhouse Megastore. However, I will say a little more because Baker Creek’s seed selection is second to none! They have dozens and dozens of tomato varieties to choose from, so if you’ve ever wanted to try those Purple Cherokees or the “Thomas Jefferson” tomato, they’ve got you. They’ve got strange and exotic plants (looking at you Salsify) and almost every type of plant has several different varieties to try out, many specific to locations and climate. If you tried something last year that didn’t pan out because your garden was too hot, cold, wet, or dry, chances are Baker Creek has a variety that will work for you.

Additionally, they’re just a really amazing company doing great work in both their business model and the charity that it allows. It’s all of our duty to support small businesses that are making the world a little better, and Baker Creek is definitely one of those.

Seed Savers Exchange

Seed Saver’s isn’t a normal seed catalog. Their mission really is to preserve all of the diverse heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers so that we continue to have them for future generations. They’re sort of a clearing house seed exchange; they collect seed from grower’s around the country and world and send them on to other growers who might not otherwise have the chance to obtain some of the sometimes very rare seeds they maintain.

Seed Saver’s may have an even larger selection than Baker Creek, and certainly it’s even more diverse. Availability can sometimes be an issue, since the way they collect seed sort of depends on who is growing what from year-to-year, but for all the popular plant types they usually have several variety options. I often get my sweet potato slips from Seed Saver’s because they have a wide selection that includes a couple variety’s perfect for my location.

Seed Saver’s even works with growers to save and/or “resurrect” rare seed types that are in danger of extinction. Scattered throughout their catalog you’ll see several varieties they have had a hand in saving, which is just next level.

Park Seeds

Park is a bit of a big seed catalog, but it’s where I go if I can’t quite find what I want at Baker Creek or Seed Saver’s. Those two admittedly specialize in more obscure seed varieties, and sometimes we just want something proven and reliable. For those who might need to focus a little more on production, at least for a portion of their crop, they also have great selection of hybrids. Though you can’t save hybrid seeds with any reliability, they are bred to be consistent and resilient producers. This certainly helps the bottom line for those of us growing for a living, and helps preserve the pride of those of us who don’t.

Strictly Medicinal Seeds

The medicinal use of plants is nearly as old as humanity itself. In the days before modern medicine, plants were the medicine cabinet to which caregivers turned to cure everything from an upset stomach, to depression, to insomnia and more. Science is slowly beginning to catch up to this ancestral wisdom and identify certain compounds in a variety of plants that act beneficially, but we needn’t wait for research to specifically identify them to trust generation upon generation of primal wisdom. As such, I always make sure to plant at least 1-2 new medicinal plant varieties in my garden.

Strictly Medicinal was where I obtained my Greek Oregano, which is much, much more potent than common culinary oregano. I harvest my oregano a couple times per year, and much of it goes to a local natural healer who makes it into locally grown, organic oregano oil to put in a variety of tinctures (oregano oil is useful for a variety of ailments). I’ve also gotten Echinacea (Purple Coneflower), Valerian, Chamomile, Lemon Balm, and more, all with great success.

There are a number of ways to use these plants, from making tinctures and the aforementioned oils to using them for herbal tea. If you’ve never tried it or never thought about it before, try planting some herbal medicine this year. I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Burpee

Burpee seeds can often be got in any hardware or home improvement store, but their catalog is still great and has useful information in it that will help any grower sort out what and how to grow. They also have pelletized seed that’s useful for production growers out there who rely on seeders and other equipment to sow their seeds reliably. Burpee does have heirloom varieties, but overall they are a bit more production and ease-of-use focused so you’ll see a lot more hybrids and even GMO seeds.

Depending on your goals, this might not be a bad thing. These types of seeds can give your garden a solid, successful base to build on and branch out from. Nothing is more discouraging than planning and starting a big garden only to have everything die on you (a place I have been more than I like to admit). Since heirlooms can be a bit finnicky, hybrids are a great way to score solid victories, especially for beginners. Those victories can then be the foundation to build upon, branching out to more and more exotic varieties.

(Bonus) Johnny’s Seed Co.

Johnny’s is a bit of a competitor to Greenhouse Megastore, but even still, it’s a great catalog. Personally, I just love flipping through their tools selection and dreaming of getting something to make the garden work a little easier.

Their seed selection is also great, and has a great split between heirloom varieties and the hybrids that production growers need. However, during the huge growth of gardening interest during spring of 2020 Johnny’s actually stopped selling to non-commercial customers so they could be sure their commercial producers could continue to produce food for the supply chain. Spring of 2021 promises a similar volume of interest, so just keep that in mind as your ogling that $300 broad fork.

(Bonus) Stark Bros. Nursery

Stark Bros. is my favorite place to get fruit and nut trees, and their website is pretty great too! You can select your zone and then only be shown trees that are appropriate for your location. They also work with growers to preserve and save varieties of tree that are in danger of becoming extinct, and they breed their own varieties to be even better than the heirloom varieties we all know and love.

Trees are generally shipped “bare root” (which is exactly what it sounds like) and I’ve had 100% success rate in getting them into the ground alive (after that I’m not always as successful). They even have bushes like Elderberry and Hazelnuts (Filberts), exotic and rare stuff like Paw Paws (native to my location but I’ve never seen a wild one and only had the fruit once), and so much more. If permaculture or establishing a food forest or orchard is in your plans, I highly recommend taking a look at Stark Bros.

These are my favorite catalogs to dream about spring with, but they can’t be all! Let us know in the comments below or on any of our social channels what we missed!

Water is perhaps the most critical ingredient for life as we know it, and perhaps no where is that more apparent than in the garden. No matter where you live, there are bound to be times of year when nature doesn’t cooperate and you are forced to supplement the natural precipitation with some form of irrigation. Here in Illinois, we can get buckets of rain in just a few hours but then have it followed with desiccating heat and humidity that bakes the soil to concrete. On average, the natural moisture might be adequate. But life isn’t lived in averages, it’s lived day-by-day, hour-by-hour. During those long, hot, dry stretches your garden isn’t going to care it rained a week ago. It needs a drink today!

Q: Why is your kit more expensive than the one from another retailer?

A: Great question! The old adage “you get what you pay for” is highly applicable here. First off, our kit comes with an automatic timer and all the necessary parts and fittings for a simple install (additional fittings may be required depending on your installation). Second, and most importantly, our growers at Greenhouse Megastore field tested several iterations of this to guarantee that our kit is guaranteed to work for you. Several similar kits from other retailers available at price points less than ours contain parts and fittings that we are confident will not work for you out of the box without additional hassle on your part. Forget all that, and go with a proven solution!

Water is so important to your garden not only because it hydrates the plants. Water hydrates the soil, and the soil is where the real magic of your garden happens. Trillions of microscopic and macroscopic life forms engage in a delicate dance that breaks down organic matter and releases it’s nutrients to the soil where it becomes available for use by the plants you’ve placed there. Water creates the environment that makes life in the soil possible. When proper watering is one of gardening legend Joe Lamp’l’s 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever, you know it’s not just important, but absolutely critical.

Step Up from Hand Watering

The most common type of irrigation in the garden is going to be hand watering by garden hose. While this is a fine method if you have a small garden and your water source is close by, or you just need to supplement a little extra water, it fails to scale to a garden that’s any more than a few dozen square feet. It’s just simply too time consuming to stand in the hot sun and adequately water the varied plants in your landscape.

That’s where an irrigation system comes in to play. An irrigation system is a water delivery method that can be turned on to provide water to your garden and landscape without the requirement of your watchful eye. Many times, these systems are linked to controllers of different kinds that can automatically turn the water on and off during the day in such a way to provide the right amount of water for your plants. Some even link to the Internet and can be controlled with a mobile device, and even know when to delay watering when the weather changes.

Drip Irrigation in Your Garden

The irrigation method we’d most highly recommend in your garden is drip irrigation. Drip irrigation has been highly refined in drier parts of the world in order to take the fullest advantage of scarce water resources. Drip irrigation consists of special tubing that drips at a constant rate from special valves spaced along it called emitters. A drip irrigation system can be highly specific and specialized, but in the home garden a standard flow rate of .5 gallons per minute and a run time of about an hour a day will generally supply a garden with the water it needs to thrive (equivalent to about an inch of precipitation per week).

There are other types of irrigation systems available to you, but none of them maximize water usage like a drip system. Misting or spraying, for example, has an extraordinary amount of waste due to evaporation of water droplets exposed to the air and indiscriminate spray patterns. A drip irrigation system, especially one placed in-ground or under mulch, has virtually zero waste and uses very little water over the course of a season. Drip irrigation is both environmentally and economically friendly.

The Market Gardener’s Irrigation System

Our system was custom designed by the grower’s at Greenhouse Megastore using parts by Netafim, a world leader in agricultural drip irrigation. Though a wealth of knowledge exists on the topic of irrigation, we noticed there was a severe lack of pre-designed kits that worked, were easy to put together, and could scale up in the mid-to-large sized garden, truck garden, or market garden. So, we took it upon ourselves to scout the competition, test some configurations, and provide a solution that was economical, simple to install, and easy-to-use. We deployed this solution (in several iterations) in the gardens of some of our beloved gardeners at Greenhouse Megastore, heard their feedback, and feel positively certain our drip irrigation kit will help you take your garden from good to great.

What’s in our Drip Irrigation Kit?

Hose Adapter

The hose adapter is simply the piece that allows connection of your drip irrigation system to a garden hose or standard outdoor hose bib. That’s it. For some reason, hose threads are unique to hoses and hose bibs, but plumping pipe is made with standard 3/4 in. threads. These are not the same, and if you try to thread one on the other, you’ll end up stripping the threads and you’ll have a poor connection. This adapter screws on to a hose or hose bib and makes a water tight connection.

Our kit is designed for you to run a hose to your garden and attach it to your drip irrigation system directly using the hose adapter. There is some flexibility in how you ultimately choose to do this, one variation of which I will show later with the system I installed.

Filter

The filter included in our drip irrigation kit is just a simple, 120 micron mesh filter designed mostly to filter hard and/or well water. If your water isn’t filtered down to this point, particulates in the water can clog the emitters in your dripline, thus rendering your system less efficient or worse, cause it to fail completely.

Pressure Regulator

Without the proper line pressure in the system, the drip emitters won’t function properly. Or (as in my case with an early prototype) the lines might burst because the pressure is too high. Either way, we’ve sized the pressure regulator to perfectly that required of the system so the emitter’s work correctly and the integrity of the drip lines is maintained. The regulator that comes with the system is a 15psi regulator.

Poly Tube Adapter

This adapter simply threads into the pressure regulator and/or the hose adapter with standard 3/4 in. threads. The other side is a barb fitting that accomodates either 16mm or 3/4 in. poly tubing. Our kit comes with 16mm tubing, but you may consider upgrading if you have to run water line for a long distance before feeding drip lines to your garden, or, if you have a large number of drip lines to feed.

The barbed fitting allows you to just press (with not a small amount of force) the plastic tubing over the barb for a secure connection. You may consider some form of hose clamp at this connection to really insure it’s watertight.

Poly Tubing

The polyethylene tubing in the kit serves as what’s called a “trunk” line. Basically, it’s the feed line to your garden from the hose connection. This can either be a long or short distance depending on your garden setup. Our kit comes with 100 ft. of 16mm tubing so you should be able to supply water to your garden no matter where your outside faucet might be.

Keep in mind that poly tubing can be routed in any number of ways using additional fittings, such as 90deg elbows and T fittings (not all of which are included in the kit). For instance, mine runs from a faucet on the side of my house, underneath some landscaping and into the side of my garage. From there it runs across the rafters and out the opposite side of the garage where I installed the manifold. I even installed a second hose bib so I had a hose connection closer to the garden. I use elbows and Ts at several points, both to make a clean, aesthetically pleasing look, but also to keep the tubing out of the way so it’s not a tripping hazard and so it won’t get kinked. The tubing can even be shallowly buried for a semi-permanent install (but make sure to disconnect and drain all the lines when the freeze sets in for winter).

Drip Tape (Drip Tube, Drip Line)

Drip tape, or drip tubing, is where the magic happens. We’ve specially selected thinwall drip tape with integrated emitters for ease of installation. Simply measure out the length of a run and cut it with a razor or scissors and connect it to the trunk line. Once the system is turned on and pressurized, the emitters in the drip tape will drip at a constant rate of about a half gallon per hour. In most cases, running the system for about an hour per day will be enough to keep your garden well hydrated.

Twist Lock Fittings

Special fittings for the drip tape round out our kit. There are several available for this purpose, but we chose the Twist Lock variety. Even though they are marginally more expensive, they fasten more securely and can be installed quickly with no additional tools and so they are perfect for the garden setting. They work by simply sliding the drip tape onto the appropriate barb end and then screwing the collar down tightly to lock the tube in place and prevent leaks. Make sure these are tight! Else the drip tape might pop off under pressure (trust me, this CAN happen). The above pictured fitting transitions the 16mm poly tubing to the drip tape and includes an integrated shut off valve, handy when you want to shut down one line for maintenance or other reasons.

We also send a few couplers, in case you get a line burst or accidently punch a hole in a drip line.

The Twist Lock couplers awesome little fittings designed so that you don’t have to install a whole new run of drip tape when you inevitably get a failure in one of your lines. You simply cut out the failure point, and install the coupler. For me this had to be done several times when my lines burst due to installing the incorrect pressure regulator, but also because I accidently punctured one of the lines while I was hoeing weeds (keep your hoes sharp, folks). This sort of stuff WILL happen, and is why we ship a few of these couplers with our system.

Lastly, the kit includes Twist Lock drip tape ends. These are just Twist Lock fittings that act as a plug on the end of the drip lines and allow the system to maintain pressure. Without these, water would just flow out the ends of the drip lines, which would be both wasteful and pointless.

At first I tried to just tie a knot in the drip tape, then I tried kinking and duct tape. Suffice it to say, the only way to truly terminate a drip line is with a fitting specifically designed for that purpose. That’s where these ends come in. It’s simply a Twist Lock collar on one side and a plug. These ends are nice because they are designed so that you can place a stake through them and into your garden bed, thereby ensuring your drip line will stay in place through all the activity that goes on in your garden.

Check Out:

Ep. 112 – Efficient Watering in the Garden and Landscape and Why it Matters of the highly recommended podcast The Joe Gardener Show hosted by legendary gardener and TV personality Joe Lamp’l.

Bonus: Controller

Our kit does not come with a controller, but in almost all cases I’d recommend at least this very simple one. There are other, similar, ones that even connect to WiFi and can be controlled from anywhere in the world and are even intelligent and know when to skip a day of watering because it rained.

The pictured controller allows you to set a time interval down to every 6 hours for the controller to be open and the water flowing. You can also specify a run time for the water as well. For instance, if the goal is about an hour of watering per day, then you can set the controller to activate every 6 hours for 15 minutes. That’s 4x per day at 15 minutes and so is an hour of runtime. You can set it for every 12 hours or once per day too, so your options are very flexible.

Once the controller is installed and setup, you literally never have to worry about watering again (other than to make sure your lines aren’t busted and other regular maintenance). That’s the goal that Greenhouse Megastore set out with. To see if we could take the worry out of watering your garden. The best products are always those you never end up thinking about once you have them, and we know you’ll feel that way about this drip irrigation system! Let us know in the comments if you have any tips, tricks, or recommendations, and happy gardening.

Real World Install

Here you can clearly see the hose bib manifold I purchased separate from this kit (so I could have multiple connections at a single faucet). On the left, you can see the hose adapter threaded onto one faucet, with the Poly adapter threaded into it. I used white teflon plumbing tape on the threads and tightened it to ensure no leaks. Then I fitted white poly tubing onto the barbed end of the Poly tube adapter. I used dish soap to lubricate the barb end, and a hair dryer to soften the tubing. Then I pressed the tubing onto the barb end. This can take considerable force, so any method to make it easier is almost required. If you find something easier than what I did, let us know in the comments!

I ran my tubing from my house, through the garage, to the garden on the other side. I used these additional fittings to clean up those connections. This is mostly to avoid kinking the tubing, which will render your system useless and possibly break your tubing.

The poly tubing transitions to another Poly adapter, which threads into a 3/4 in. threaded coupling. This then threads to the mesh filter. Be sure to use white teflon tape on ALL threaded connections. Also make sure to check the directional flow arrow that is marked on the filter. You want the water moving in the direction of the arrow.

After the filter comes the pressure regulator. The one for our system can thread directly onto the filter. Again, use white teflon for the threaded connections and make sure the regulator is installed so that the water is moving in the direction of the flow arrow marked on the regulator body.

In our kit, a Poly adapter will thread directly into the regulator and an additional length of poly tubing will run to your garden. For my install, I chose to put a hose bib on the regulator so that I could install a timer at that location. In this way, I can set the timer and have it operate only for the garden. I still have water at the other faucet locations even if the irrigation system is off. (Note that the bottom of the controller is really just another hose bib connection.)

I also chose to install an additional hose bib on the side of the garage so that I could hand water the garden when necessary (and so my kids could play with the hose without dragging it across the driveway).

For each run of drip tape, you must install a T fitting in the poly tubing with a ~6 in. piece of poly tubing. To this, you must attach a Twist Lok shutoff valve. One end accommodates the poly tubing, and the other the thinwall drip tape. By sliding the drip tape over the barbed fitting and securely tightening the threaded collar, you ensure a tight, durable fit with no additional tools required. If you don’t securely tighten the Twist Lock fittings, the drip tape may “pop” off the fitting when the system is pressurized.

Other than that one “gotcha”, all in all it’s a great and easy system to install and use. Once this kit was installed and running, I immediately saw the plants and the soil respond. Scraping back the mulch revealed moist soil to an adequate depth, and a the deep green flush of healthy growth started in the growth zones of all my plants and moved it’s way inward, as the plants themselves popped new leaves faster than before. Now all I need to do is check the system regularly for proper function, and make sure I (try) to keep up in knocking back the weeds in the beds. So far, I’m thrilled with the results of this simple installation! Let us know what you think, how it went for you, and any improvement ideas you might have in the comments below!

As a kid, every time we had fresh fish for dinner, my mom would have me bury the unused fish head by her roses. She said it was good for them. I never questioned her, I just dug a hole and threw the fish head in. Her roses were always healthy and bloomed profusely so it obviously worked. Of course, what I didn’t know at the time is that the fish head was a natural fertilizer and nothing really “magic” was going on.

This got me to thinking of other gardening tips that have been passed down by a family member, a neighbor or just the local busybody. Many of the tips I have tried and continue to use, others I tried once and wasn’t impressed with the results, others just haven’t tried yet and then there are a few I’m just too afraid to! Feel free to try these tips from a gardener’s garden!

Gardener Tested and Approved

Aphid Control

After washing the dishes I will collect the soapy water and pour it out over the leaves of the effected plant (usually my roses). This seems to work well and I don’t have to do it more than once or twice a season.

Slug Control

I fill a pie tin with beer and place the tin so it is at soil level (so it may require a little bit of soil removal). I fill the pie tin with beer (cheap) at night (that way I don’t have to worry about children or pets getting into it) and by morning there is an abundance of drowned slugs. Just dump the beer and slugs and do it again as needed.

Preventing Cat Waste

To keep cats from using your flower beds as a litter box, toss citrus peels around the beds, they tend avoid the peels.

Rose Food

I will pour any leftover coffee (cooled) at the base of my roses. They bloom on a steady basis. I put the coffee grounds and filter either in my compost or add them to my worm bin.

Bird Prevention

I hang blank (or old) CD’s from trees and other structures around my vegetable garden, berry bushes and fruit trees. The discs’ reflections in the light discourage birds.

Treating Black Spots on Plants

I’ll mix a 1/2 cup of baking soda with 4 gallons of water and spray the plant.

1/10; Would Not Recommend

• Adding pennies to a bird bath to discourage algae growth. Simply didn’t work!
• Vinegar as a weed killer. Spraying weeds with white vinegar is supposed to kill them. Didn’t happen. I did read though, it works better on younger weeds. Haven’t tried that, probably won’t.

Untested, But Promising

• Adding crushed eggshells to the hole a tomato plant’s going in. This is supposed to help with blossom rot.
• Spraying plants affected with powdery mildew with 1 part milk to 9 parts water mixture.
• Adding mouthwash to the water you are placing fresh cut flowers in. It’s supposed to feed the flowers while in the water so the blooms last longer.
• Pouring boiling water over weeds. Keep in mind that the hot water could harm other plants nearby, so be wise where you pour it.

Hard Pass

• Making an Epsom salt spray and using it to kill weeds. It just seems it wouldn’t be good for the surrounding areas to have all that salt seeping into the soil.
• Pouring boiling hot water on a fire ant hill!

So use the advice/tips you are given with wisdom, if it makes sense then try it, but if it seems a bit off the wall, you might think again (or throw caution to the wind and try it anyway).

Who knows, it might not be so crazy after all? Let us know in the comments some off-the-wall things you’ve tried in your garden.