- Fruit Picker – Model 1 :
Take a 2 litre plastic bottle. Remove any labels or stickers on it.
Make markings at the base of the bottle. Mark a cross at the base to divide it into 4 equal flaps. Carefully cut it out with a saw blade or hot knife. You should get 4 equal flaps. Then make holes on each flap. Make holes near the bottle neck exactly in line with the bottom flap holes. This is important for equal opening of flaps for fruit picking.
Now take some nylon strings like these. Fix one end of the string to the flap hole by tying a knot and take out of the bottle mouth through this other hole. Do this for the remaining three flaps. Tie all four strings together. Check the movement of the flaps as you pull the string knot. Adjust accordingly if any issue.
Optionally you can paint and decorate the bottle as per your wish. Now take two pvc pipes. One is a 3/4th inch diameter pipe – the length depends on the height of the trees. Another pipe about 1 foot long and 1 inch diameter. The smaller diameter pipe must slide easily into the larger pipe. Now tie another large string to this junction and bring it out through both the pipes. Fix the pipe to the bottle opening with screws.
At the lower end of the pipe put a bottle cap with the string out through a hole in the cap. Tie a knot to prevent string slipping out.
Your fruit picker is ready to use. Just slide the bottom pipe outwards to open the flaps and pick fruits.
- Fruit Picker Model 2:
Take a 2 litre plastic bottle
Remove any labels or stickers on it.
Mark a circle with a diameter of about
3 to 5 inches depending on the fruit you wish to pick.
Mark a beak on the circle towards the bottom of the plastic bottle.
Cut this out carefully to create a hole of this shape.
Fix the bottle to a pole or a pvc pipe of your desired length. Your simple fruit picker model 1 is ready to pick fruits.
- Air Pruning Pot:
Air pruning means when root tips are exposed to air, the root tips are effectively “burned” off, causing the plant to constantly produce new and healthy branching roots. promoting more branching of roots. If roots are not exposed to air, they continue to grow around the container in a constricted pattern making them root bound. Hence air pruning promotes better growth of plant within a limited space.
To build an air pruning pot you need a larger plastic bottle like atleast a 5 litre can. Remove any labels or stickers. You also need a pvc pipe of about 1 inch diameter and 1 foot height. Mark a circle on the bottle cap and cut it out. This is to insert the pipe through it. Make multiple tiny holes on the pipe. Any number of holes, the more the better. Put a cap at the bottom of this pipe. Take another smaller plastic bottle. Mark and and cut out a funnel. Fix this funnel to the upper end of this pipe. Screw it tightly.
Now cut a small window of any shape on the bottle. Then make multiple holes to insert your cuttings over the bottle below the level of this open window. Insert the pipe into the bottle and cap it. Add potting mix into the container. Make sure it contains atleast 30 to 40 percent compost. Your air pruning pot is ready. Now you can insert some mint cuttings into these holes. You can water every alternate day through the top funnel. You should see nice and fast mint leaves growing in about 2 weeks using the principle of air pruning.
- Easy Plant Cloner:
You can root your cuttings faster using this simple plant Cloner. Take any plastic bottle. Remove any labels and stickers. Punch multiple holes around the bottle, large enough to insert cuttings easily. Take some of your plant cuttings. Make sure you make a cut at an angle of about 45 degrees for faster rooting. Insert the cuttings into the holes. You can tape the cuttings to hold in place or tie a string around the bottle to hold the cuttings. Pour water into the bottle. Add a little bit of rooting hormone powder if you have. You can also add about half a tablet of Aspirin 350 mg dispersible tablet to induce faster rooting. If you want to further accelerate the rooting process, place air stones into the water and connect to an aquarium pump. Switch it on for few minutes for atleast twice daily. This oxygenation helps promote rooting faster. We have made similar advanced Cloners earlier using the principles of hydroponics. You can check HERE.
Simplest method of slow drip irrigation is using one bottle per container. Just make a tiny hole into the cap. Full the bottle and insert into the pot for vacation watering of already 7 days. Make sure you make a small hole at the top of the inverted bottle for drip to flow through.
Another alternative is to use these little bottle attachments with a drip control knob to adjust the number of drops per minute. Just fix it to the bottle and insert it and adjust the drip knob.
- Easy Plant Watering Systems.
Model 1: this nozzle can is recommended for your expensive succulent plants for careful watering without wetting the leaves and thus avoid fungal rot. Take any plastic bottle. Make a hole in the cap and fix a pipe into this hole and glue it from the inner side.
Model 2: this is just a simple shower bottle. Make multiple tiny holes in the bottle cap. That’s it. This is especially useful to water your seeds and seedlings and avoid heavy pressure of your garden hose damaging the seeds or the little seedlings.
- Easy Spray Bottle:
Model 1: take any plastic bottle and fix this type of simple hand pressure trigger nozzles to spray pesticides or foliar feeds on your indoor or outdoor plants.
Model 2: you can also attach an adjustable pressure nozzle or pump type of nozzle easily available online at amazon.
- Ring Guard:
Cut out few rings like these from plastic bottles. Use these around seeds and seedlings to prevent Slugs and Snails crossing over and eating your little plants.
- Mini Greenhouse:
Cut the tops off the plastic bottles. Remove the caps and cover these over seeds. This creates a mini greenhouse effect with nice humidity to germinate seeds faster.
- Easy Funnel:
Cut the tops off the plastic bottles as done in the previous hack. This is an easy funnel to transfer either seeds into a container or potting mix or even watering, mixing pesticides and so on.
- Self-Watering Pot:
You need one large plastic bottle. Make the markings and cut it through. You get two pieces. The bottom one is the water reservoir and the upper part is the actual pot to grow plants or seeds. Optinally you can paint this for good looks. Now take a piece of cotton rope. Make two holes in the bottle cap and insert the cotton wick through it. The lower end of the wick should be placed in the water reservoir.
You have two cotton wicks now. Now fill with some potting mix to about half and bury one wick. Then add more potting mix and then bury the other wick. You can plant seeds or small plants into this. Whenever the soil gets dry it will suck the water through the string and keep the soil moist.
12. Plant Labels:
Just cut some strips off the plastic bottle and use them to label your seeds or plants.
- Seed Storage:
Plastic bottles are excellent for storing your left-over seeds. Just pour the seeds in a bottle and close the cap. Make sure you place a small sachet of a silicon desiccant for any moisture absorption to prevent fungus.
- Bird Water Feeder:
Take a plastic plate or a small tray. Fix the bottle cork to the center of this tray. Bolting this is a good idea to make it sturdy. Also try to prevent any leaks by sealing with glue. Make holes like this near the bottle mouth. Fill the bottle and cork the tray to the bottle and invert this set up. You can hang this simple DIY water feeder for birds in your garden using some strings and attract beautiful birds to your garden.
- Easy Planters:
Model 1: For growing Greens. Take a large bottle and cut out horizontally. You get a wider container for growing your greens. Fix a cap at the bottom with the help of some screws. Optionally Paint it or decorate it as per your wish. Make few drainage holes at the bottom. Fill it with potting mix and plant your seeds.
Model 2: Cut a bottle near its base like about 5 to 6 inches from the bottom. Optionally pain it or decorate it as per your wish. Make some drainage holes. Fill it with potting mix and grow seeds or some small plants.
In Today’s post, let us look into 15 household items and their miraculous uses for plants and garden.
15. Soap: Bar soap apart from cleaning purpose, there are some really powerful uses in gardening. You can scrape your nails into a bar soap before handling a potting mix and stuff like that. The dirt won’t enter your nail beds and this hack allows you to clean your hands easily after the job.
Liquid soap or even shampoo is used as a simple pesticide if you do not have any pesticide. Just add 10 to 20 drops or 1 or 2 teaspoons of liquid soap to 1 litre of water and spray on the affected plant. This will clear pests like mealybugs, whiteflies and aphids which are the most common pests in garden. Dish washing liquid soap is actually more potent than handwash liquid soap.
14. Chalk Sticks: Chalk is chemically Calcium Carbonate. You can take white chalk sticks and bury them into the soil while planting your veggies. That’s in initial stages. This really works wonders for plants like Tomatoes, Peppers, squashes, egg plants and almost any vegetable plant. You can bury two chalk sticks per container for these vegetable plants safely if you soil PH is around 6.0. For other plants to provide slow release calcium source, you can bury one chalk stick per container.
13. Turmeric: Turmeric powder has many effective uses in garden like: It repels ants when sprinkled around the plants. You can get rid of soil pests particularly fungal root rot and fungus gnats in the soil by mixing turmeric in soil. You can mix about 1 tablespoon per gallon of soil while making potting mix or 1 tablespoon of turmeric in 1 gallon of water or 1 teaspoon per liter of water and thoroughly water your affected plant with this solution. Its also helpful in healing tree wounds and in grafting as it prevents fungal rot. Another common use of turmeric is in rose die-back disease.
12. Vinegar: You can use vinegar to clean your rusty garden tools and pots. To make your soil more acidic for acid loving plants like hydrangeas, rose, hibiscus and so on and increase flowering in these plants. To do this, Mix one table spoon of white vinegar to one litre of water and water you acid loving plants with this solution once every 15 days to reduce the soil PH. Vinegar is also a strong pesticide. Its almost 100% effective in clearing powdery mildew fungus. To make this spray add One cup of White Vinegar to 1 litre of water and shake well and spray it on the affected leaves. It is also effective against white files and mealy bugs. It is also an animal repellent. Just soak some pieces of cloth and stuff them at entrances or behind pots to deter animals that can spoil your garden.
11. Baking Soda: Apart from cleaning your dirty garden tools and stuff with baking soda, you can also use it for other purpose like sprinkle to drive away Foul Smell from your Compost Pile or compost bin. To kill cabbage worms – Sprinkle Baking soda + flour like wheat flour in 1:1 ratio on the cabbage or broccoli leaves. The worms munch on this and die within 1 or 2 days. Baking soda also encourages flower blooming. Make a solution of 1 teaspoon baking soda in 1 litre of water and spray on your plants with flower buds or unopened flowers.
10. Asafoetida or Hing: The most effective use of asafetida is to treat leaf curl disease in plants. Add 5 gms of asafetida powder to one liter of sour butter milk. Mix well, leave for an hour, then sieve the solution and load your spray bottle. Spray over your affected plant. Repeat this every 3 days for 3 – 4 times. Leaf curl disease which is common in pepper and tomato plants will be completely cured by this treatment. Asafoetida can also be used to repel animals in your garden. Just hang some pieces of it in your garden entrances. Animals hate the pungent odor of asafetida. It also repels other insects and termites.
9. Charcoal: Hard wood charcoal has lots of amazing uses in garden like filling your pot bottom with charcoal pieces reduces pot weight. It can be used for mulching and garden décor. Mixing charcoal in soil can act as a good fungicide and prevent root rot, especially for expensive succulent plants. It also increases soil PH, when your soil is too acidic. It also works as a soil conditioner making the soil well draining. It also hold the fertilizers added for a longer duration and make them act like slow release fertilizers. Sprinkled charcoal powder helps deter many insects like the voracious beetles which can create havoc in your garden or on your crops.
8. Alum: Alum or Potash Alum can help to boost flowering. It makes the soil acidic for acid loving plants like hydrangeas, rose, hibiscus and so on. Just 5 gms alum powder per litre of water and water your plants once in a month. Alum is also a good pesticide in higher concentrations, like 100 grams per litre of water and spray on the plants to kill many pests including cabbage worms, cutworms, slugs and snails, etc. It is well known for mostquito control as a larvicide when sprinkled over the stagnant waters.
7. Banana Peels: Banana peel is one of the highest organic sources of potassium. It helps strengthen the plant and increases flowering and fruiting. You can make banana peel tea or banana peel fertilizer powder if you intend to store it. To make banana peel tea, soak pieces of banana peels in water for about 3 to 5 days. Use this banana tea in 1:5 dilution to water your plants once in a month. To make banana peel fertilizer powder, sun dry pieces of banana peels for 2 to 3 days till they are crispy enough to make a powder. Add one tablespoon of this powder once in a month and see the effect.
6. Aloevera: Aloevera has numerous benefits not only to the human body, but also to plants, like: It helps in faster rooting. Just insert a cutting into a piece of aloe vera and plant into soil. Rooting is faster and success rate is higher. Diluted aloe vera gel sprayed or watered to your seeds helps in faster and healthier germination. High levels of certain compounds found in aloe vera confer immunity or resistance against many plant diseases. Aloevera can also be used as a potent pesticide if mixed with other agents like neem oil, especially for pests resistant against certain pesticides.
5. Onions Peels: contain many useful substances like sulphur, quercetin, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, and so on. So, do not throw away the onion peels. The simplest use of these peels is to use them for mulching. If you have time you can make a fertilizer out of these onion peels. Just soak the peels in water for 1 to 2 days and water the solution to your plants once in a month to notice the benefits.
4. Tea and Coffee Waste: Do not throw this away. It can certainly boost flowering in your plants. It contains tannic acid which helps plants like Rose and hibiscus to increase flowering. You can wash the waste for any sugars and directly add to your plants or collect this and sun dry this powder and use it for your plants. You can also add this waste directly into your compost bin for making a rich compost.
3. Cinnamon: Cinnamon powder from your kitchen is well known for its wonderful uses in gardening. It can be used as a rooting agent to increase the chances for rooting cuttings. Just dip the cutting into cinnamon powder and plant it. It also deters ants when sprinkled around your plants. Its antifungal properties also fight fungal attacks to your seedlings. Just sprinkle fine cinnamon powder over your seedling and prevent dampening off.
2. Eggshells: Though eggshells are a great source of calcium, do not add crushed egg shells directly to your plants. It takes many years to decompose and release that calcium into the soil. You need to instantly release this calcium from eggshells by using Vinegar. Make eggshell powder first and then add a cup of vinegar to it. Stir it well and leave for an hour. The acetic acid breaks the eggshell compound and release free calcium into this solution. You can then dilute this solution to 1: 10 or 1:20 and then water your plants to treat or prevent acute calcium deficiency problems like tomato blossom end rot disease and other problems like bud or flower or fruit drop off and increase your flowering and fruiting. You can also add egg shells to compost bin for a calcium rich compost.
1. Aspirin: Aspirin is acetyl salicylic acid. Salicylic acid is a plant auxin and a rooting hormone which is proven to accelerate rooting and also it confers immunity against many plant diseases. You can use a dispersible 350 mg Aspirin tablet. Just a little of it will do the trick. A quarter or half a tablet is sufficient. You can read all detailed articles on these individual stuff by searching our website for that particular stuff.
Bonsai is an increasingly popular art of growing miniature live trees. Many people would love to own and grow a bonsai tree themselves. But You will need the right tools and right techniques to accomplish this. You will find that, most bonsai tools like scissors, shears, rakes, hooks, etc are quite expensive, may be because they are made in Japan or may be the demand and supply issues.
Let’s begin!
- Bonsai Rake Tool Hack: A stainless steel bonsai raking tool is an expensive tool. Simple free solution to this is to convert a stainless-steel dining fork to make a bonsai rake. Just insert the fork tines under a door or any sturdy slot and then gently bend it to your desired level to make a bonsai rake tool. Raking the top soil is a healthy gardening practice which has a lot of benefits.
- Wound Sealant Hack: Bonsai would sealant paste is very expensive. A simple alternative to this is to use universally available Fevicol paste. If you want to make it more effective, you can add some antifungal powder to Fevicol paste and apply to larger bonsai pruning wounds.
- Bonsai Turntable Hack: Bonsai Turntable is a very useful and a must have tool for anyone working with bonsais. If you do not have a professional bonsai turn-table, the cheapest alternative is a cake turntable which can efficiently work for smaller bonsais. Another hack to make a heavy-duty turntable for larger bonsais is to use the bottom steel base from an old or broken revolving office chair.
- Bonsai Wire Hack: if you do not have the professional bonsai wire to shape your bonsai branches, an easy alternative is to use thick gauge electric wires. You can use left-over pieces of old electric wire of different gauge, to wire and bend branches easily. But never use a GI wire like this one to wire bonsai, the obvious reasons are they are prone to rusting and difficulty in removing it when you want to, as they can adhere deeply into the stem or branch.
- Thick Woody Stem Bending Hack: It is next to impossible to bend a thick woody stem or a branch. You all know how important are bends or curves in bonsai tree designing. This bending technique is very important for making instant bonsais, especially from air layering technique which we shall discuss it later. If you have a thick branch or stem to bend, you can use a pruning saw or if the stem is not so thick, you can use a simple hack-saw blade to make multiple small wedge shaped cuts with a gap of about 1 inch between the cuts. You can vary the number of cuts or the distance between these cuts depending on how acute you want the bend. Make sure you don’t make too deep cuts, about 50% cut through the stem is fine. Then bend the stem or the branch to approximate or merge these cut wounds. To hold the bent stem in position, use a wire to support this stem or branch. Then wrap the wounds tightly with an aluminium foil first, to prevent moisture loss and promote proper healing of this wound, then wrap a grafting tape or a thin polythene sheet over this and then if you wish, put another layer of tape around it. Keep it undisturbed in partial shade. It should heal in about 4 to 6 weeks and your bonsai stem shape is done!
- Branch Splitter Hack: Bonsai Branch cutters or splitters are indeed expensive tools. In fact, almost all bonsai tools are expensive. You can make a bonsai branch splitter by grinding a cheap nail puller tool available at any hardware store. Carefully look at the image of the bonsai cutter blades and sharpen them in the same way. If you have good grinding skills, you can also make a parrot beak or bonsai concave cutter which is a very useful bonsai tool. Branch splitters are used to split thick branches, which helps to bend thick branches.
- Bonsai Scissor Hack: stainless steel bonsai shears and bonsai twig scissors are again expensive tools. A simple alternative is, to use surgical scissors with long blades as twig shears. These surgical scissors are very durable and do not rust so easily.
- Bonsai Root Rake Hook Tool Hack: Bonsai root hook is an indispensable tool needed while repotting bonsais. A simple way of making a bonsai root hook is to use large sized J hooks like these, which are cheap and easily available from a hardware store. You can sharpen the working point of this hook to your desired level. Now you need a handle to fix this hook. You can just use any wooden piece to make a handle, but the best solution to this is use a paint brush handle from an old paint brush. Just cut this part and make a hole into this handle and insert the hook and screw it tightly. You can then bend this hook to your desired level if needed. That’s it! Your bonsai root hook is ready to rake the roots.
- Thick Stem Hack: for faster development of a thick stem or trunk of any plant, you can place your pre-bonsai plant pot on a layer of gravel bed over the soil. The plant grows faster and thicker by sending out roots into the gravel bed through the drainage holes.
- Instant Bonsai Hack: As you all know making a true bonsai tree takes many many years if you are starting from a seed or a sapling. The quickest way of making and designing a thick bonsai tree is Air Layering technique which gives you an instant live bonsai tree to work on and save many years of work required to make a bonsai tree. You can check a detailed post and video on 5 different types of air Layering and some air layering tricks and hacks from HERE.
Happy Gardening and Happy Bonsai Making. Watch Full Bonsai Hacks Video below:
- Rooting Hack: For faster and guaranteed rooting of stem or branch cuttings, take a small piece of fresh aloe vera leaf and insert the cutting into it and then plant into the soil. Roots grow as early as 10 days depending on the plant you choose.
- Candle Hack: Seal the upper cut end of your plant stem or branch cutting using few drops of candle wax. This helps prevent moisture evaporation and result in faster rooting.
- No Browns for Composting? Use a paper shredder and use the shredded paper and card board to add into your compost bin for faster and smell free composting.
- Easy Tomato Stakes: Tomato plants require support to avoid awkward bends and also to get the best yield. String Support your Tomato plants using a small piece of GI metal wire. Make it into a U-shaped loop and insert it near the roots. Tie one end of a string to this and the other end to some support at the top.
- Banana Peel Fertilizer for Flowering: To make banana peel tea, soak pieces of banana peels in water for 2 to 3 days. Dilute this liquid with water in 1:5 ratio and water your plants to provide potassium to your plants which increases flowering in plants and also makes the flower size bigger.
- Anti-Gravity Plant Support: While growing climber veggies, do not take them to a height above 6 feet, but instead support in a slope like fashion, like take it to a height and then slope the growing ends downwards to assist in long-distance transport of water and nutrients for healthy growth. The arch like trellis is the ideal support fence for growing climber or creeper veggies.
- Hairs to Roots: Insert tomato seedlings as deep as possible to increase the density of roots formed from tiny hairy projections from tomato stems and this makes the plant stronger to produce the best yield.
- Big Leaves: To get large sized leaves in your money plant, use a moss stick or coir stick to anchor the aerial roots to it. Wet the moss stick whenever you water the money plant.
- Onion + Aloe Vera Rooting Agent: Making a paste using onion and aloe vera gel and dipping the cuttings into it for few minutes before planting in soil will help in faster and guaranteed rooting.
- Spoon Transplant: To transplant your seedlings, use a spoon, dig out as much soil with it including the roots of the plant and hold the leaves of the plant and not the STEM to pull out, because this can squeeze and damage the water and food conducting tubes – xylem and phloem and the little plant may die.
- Grow From Junk: Never throw away a pine apple crown, just remove the bottom leaves and keep the bottom inserted into a glass of water for a week and then transfer to a container. It will bear fruits within a year.
- Eggshell Water: One eggshell contains about 2gms of calcium. When you boil eggs, a small percentage of this calcium and phosphorous is released into the water. Do not throw away this water, but use it to water your plants that require a lot of calcium – like tomatoes and peppers as well as flowering plants.
- Cello Tape Pest Trap: Wrap the cello tape in reverse on your fingers and use the sticky part to touch on leaves infested with pests like aphids, whiteflies and mealybugs.
- Clay Soil Hack: Remove Clayey or sticky soil from roots using this simple Hack: When you bring your plant from a nursery and start repotting, most often you find they have stuffed the plant in a clay-rich sticky soil. You can remove this soil without damaging the roots by soaking the root ball in water for few minutes till this soil dissolves. Then you can repot this plant in a well-draining potting mix.
- Root Teasing: Always Loosen up or tease your roots before repotting into a new container.
- Toilet Paper Cloning Hack: Use Aloe vera and Toilet paper to produce roots faster during air layering your favourite plant.
- Aspirin Hack: During conventional air layering to produce faster and better roots, use one tablet of aspirin 350mg per litre of water and add this water you’re the potting mix and then wrap it around the injured stem for faster and dense root formation.
- Hydroponic Cloner: For faster rooting, make your own hydroponic plant cloner using a plastic bucket and an aquarium pump. Healthy Roots develop within 8 days.
- Free Calcium: Egg shells easily dissolve in vinegar and release free calcium to your plants. Make egg shell powder and the add about a cup of vinegar to a cup of egg shell powder and stir nicely and leave it for any hour. Then dilute this to 1:100 or more to water your plants and treat acute calcium deficiencies which can produce blossom end rot disease in your fruits and veggies.
- Simplest Plant Cloner: Use any container and place a couple of aquarium air stones to pump oxygen into the water. This helps in faster and guaranteed rooting of any plant cuttings in water.
- Wheel-Barrow: No Wheelbarrow to move garden stuff? Do not worry, the cheapest alternative is a large cloth or an old bed sheet. Just load on the heavy objects and drag it along.
- Aspirin for Rooting: When you propagate cuttings in water, do not forget to add a small piece of Aspirin tablet into it for faster and stronger root development.
- Seed Split Trick: Split the Cilatro or Corinader seeds before planting them the sand paper paper method and apply gentle scraping pressure to split the seeds and do not crush or damage them using a heavy objects like these. This helps to grow enormous cilantro harvest.
- Scrape and Sow: Use sand paper to scrape the hard seed cover of certain seeds like apple, chickoo and those with hard seed over for faster seed germination.
- Treat Leaf Curl Virus using Asafoetida: Take 500ml of sour butter milk. Add one teaspoon or about 5 gms of Asafoetida powder to it and mix well. Let it stay for 1 or 2 hours. Sieve this solution and Spray thoroughly over the affected plant including the underside of the leaves. Repeat this, every 3 days for 3 – 4 times to completely cure the leaf curl disease.
- Egg Shell Planter: You can use egg shells to sow seeds. To make drainage holes, scrape with a sand paper and use a thin drill bit to make a hole without breaking the shell.
- Egg Trays: Card board Egg trays can be used as seed germination trays. You can directly transplant the seedling along with the card board into the soil, as this is bio-degradable.
- Chalk Sticks: Chalk is chemically Calcium Carbonate. You can bury a chalk stick into the soil while planting your veggies. This really works wonders for plants like Tomatoes, Peppers, squashes, egg plants and almost any vegetable plant.
- Strong Roots: Strong Roots means a healthier plant with a better yield. In its early growth phase, adding a source of phosphorous like bone meal powder or organic rock phosphate powder will produce stronger roots and produce a better harvest.
- Seed Viability Check: An Easy method to check viability of your larger seeds is to pour them into a bowl of water. If the seeds are floating, this means they are dry and not viable. Discard them and use only those seeds that sink to the bottom.
- No Garden Gloves? Scrape your nails into a soap before working with your garden soil or potting mix. This helps in cleaning your hands easily later on and also the dirt won’t enter into your nail beds.
- Repel Animals: A simplest way to repel Some animals like cats, dogs and rabbits – is to soak a some pieces of cloth with vinegar and stuff them in some areas of your garden. These animals cannot withstand the smell of vinegar and may not return if you repeat this process for few days. Similarly using Asafoetida wrapped in a piece of cloth will deter these animals and certain insects.
- Magnifying Lens: Use a Magnifying Glass to closely examine and diagnose your plant pests and insects to identify them and follow the treatment accordingly.
- Tea Fertilizer: You can also use tea waste or coffee grounds on flowering plants as an organic fertilizer to boost blooms.
- Tea waste compost: Add used tea waste or coffee grounds into your compost bin for faster composting because earth worms digest them very fast.
- Seed Spacing: You can do perfect seeds spacing for Tiny seeds like spreading them apart in a row on toilet paper – for better visibility and even spacing and sowing. You can make a seed tapes either in a row or a square or round seed board specially for carrot seeds for even spacing and better growth and ease of harvesting.
- Over-Ripe: Garden vegetables and fruits that become over-ripe are an easy target for pests. Remove them as soon as possible to avoid pest growth.
- Faster Germination: A simple hack for faster germination and healthy seedlings is to soak seeds in Epsom salt solution for a couple of hours before planting – like half a teaspoon of Epsom salt in 100 ml of water. You can also spray Epsom salt solution on your seeds and seedlings for healthy outcome.
- Pick Small: You can Pick small seeds for sowing with a stick or tooth pick dipped in water.
- Acidify Soil: For Acid loving plants like Rose, Hibiscus or Hydrangeas, use 5gms of Alum powder in 1 litre of water once every 15 days and this will boost flowering.
- Soil PH Test Using Litmus Paper: Mix Water and Soil in 1:1 ratio. Dip the litmus paper and match the color with your color coding chart that came along with your litmus paper kit.
- A Rough Soil PH Test Method: Take a soil sample and pour some vinegar. If it fizzes and bubbles you have an alkaline soil. What if the soil is acidic? Add baking soda one or two teaspoons and mix it with soil. Then wet the soil baking soda mix with distilled water. If it fizzes and bubbles your soil is acidic, because the acidic content in soil reacts with a base or alkaline stuff like baking soda.
- Free Bio Seed Pots: Never throw away the toilet paper card board roll. But use it to make seedling cups which are bio degradable and can be directly planted into soil without disturbing roots.
- Paper pots: You can also make seed pots by rolling newspaper and even this is bio degradable and similarly you can directly transplant with the pot into the soil or into a larger container.
- Mosquito Repelling Plants: Growing plants like Lemon grass, Citronella, catnip, basil, marigolds, eucalyptus and many other plants helps deter mosquitoes.
- Turmeric Treatment: You can use turmeric powder from your kitchen treat and prevent rose-dieback disease after pruning your rose bush.
- Silica Gel Packets: Never throw away these tiny sachets, use them in your seed storage container as desiccants which increases your seed life and protects them from fungus.You can also use these to preserve and protect powdered gardening stuff like bone meal, fungicide powder, rooting hormone, etc. Just tape the sachet to the underside of the container lid and that’s it.
- DIY Watering Can: Take the base of a soda bottle and place it around one end of a pvc pipe. Heat it up with a lighter. It should shrink and clamp around the open edge. No glue needed. Use a pin and poke some holes in the bottle base. Next, cut the edge of the pipe at an angle using a saw blade. Next insert the pipe into the inlet and use some hot glue to hold it in place. Optionally, colour it to get that beautiful look.
- Mini Green House: Use plastic bins or containers as mini green houses or poly houses for faster seed germinations.
- Do Not Kill: Avoid spraying a pesticide on the flowers. This is to avoid any harm to beneficial Pollinator insects like butterflies and honey bees which are essential for pollination and fruit formation.
Sunlight, water, nutrients—these are the basic requirements for plants to thrive. But did you know that your garden soil has another crucial requirement that can determine whether your plants thrive or struggle to grow? It’s a soil property called pH, and an ideal range of soil PH is indispensable for proper nutrient absorption by the roots. Most plants need a PH between 6 to 6.5 for best growth, though some acid loving plants need a lower PH.
Now, Let me demonstrate 3 easy ways to test your soil PH at home.
The First Method is using Litmus Paper. This is simple school chemistry. Also this is not expensive. You can buy this simple litmus paper kit at any stationary store or even online. This is just litmus paper with color chart showing a PH value for each color that matches with your test result. PH of 7 is Neutral, PH below 7 is acidic and above 7 is alkaline. The most important thing is to use distilled water for all these tests you conduct, because the PH of distilled water is neutral.
So, How to Test Soil Using Litmus Paper Method
- Collect one tablespoon of soil from your garden either from container or from ground. You can take the soil from a little deeper like 2 inches below the soil.
- Add equal amount of distilled water – that’s 1:1 ratio. We are taking distilled water because it has neutral PH of 7. You can also take water from your water purifier, test it with litmus paper first. If it’s neutral, you can use it but only if distilled water is not available. Distilled water is easily available in big cans and also in medical stores in small 5 or 10 ml packs that are used for medicine reconstitution. So, for 1 table spoon of soil you would add 1 tablespoon of water.
- Now nicely mix this by Stirring for few seconds.
- Let it sit for 10 minutes.
- Start stirring the sample again and now dip the litmus paper to take your measurement. Wait for few minutes for color change and then match it with the color coding chart that came along with your litmus paper kit.
Pros of this method: It’s Easy to use and inexpensive
Cons of this method: It’s sometimes difficult to read or match colors, so, loss of precision.
The Second Method is a rough and easy DIY method you can try at home to know whether your soil is acidic or alkaline.
- Take a small amount of soil from your garden or container in a small glass.
- Now Pour some vinegar to this soil sample. If it fizzes and bubbles you have an alkaline soil because the alkaline content in soil reacts with acid like vinegar which is chemically acetic acid.
- Take another soil sample from your garden. Here for demonstration purpose, I know that this is an acidic soil. Now Add baking soda one or two teaspoons and mix it with soil.
- Then wet the soil baking soda mix with distilled water. If it fizzes and bubbles your soil is acidic, because the acidic content in soil reacts with a base or alkaline stuff like baking soda. That’s it!
The Third Method is using Soil PH Testers – Which one to Choose, these manual types or digital soil PH testers. These are easy to use portable gadgets with probes to insert into the soil. These give instant readings. But these manual type of probe testers are not so reliable but they are inexpensive and handy. The digital testers are more accurate but expensive.
This soil testing is fun and you can share this with your kids to teach them simple science or chemistry.
1. Mini Green House Method: A simple yet effective way of keeping your beloved plants hydrated and healthy. Water your plant as usual. Then all you need is some wooden stakes or aluminium pipes and a transparent or semi-transparent plastic bag. Insert the stakes around the plant leaving some space around it. Then place the bag over and around the plant. It is very important that the plastic cover is transparent or non-coloured to prevent the plant from dying due to heat absorption. This works on a simple concept of evaporation of water. When the temperature is high, the water starts to evaporate and it accumulates by condensing on the inner side of the plastic bag and then it returns back to the soil. This is best suited for medium to large plants and is proven to be effective for up to 1 week when placed in indirect sunlight, but may last lesser when placed in direct sun. And in fact not wise to keep in direct sunlight as it can burn your plant foliage due to excessive heat.
2. Wick Supply: Here is another easy fix for watering all your plants while you are away. Take some cotton rope and soak it in water. Place one end of the rope in an elevated water source and the other end around the plant or bury it on the top soil. The tiny fibres in the cotton rope serve as capillaries and siphon water to the plants by capillary suction. This is helpful to supply water to your plants for a longer duration when you are on a vacation. Whenever the soil dries, it sucks up the required water by capillary action. In this method, the duration of the supply can be controlled by choosing an appropriate size of the water source.
3. Wick Planter: Try this easy DIY wick planter method for small plants and succulents. All you need is an empty soda or water bottle and a small piece of cotton rope to act as a wick. Cut the bottle along the half-length, flip the top part upside down. Cut the rope to the length of the planter and insert it through the top. Pour some potting mix in the top and fill the bottom part with water. Ensure the wick is fully covered in water. There you go, you have your self-watering wick planter ready. This is best suited for small desk and indoor plants and with this method, you plants only need to be watered once every 2 weeks.
4. Water Bath Method: A one-step arrangement to make sure your plants do not feel the heat. Place some water in a wide dish and place the pot in the water bath. Make sure that your pot has lot of drainage holes at the bottom. As water is required by the plant, the tiny air spaces in the soil act as capillaries and transport water upwards to the root system. This is a very frugal arrangement so best suited for plants that do not need much water and the duration of watering in this method, can be varied with the size of the water bath. It is important to note that the water level should not be more than 2 inches from the bottom of the pot and there are sufficient drainage holes at the bottom of the pot.
5. Siphon Method: This is a super easy way of watering your plants. All you need is a small pipe, a stone/small rock as dead weight and a water source – like this air stone used as bubblers in aquariums. Place the water source at an elevated spot. Dip the pipe completely in the water source till it’s filled with water. Without removing the pipe from the water, close one end of the pipe with your finger and move it to the pot. The water will start siphoning from the source to the plant. You can adjust the speed of siphon by varying the height of the open end of the pipe. This is best suited for plants that need a lot of watering and the duration of watering in this methods can easily be varied by choosing the size of the water source.
6. The bottle flip Method: This is a most simple yet very effective way of watering your plants.
All you need an empty plastic bottle. Use a push pin to make some tiny holes in the cap and then place the bottle inverted with the cap side into the soil about 1-2 inches deep. Make sure to place it away from the root system to prevent damage to the roots. This way is most effective for small to medium plants and lasts for up to a week depending on the size of the bottle and size of the holes. This method is Best suited for pots kept in indirect sunlight.
7. A Bonus Build: This can be a great fun activity for your kids and encourage them to take interest in gardening this vacation. This is built using some waste recycled plastic materials. All you need is
– a cleaned up plastic can (make sure to remove traces of whatever was in it),
– a small piece of PVC pipe and
– an old soda bottle.
Take a base of the soda bottle and place it around one end of the pipe. Heat it up with a lighter. It should shrink and clamp around the open edge. No glue needed. use a pin and poke some holes in the bottle base. This will be our spout. Next, cut the edge of the pipe at an angle using a saw blade. Place the inclined cut at the base of our can and mark the outline. Make sure to make a snug cut on the marking. Next insert the pipe into the inlet and use some hot glue to hold it in place. Optionally, color it to get that beautiful look. You are done with your DIY watering recycling your old plastic waste.
Onion skin and peels are usually thrown into the bin. But starting today and after watching this episode till the end, you will never throw them again!
Onion skin and peels have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties and contain many useful substances like sulphur, quercetin, Potassium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, iodine, vitamins, pectins, saponins, flavonoids and so on.
Have you even wondered why tears start flowing out of your eyes as soon as we start chopping onions? This is Onion-Chemistry. Before we start with the 5 uses of onions in gardening, let’s quickly know the scientific reason behind this interesting scene:
While chopping onions, cells inside the onion are broken down and the gas that comes out forms sulfenic acid. This acid gets mixed with enzymes and forms a gas called propanethiol S-oxide. When this gas reaches our eyes, it gets mixed with our tears and forms sulphuric acid which causes irritation of the tear glands and that’s it.
Well, Now let’s list out the benefits of onions for plants and gardening:
5. COMPOSTING: If you are not using earthworms for making your compost, You can drop onion skins and peels a little deeper into the compost bin and get a nutrient-rich compost in the final result. But You should avoid adding them in your worm composting bin, this is because earthworms hate onions and similar odorous substances.
4. MULCHING: For Beginners, A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of soil for benefits like preserving soil moisture, reducing weed growth and so on. You can use onion skins for mulching and the dry onion peels will decompose soon and enrich your soil with potassium and calcium, which is so good for your plant growth.
3. ONION PESTICIDE RECIPE: If you do organic vegetable gardening without using any chemical pesticides and fertilizer, you will certainly realise the importance of these organic recipes, especially if you do not have the universal organic pesticide like the great neem oil. Do not worry!, you can make a potent organic pesticide using onion and other stuff.
– Take a Large Onion and drop it into a kitchen blender
– Add 4 fresh cloves of garlic into this.
– Add 2 teaspoons of Red Chilli Powder.
– Add 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon Powder.
– Blend this into a fine paste by adding some water.
– Now Add about 2 Cups of Water to this and mix well and allow it to steep
overnight.
– Then in the morning, strain out the liquid using a nylon cloth or a fine
sieve to get your pesticide concentrate. You can store this concentrate in
refrigerator.
– To Apply as pesticide, Use it in 1:5
dilution in water. That is to one cup of this pesticide add 5 cups of water and
most importantly do not forget to add some 10 drops of liquid detergent soap
for the surfactant effect and to coat the leaves and retain the pesticide
effect for longer time. Use this twice weekly until all pests are eradicated. This
will successfully kill common pests like aphids, mealybugs, whiteflies and many
others.
2. ONION
PEEL FERTILZIER: There are two
methods to make onion peel fertilizer, one is to boil the onion peels for few
hours in water and the other method is to soak the onion peels in water for 24
hours. Some do not recommend boiling.
So, take 2 to 3 handfuls of onion peels
and drop in 1 litre of water and allow it to soak for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, strain out the liquid and use it as a liquid fertilizer. You
can use it without dilution or with further dilution of 1:1 in water if you
regularly fertilize your plants. Use it once in 15 days to see the effect in
about 3 months.
1. ROOTING HORMONE RECIPE: Not really a rooting hormone, but you can call it a rooting agent. Onion due to its antimicrobial properties and when mixed along with other stuff will certainly improve the results of rooting your plant cuttings. To prepare this:
– Take ¼ Onion
– Add ½ a Cup of Fresh Aloe vera Juice extracted from a leaf.
– Add some cinnamon or willow bark into this – Its better to have it Presoaked in a cup of water for 24 hours.
– Now Add this cup to the blender and make a paste or solution. Then Strain out this liquid to use as as rooting agent. Just dip the cuttings into this solution or apply this with your finger and plant the cuttings. You can watch a detailed post on the 10 natural rooting agents you can use to add into this recipe or experiment this recipe with more stuff.
- Use a Magnifying Glass to closely examine and diagnose your plant pests and insects to identify them and follow the treatment accordingly.
- Create a no-stick shovel or any garden tool. Spray paint your garden shovel or any gardening tool to protect it from rust and keep it clean.
- Lighten the weight of your Pot: Use pieces of packaging foam or even thermocol pieces at the bottom layer of the container and mix lot of cocopeat or peat moss + perlite.
- Protect Plants During Transport from a Nursery – using a your home aluminium Ladder like Batla and place your pots tightly in the ladder compartments.
- If you detect Iron deficiency in your plant called iron chlorosis and if you see pale colored leaves instead of dark green you can burry some iron nails or iron pieces around the plant.
- Help Your root bound plants by root pruning or repotting them in larger pots.
- You can use candy sticks or even larger pebbles or even broken pot pieces as markers for your plants and seedlings.
- Erase Permanent marker markings using rubbing alcohol and reuse the same markers.
- You can make your own Plastic bottle slow water feeding. Easiest one is make small holes in the cork and invert the bottom and insert in soil.
- You can roughly Know the PH of your soil using baking soda and vinegar. Take two soil samples from different areas of your garden. Add vinegar to one sample and stir, if it bubbles – then its alkaline soil. Now to the other sample, add baking soda and water and stir – if it bubbles then the soil is acidic.
- Do not throw away egg shells – crumple or powder them and sprinkle around your plants to provide them a source of calcium. Also repels certain insects like slugs and snails.
- Grow sweeter tomatoes using baking soda: Sprinkle baking soda around your plant soil which counteracts the acidity and yields sweeter tomatoes.
- You can plants seeds and get seedlings in an egg shell or even citrus rind or similar stuff or shells. You can also used paper coffee cups. You can plant the whole eggshell-seedling complex into the soil.
- Best use of Tissue paper card board roll to make seedling cups which are bio degradable and can be directly planted into soil without disturbing roots.
- You can build a garden trellis using pvc pipes or even wooden sticks or bamboo sticks.
- If you have water shortage, collect rain water for your plants. For this you can either collect rain water flowing out from your teres into drain pipes or you can install or build a dedicated rain water collecting system.
- Use plastic bins or containers as mini green houses or poly houses for faster seed germinations.
- Sprinkle Epsom salt or baking soda directly on slugs and snails to kill them. Rearing chicken which love to feed on these insects is another good idea if you are interested.
- In winter to protect from frost cover the plants at night with an empty pot or even a polythene shopping bag.
- Do not throw away pencil shaving from your kids – use them for Mulching which also prevents weed growth and repels insects.
- Garden vegetables that become over-ripe are an easy target for some pests. Remove them as soon as possible to avoid detection.
- Insects can’t stand plants such as garlic, onions, chives and chrysanthemums. Grow these plants around the garden to help repel insects.
- Add used tea waste or coffee grounds into your compost bin for faster composting because earth worms digest them very fast.
- You can also use tea waste or coffee grounds on flowering plants as an organic fertilizer to boost blooms.
- Healthy soil means healthy plants that are better able to resist pests and disease, reducing the need for harmful pesticides. Use neem cake bio mix in soil to get rid of many plant diseases and also nourish your plants.
- Seal the Injured end of your plant stem or the top end of you plant cutting during the process of cloning by pouring one or two drops of wax from a burning candle. This will prevent moisture evaporation and result in better results and also helps as a sealant for microbes and fungus.
- Watering seeds and seedlings carefully is very important, and watering with the regular garden can can displace the seeds and damage the seedlings resulting in bad outcome. Best way to water them is using a tray under the pot. Whenever there is water requirement, it uptakes it through the drainage holes.
- To transplant your seedlings use a spoon, dig out as much soil with it including the roots of the plant and hold the leaves of the plant and not the STEM to pull out, because this can squeeze and damage the water and food conducting tubes – xylem and phloem and plant may die.
- Use sand paper to scrape the hard seed cover of certain seeds like apple, chickoo and those with hard seed over for faster seed germination.
- There are a few bottle recycling hacks coming up in random here. You can use your plastic bottles to make simple plantars for sowing seeds or planting small plants. Its upto you if you want decorate it or spray paint it.
- Now will make a Simple self watering pot or automatic watering system using a cotton wick and cutting the bottles as shown here. The lower end of the wick should be placed in the water reservoir – thats the lower portion of the plastic bottle. Make a hole in the bottle cap and insert the cotton wick through it. And the upper portion of the bottle can be inverted with potting mix and plant in it. Whenever the soil gets dry it will suck the water through the string.
- Make your own Seedling watering can, Using a bottle, you can make this in two ways, first by popping out a nozzle by heating the cap. This really works great to water your succulents, because spilling water directly on succulents like haworthias can be dangerous to the plants. Another way is to make a simple bottle shower by making multiple tiny holes in the cap and offer shower effect to your small plants.
- Mark your garden gloves with inches or centimeters to evenly plant your seeds or seedlings and similarly if your garden is big, you can use a long stick and mark the measurements for the same purpose like if you are planting in a raised bed garden or large space gardening.
- How to know if my seeds are healthy or unhealthy – first thing you should before purchase is the packaging date and the best before date. Then pour your seeds in your hand and closely examine them and the first look itself will tell you which seeds are healthy looking and which need to be discarded.
- You can Test your seeds or even start some seedlings using the Toilet paper method. Just sprinkle the seeds on one layer of toilet paper and put another layer on top of this and make it moist by spraying water. Place this either in a zip lock bag or any container and keep in a warm place and check after 24 to 48 hours for sprouts.
- Just cut out a plastic bottle and use it as a seedling or small plant protector against any wind blowing away the plant or from animals and birds. Place this as shown here to protect your seedling.
- The same can be used as a funnel to transfer your seeds or potting mix into bags or containers.
- You can also use old forks from your kitchen and bury them around seedlings to protect them from animals.
- It’s a good habit to always label your plants and sown seeds. It can really create confusion if you do not label them.
- You can make your own labels with pop sticks / candy sticks, plastic bottle strips, larger pebbles, windows blinds curtain strips, etc.
- You can Pick small seeds for sowing with a stick or tooth pick dipped in water.
- You can do perfect seeds spacing for Tiny seeds like spreading them apart in a row on toilet paper – for better visibility and even spacing and sowing. You can make a seed tapes either in a row or a square or round seed board specially for carrot seeds for even spacing and better growth and ease of harvesting.
- Before sowing seeds, soak them in luke warm water for 24 hours specially for certain seeds like beans, peas, okra and others.
- Another Hack for seed soaking is using Epsom salt solution for soaking like 1 teaspoon in 100 ml of water. This results in faster germination and healthy seedlings. You can also spray on Epsom salt solution on your seeds and seedlings for healthy outcome.
- Make your own trowel with a bottle by cutting a used plastic bottle like am showing you here. Try to take a harder bottle for making this. You can use the same as a funnel to transfer your potting mix, seeds and things like that.
- Egg trays can be used as seed germination trays. Either the card board ones or if you are using plastic egg storage container, you need to make few drainage holes.
- You can also use egg shells to sow seeds and directly transplant into soil.
- Similarly you can make your own biodegradable seeds starting cups using used tissue paper roll card board. THese can be directly transferred into the soil along with the seedling.
- You can also make seed pots by rolling newspaper and even this is bio degradable and similarly you can directly transplant with the pot into the soil or into a larger container.
- You can use small containers like these from your kitchen and make Mini Green houses and place your seeds inside them for faster germination.
- Tit bits or tic tac or any small containers like this can be used to store your left over seeds.
- If you want to professionally start vegetable gardening, You can use a Garden planner software at growveg.com or any other similar software.
- Once baby seedlings come out of the seeds, Gradually introduce your them to sunlight, once the leaves have come out. Like 1 hour a day for 3 days, 2 hours for next few days and then gradually to full sunlight. This process is called Hardening Off.
- Using a Seedling heat mat or a heat source from a high watt bulb will also help you create a spring like atmosphere for your seeds to germinate faster.
- Scrape your nails into a soap before working with your garden soil or potting mix, if you do not want to use gloves. This helps in cleaning your hands easily later on and also the dirt wont enter into your nail beds.
- Make a Cello Tape Trap. Wrap the cello tape in reverse on your fingers and use the sticky part to touch on leafs infested with pests like aphids and whiteflies.
- Use Dirty aquarium water to fertilize you plants. When you are performing a periodic clean-up, do not throw away the water and the filter waste, just pour small amounts of it to your plants. It contains helpful bacteria and trace nutrients that can help your plants.
- Similarly Use Cooking Water to Fertilize your garden. When you boil or steam some vegetables, do not pour the water in the drain, instead once the water has cooled, water your plants with it. Its contains many essesntial nutrients for your plants.
- Mix some mineral oil mixed with a pail of sand and insert your garden tools after use to keep them sharp and rust free.
- Sprinkle fine Cinnamon powder on your seeds and seedlings to protect seeds and seedling from rot.
- For Acid loving plants like Azaleas and Roses, use Alum 5gm in 500 ml of water once every 10 days and this will boost the growth and flowering.
- Remove Clay Rich Soil using this simple Hack: When you bring your plant from a nursery and start repotting, most often you find they have stuffed the plant in a clay-rich sticky soil. You can remove this soil without damaging the roots by soaking the root ball in water for few minutes till this soil dissolves. Then you can repot this plant in a well-draining potting mix.
- Do not forget to water this newly repotting plant with Epsom salt – about 1 teaspoon in 1 liter of water to counter this Transplant shock.
- Loosen up your roots: When you remove the root ball for repotting, loosen up or free up some roots at the bottom and sides.
- Use a Table cloth or any large bedsheet to drag heavy weight like your potting soil bags, and any large heavy garden items.
- Use this Universal Organic Formula To Deter Most Rodents and Animals from your Garden and even pests: If you have already experienced rodent and animal attacks on your garden, you will definitely realize the importance of this tip. Add 1½ teaspoons of chili powder to 1 liter of water + Add 3-4 drops of liquid dish soap to help the spray adhere to surfaces. To make it more potent add 1 or 2 pieces of crushed garlic or even paste + few some crushed chopped onions pieces. Mix it well and leave it for 24 hours. Do a patch test on a leaf and check the leaf for wilting if any so that you can dilute this accordingly and use it on your plants safely.
- Another simplest way to repel Some animals like cats, dogs and rabbits – is to soak a some pieces of cloth with vinegar and stuff them in some areas of your garden. These animals cannot withstand the smell of vinegar and may not return if you repeat this process for few days.
- To Promote more blooms and growth of your flowering plants, do not hesitate to perform these three tasks: a. Pinching (that is cutting the growing tips of stems and branches to promote more branching), b. Deadheading: that’s is removing the dried or drying flowers along with the twig from your plant. C. Pruning the plant promotes more growth and makes the plant bushy.
- If you do not have the chemical rooting powder – that’s indole butyric acid, You can Dip your cuttings in Honey, Cinnamon Powder, Fresh Aloe vera gel and even your Saliva or Spit!
- Discover a Free Seed Germination station: That is the Top of your Refrigerator. You can place your Seed trays on top of a refrigerator to get the heat and produce faster germination of your seeds.
- Picture-Perfect Seed Storage: Organize unplanted or left over seeds in the sleeves of an old photo album.
- Easy method to check Viability of your seeds: Pour the seeds in a bowl of water and If the seeds are floating, this means they are dry and not viable. Discard them and use only those seeds that sink to the bottom.
- Another method to check viability is using a wet toilet paper method which I have already shown in part 2 edition of Gardening Hacks.
- You can use Silica Gel packets which I am sure most of us have seen. Instead of throwing away these tiny sachets, use them for in your seed storage container as dessicants which can increased your seed life and protect them from fungus.
- Similarly Silica gel packets can be used to preserve powdered gardening stuff like bone meal, fungicide powder, rooting hormone, etc Just tape the sachet to the underside of the container lid and that’s it.
- Use 3% hydrogen peroxide solution (5 ml in 1 liter of water and spray on the seeds once every 2 – 3 days to get faster germination and healhthier seedlings. You can also use a mixture of 1 part hydrogen peroxide to 32 parts water to improve your plants root system by watering with this solution weekly once.
- You can make a Humidity Tray by using Small pebbles installed in a large tray surrounding the plant and pour some water in the tray. This really helps to maintain humidity levels and help your plants grow.
- If you do not have perlite or vermiculite, you can also use red brick powder. This helps to make a well draining soil.
- Do not throw away Kitchen left overs: Grow plants from left over veggies and fruits like onions, pineapples and so on.
- Now About the Universal Organic Pesticide – In 1 litre of Water, Mix 1 tsp chilly powder, 2 -3 pieces of crushed garlic + some onion chops + some aloe vera gel + 5 drops of liquid dish wash soap as a surfactant and spray weekly twice on affected plants to kill aphids, mealy bugs, white flies and other pests. This also keeps away some animals and rodents.
- Use liquid dish wash soap in any pesticide you make, to act as surfactant and coating on the plant leaves and branches. You can also use any handwash liquid soap or any soap solution.
- Use unwanted or old plastic forks or plastic spoons to label plants with a marker if you do not have professional markers.
- Use some herbs like Citronella, catnip, basil, marigolds, eucalyptus and many other plants to deter mosquitoes. You can watch my video on a big list of mosquito repelling plants from link in the description and also here at top right corner of this video. But first lets complete this video.
- Take any straight stick and mark with inches or centimeters to evenly plant your seeds or plants specially useful if you are planting in a raised bed garden or if you do large space gardening.
- Do not throw away banana peels, Bury them around flowering plants into the soil to provide potassium content to the plants and improve flowering and overall plant health. You can also make a banana peel liquid fertilizer using these peels.
- Do not throw away your Broken umbrellas, you can make a garden trellis with the umbrella frame to support your plants.
- Tobacco is an age-old natural organic pesticide for Aphids, Whiteflies, Spider mites, Leaf miners and many other worms like slugs and caterpillars. If tobacco or tobacco leaves are not available your can use this hack. If you are a smoker, or anyone in your family or friends, You can make a Cheapest Tobacco Pesticide Spray for your plants from Left over Cigarette Butts. To prepare this Nicotine Pesticide Spray, take half a cup of used cigarette butts and add to one litre of water. Mix well and and crush if necessary and leave this for one hour. Then strain out and discard the solid stuff. Take the liquid portion and optionally add few drops of some dish wash liquid soap and also 1 teaspoon of garlic paste into this to make it more potent. Then load into your spray bottle and use it on the affected plants. Repeat after a week if necessary or use in conjunction with neem oil spray alternately if you wish. One point to note is: Tobacco spray is natural but still dangerous to beneficial insects of your garden.
- Then finally strain out the liquid using a cloth and your compost tea is ready. To use this as foliar spray and to water your plants dilute it further like 1: 10 and use once every 15 days and spray in early morning hours when the leaf stomata are open for best results.
- Easy Compost Tea Spray for Your Plants: Add one or two handful of compost like vermicompost or decomposed cowdung powder or both together per liter of water and allow it to brew for 3 days before use. Make sure your stir it deeply few times everyday to add oxygen in it which is very important.Soaking flower bulbs in dilute compost tea before planting them speeds up germination time by providing them extra energy boost from compost. Soak for max 6 to 12 hours, not more than that.Lighten up your pots by filling the bottoms with peanut shells and similar stuff like this, specially if your pots are more deeper. You can make a partition to this layer and the soil by placing a piece of cloth or even left over green net pieces and then pour your potting soil. You can also use this stuff for mulching in summer to prevent moisture evaporation.Mulching with Sea shells: Specially if you are staying near a coastal areas, they are easily available in plenty. These sea shells not only prevents weed growth and mulching benefits but also provides slow releasing calcium source to the plant over a period of time. This also gives an attractive look to your garden. But one point to remember here is do not use colored or dyed sea shells for mulching.
- Protect your plants from scorching summer heat. The best way to do this is use atleast 50 percent green shadenet. But if you do not have this, just use any large cloth or an old bed spread and tie the corners with a string and cover the plants. This way your can protect your plants from the noon sunlight which is really strong and bad and can burn your plant foliage.
- Make a Vertical Garden and Save Space. Simplest of this is by using taut strings on a wall and hang some vertical pots with hooks. If you do not have these pots, you can also make your own using scrap like plastic bottles. You can also use your fence mesh like this and hang pots to build a vertical garden.
- Keep your hand clean by using disposable surgical gloves for gardening. This is a cheap use and throw alternative to garden gloves. I use these most of the times and this is really helpful to me because this saves my time from cleaning the regular garden gloves everytime after use.
- No Wheelbarrow to move garden stuff? Do not worry, the cheapest alternative is a large cloth or an old bed sheet. Just load on the heavy objects and drag it along. Its actually a childs play as you see in the video.
- Use an All in one All-purpose Mixed Fertilizer Recipe Powder to save time. This universal fertilizer contains almost everything your plant needs to grow and produce flowers and fruits. It’s a complete plant food to be used once every 15 days or a month depending on your plant requirement. Watch complete video on how to make this from this endscreen link in the circle.
- Hack for removing salt deposits: Many of the times the slat deposits gets appeared on the clay pots. No need to worry after looking them. You can remove them easily. You may start combining the ingredients like white vinegar, add little alcohol and the water and pour all of these ingredients in to the spray bottle. Now stir up the bottle very well. Now you may spray up the liquid on to the pot and start rubbing the pit with a plastic brush. It will make your pot really neat and clean.
- Use anti-fungal: You can use chamomile while soaking the seeds as an anti-fungal agent. It prevents the plants form that of the horticultural diseases
- Boost up growth time by inter-plantation of compatible crops: There are so many crops which when grow under the shade of the other plants grow really well and immediately. Just like, when you keep the tomatoes plant under or the carrots plants along with the reddish plants then the slow grower also takes the immediate and quick growth.
- Avoid the fertilizers high in the nitrogen: You may avoid the use of the fertilizers. As the most of the fertilizers con- tains the nitrogenous components and can create toxicity as well.
- Never avoid maintenance: You must not avoid the maintenance of your garden. Just keep on growing the plants on and on can never be a wise task. You must give maintenance to the garden.
- Apply properly: The studying of tips and tricks is not enough. You must have to apply them properly. Keep in mind the basic instructions and apply them properly. 65. Patience is must: You know gardening is really the work of patience. You must have to keep patience during the time when your plants are under process of production. The above are the 65 hacks with astounding tips and tricks which you can use for sake of making your gardening belter. These are all the tips and tricks that can guide you for the whole process of gardening. From start up to an end, the guide is true for you. You can come to know how to sow the seeds, how to soak the seeds before sowing them, what watering system you have to use. How to use the tools and the techniques and how to get highly germinate plants and vegetables.
What we are basically doing is, creating mini water reservoirs or mini water storage houses for your plants. These reservoirs provide a stable supply of water and nutrients to plants. We increase soil water holding capacity to 500 to 1000 times. This is really useful in drought prone areas or if you have water shortage. This method helps to conserve water, save your valuable time, manpower and perhaps money not only in summer but in other times like when you have water shortage and also its a great hacks when you are out on a vacation. One more benefit of this is, It also reduces the quantity and frequency of fertilizer application. The research article links to this video are provided in video description, you can check the detailed articles on this gardening idea.
Well, Now How to Perform This Hack? Actually I am experimenting this method and showing you how it works. I have taken two containers of identical size and soil plus the identical plants of almost the same size. Because the watering requirement may vary between different plant species and also different plant sizes. So, I have taken identical plants and labelling one container as T – that is TEST PLANT and the other one as C – that is Control plant. We will be obviously adding the SAP substance to Test container and not to the Control. Both of these are watered only once on day 1 and the moisture levels are checked daily or on alternate days.
So now lets look into the Procedure on How to add this substance:
If you are doing this on your existing potted plants, you need to dig out some holes around your plant. You can keep the depth of each hole to about 3 -4 inches depending on your plant size and root system. Do this carefully and make sure you do not damage or dig on the roots. You can use any tool like a screw driver or even a pipe. Make some 4 to 6 holes around your plant, depending on your pot size and also plant size. If your plant has larger water requirement, then dig much deeper holes.
Now Add Just 1 or 2 gm of this SAP material into each hole. 1 teaspoon I think its about 4 – 5 gram. So add 1 -2 gm approx. into each hole and then cover these holes with soil. Then add about half to 1 litre of water depending on your container size. I will discuss about what is this SAP compound shortly, but be assured this is a fully bio-degradable and non-toxic substance.
One more method you can use this, if you are repotting any plant, you can mix about 1 to 2 teaspoons of this stuff into your potting mix. Mixing it with soil results in a light, fluffy, aerated well draining soil, which is really good for your plant health. But do not use this for succulents and similar plants.
So, Now before discussing on What is SAP, will show you the result of this experiment. On day 1 after adding this substance and water, leave on for an hour for the SAP to absorb water. Now you test the moisture level using this useful gadget which measures both pH and moisture levels. The link to purchase this is on my website www.gkvk.in. One more point to clarify – this is not a promotional video where I am promoting some companys stuff. On my website, I have only listed the things which I have purchased and tested personally.
Well, I have kept both Pot T and Pot C in the same location and similar climatic conditions under my 50 percent shadehouse to receive the same amount of sunlight. Make sure these are not watered daily and in case if you are expecting rain, you can shift to a safe location to protect them from rain.
Now on Day 1 after watering both Test and Control Pots, the moisture level is very good in both container – showing Fully WET in the meter.
Its not at one point in soil, I am checking it all around the soil in pot T as you can notice in the video.
After 2 Days, you can see the moisture level has remained nearly the same in Test Pot – that is its still completely WET and the control pot moisture level has fallen from wet to just MOIST.
On Day 3, you can see Test pot is still WET and the Control Pot is showing DRY. This means it needs watering immediately. The results may vary depending on your zones climatic conditions.
Well, On Day 5, You can see there s a fall in moisture level, but still its showing MOIST and can continue for a day or two. You can either water your plant at this point or wait for another 2 days and rewater so that the hygroscopic meaning water absorbing crystals takeup this water and hold and supply this to your plant for another week.
So, this proves the effectiveness of this method and you do not need to water your plants frequently and your plants remain content, happy and healthy, This is really useful specially in summer or even if you are going on a vacation!
So Now Quickly Lets Learn Whats this SAP and What is the cost of this substance and where its available?
SAP is nothing but Super Absorbent Polymer or hydrophilic or hygroscopic polymer chains, SAP also sometimes called as Hydrogel substance. It is an eco-friendly, non-toxic, harmless, biodegradable material with super good water absorption and water holding capacity ranging from 100 to 1000 times water retention to its weight. Different grades of SAP are available for different purposes with different capacities.
Water beads or water crystal balls are also similar hygroscopic polyers, they are usually sodium polyacrylate and used for similar purpose.
In agriculture they are used as water reservoirs within soil and they absorb the water when it is raining and release water back when it is dry.
Now How much does this cost? This is not too costly. I got this 250 gms of SAP for about 4 USD. May be Its much cheaper if purchased in larger quantities. You can find the link to purchase this in description and also almost all products that I have purchased and tested are listed at my website www.gkvk.in . Its not a functional store, but a catalogue of links to items that I have purchased or those that I recommend.