Posted by Stephanie | Posted in Gardening Tips | Posted on 02-04-2009
Ok, we've read through your top gardening tips, and I have to tell you, it was NOT easy to pick only 10! It's obvious you are all serious about your gardening and constantly learning something new. Most of all, we appreciate your willingness to share all the knowledge you have gathered over the years. If we follow these tips, we should all have gorgeous, successful gardens!
Here are the winners and their valuable tips. Each one will be receiving a $10 Park Seed Gift Certificate! Congratulations, and thank you again to everyone who sent us their number-one gardening tips!
| Submitted by Sue Harris of Belize, Central America: Whenever you are gardening with bare hands (the only way to get a real feel for the plants and soil) first scratch a bar of soap with your nails, so there is soap under each nail. Then when you wash your hands, you just use a nail brush and lo and behold, perfectly mud free nails. |
| Submitted by Violet Smith of Roanoke, VA: This tip is called "Not For The Faint of Heart" Having a bad case of white fly infestation on my African Violet collection which was not responding to the usual pesticides, I was about to destroy all the plants when I spotted a tiny house spider. I thought, what have I got to lose. I put the spider on one plant & waited. Lo and behold, the spider was noticeably getting bigger! The infestation cleared up. I have since sought out (small) spiders on occasion to do my "green" gardening inside and out. Note: When the house spiders job is done it is relocated to the outdoors! |
| Submitted by Linda Richardson of Romeoville, IL I like to garden but also like to conserve water when possible. I recycle large soda bottles to water my garden plants – like tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, etc. Use a 2-liter plastic bottle, cap on. Cut the bottom off, all but an inch and a half (this creates a flap to open the bottom of the bottle). Loosen the cap enough for it to do a slow drip; then bury the bottle, upside down up to the shoulder, next to your plants. Lift the bottom; fill each one once or twice a week – depending on the rain your area receives. This gives the plants a slow, deep watering, the 'bottom flap' keeps bugs out and you recycle the bottles. If your soil is very loose, you may need to put a few small stones or a stake in the bottle to steady it. I also catch the spring rain water and bottle it for use for watering plants during the heat of July. |
| Sherry C. of Gastonia, NC My tip is featured to help keep those pesky varmints away when the plant seedlings have sprouted and are still young and tender tasting. I found this out by accident this past year when I had purchased a couple of the helium-filled foil balloons for an occasion, and when through with them we just tied them to the posts around the garden just for fun, watching them bob and circle when the wind blew. To our delight, we found that these balloons kept the rabbits, etc. away from our spinach, peas, beans, etc. I usually purchase a couple from the dollar store and they last for two to three weeks, enough time to get the plants up where they don't mess with them as much. |
| Submitted by Patti Mercks I grew up walking along side of my Grandpa in his garden. Often carrying in the bounty and then helping Grandma cook it! Those days bring back wonderful childhood memories so I want to carrry on those traditions with my grandkids. I used to worry that the kids would come along and destroy the plants that I had so tenderly watered and watched over for days. Then I realized that they enjoyed the garden, too and wouldn't cause damage if they were part of the gardening processes and learning about it, just like my grandpa did with me. So I bring the kids into my garden. I will point out weeds and ask them to pull them out and explain to them why. I bought some child size garden tools for my grandchildren to use to rake the leaves off the tulips in spring. They have helped to pick flower bouquets and green beans. They knew when we pulled the pumpkins from the garden it would soon be Halloween! "My" garden has become "Our" garden and the enjoyment from it is awesome! My tip is to share your garden with everyone possible… big or small! |
| Submitted by Angela Loomis of East Greenwich, RI This one is so obvious – and it's what you folks at Park do with your great blogs, books, even your catalog! The number one thing a Gardener can do is SHARE!!! Share plants, share tips, share stories, good and bad….. I share and swap plants with the people at work who also garden, and now we have better things than work to talk about when we're in the kitchen getting coffee at the office! I've shared roses and received phlox, shared vegetable seedlings and received perennials, shared stories of disaster and stories of success. I've shared my love of gardening with my three kids, and my youngest is REALLY into planning his garden, starting seeds, buying plants, and all of that. I've made "gardening buddies" by sharing plants, and we love to haunt local garden centers and nurseries together – it is so much more fun with a PAL!! And I got all of this by sharing. So, if you're a new gardener, the best thing to do is speak up, because you'll end up with a community of planters that share your enthusiasm – and you never know where you'll find them! |
| Submitted by Wanda Jundt of Eureka, SD I used to plant, then forget what I had where. The remedy is easy and inexpensive. Use plastic knives as markers. Write on them with indelible black marker. I do square-foot gardening, and each section now has a marker and I know exactly what to look for as the seedlings emerge. The knives are inexpensive because when I buy an assortment of knives, forks, and spoons for picnics, it is always the knives that are left over and not used. |
| Submitted by "Bumpa" I am a grandfather, and it was my grandfather who taught me this tip that really works for areas with frost. Always watch the lilacs before you plant. When the lilacs start to show bloom tips, you can direct plant onions, garlic, peas. When the lilac blossoms are open, plant potatoes, carrots, lettuce, all cole crops and turnips, etc. When the lilac blossoms begin to fade, only then can you set out tomatoes, peppers, etc. Now is the time to plant beans, corn, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, and all tender vines, either from seed or setting out plants. I have done this every year and it works. I now have a balcony garden so it changes a bit because of the micro climate on the south side of the building. I hope you find this helpful, and I hope you have lilacs. |
| Submitted by Adrienne DeVries of Venice, FL The best gardening tip I have ever had is for tomato plants. They like a consistant moisture supply. To accomplish this, I cut the bottoms off 2-liter bottles and push the neck up the bottle into the soil a few inches from each tomato plant. Every other day I fill the bottle with water and sometimes add water-soluable fertilizer. This way the water gets all the way to the roots where it is needed. I no longer have blossom rot. I hope this will be helpful to someone. |
| Submitted by Michael Savich of Fredericksburg, VA Ever leave that black garden hose filled with water out in the hot summer sun? Well, a good way to ruin a valuable bush or plant is to turn on that hot hose water and immediately begin watering a valuable plant which already is wilting for lack of water. So let the hot water run out of the hose until the water is cool, then water. This will solve many a mystery in your garden about why a garden plant suddenly browned out. But an even better idea is to use that hot hose water as a very ecological and environmentally friendly way of eradicating weeds in your driveway. Utilize that hot hose water as a very effective herbicide instead, directing the hot water on annoying weeds next to lampposts, sidewalks, and inside driveway cracks. You will be surprised at how much hot water a 50-foot hose contains and how easy this weed-whacking method truly is. |