Old Farmer’s Almanac readers are always happy to share time- and money-saving tricks for you to try out in your garden! For even more gardening tips and to discover the best days to start planting, check out our current edition.
Green Thumbs’ Tell-All Tales
For Quick Compost …
• Put fruit and vegetable peels into the blender, add water, and process. Spread around fruit trees, in pots, and around the herb garden.
When Starting Seeds, Use …
• Old ice cube trays, plastic trays from microwavable dinners, and empty plastic pudding cups.
• Peat pellets set in the plastic trays from cookie packages.
• Eggshell halves—once the seeds sprout, plant the whole thing.
• Grocery store containers for cooked whole chickens as mini-greenhouses.
• Old plastic venetian blind slats, cut to size with scissors, as seedling markers and plant identifiers.
To Eliminate or Deter …
• Blight on tomatoes: Sprinkle a little sulfur at the base of the plants.
• Whiteflies on tomatoes: Spray plants with a solution made from 1 cup of rubbing alcohol, 1 tablespoon of dish detergent, and 1 quart of water.
• Rabbits: Install a fence that is 4 feet high and bury it 6 inches deep. Bend the top foot of the fence away from the garden like a security fence, so that they can’t climb or jump over it.
It’s Wacky, but It Works …
• A friend filled a couple of old tires with dirt and mulch and planted several seed potatoes in each tire. When the potatoes started to grow over the top of the tires, he added another tire and more mulch. He kept doing this and ended up with several bushels of potatoes that were very easy to harvest. (Editor’s note: Line the tires with plastic if you are concerned about toxins possibly leaching into the soil.)
• Use panty hose to support melons growing on an arbor. The nylon stretches as the melons grow and keeps them off the ground.
For even more gardening tips and to discover the best days to start planting, check out our current edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
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