3 Useful garden hacks
There is a lot of knowledge and many myths about gardening and cultivation. And many of us use these garden hacks that we have learned from friends and family, and we belive “everyone” knows. But then it turns out everyone doesn’t….
In this post I share three of these that use in my Garden.
/Jenny
1. Feed the tomatos with eggshells
By mixing egg shells in to the soil, you add calcium in a natural and environmentally friendly way. I collect egg shells throughout the year and keep in a plastic container under the sink. When the container is full, I mix the shells in ordinary kitchen mixer to a fine “egg flour”. This “egg flour” I mix into the soil when I prepare different cultivation beds. I usually prioritize the beds where I will grow tomatoes. This is because tomatoes need calcium not to get the ugly brown spots at the end of the fruit. The reason for these brown spots can be many, such as irregular irrigation or poor ventilation, but I belive I’ve had better results with a little extra eggshell in the soil.
2. Coffee ground as soil improvement
Coffee ground goes is off course very good to put in the household compost. Personally I sort out the coffee ground in a special container and use it in special places in the garden. For instance it is said to protect against both snails and other pests. I use my coffee ground around the roses, but also mix it into soil that needs a little more “fluff and gives good structure. And if you have access to a lot of coffee grounds, for example from your workplace, you can advantageously ask to bring it home and mix it into the soil.
The coffee ground is acid, and can even change the color of hydragenas – try it!
3. Paper rolls for cucumber seedlings
Cucumbers plants want a lot of water. Even so, the stems themselves are very sensitive to being too moist and to be standing in water. If you plant your cucumber plants too deep, or if the water is lying near the stem, the plant risks being damaged and cannot grow and develop fruit properly. One way to prevent this is to use a paper roll when sowing the cucumber seeds.
Here’s how I do it:
- Fill half a pot half regular planting soil.
- Insert a paper roll and fill the rest of the pot and the roll with seed soil. Leave the roll up 2 cm of the roll above the surface.
- Put the seed inside the roll, and cover with a little more soil and water gently. The paper roll should be around 1 cm above the top.
- Place the pot light and warm, cover with a little plastic foil to keep the soil moist. But make sure there are air holes so that it does not begin to mold.Gradually, the part of the papper roll that is underground will disappears, while the small ring that is above ground remains. The remaining ring becomes like a small barrier when I water, and thus protects the cucumber stem from the water lying against the trunk. Nice right!
A bonus with this method of sowing cucumber seeds is that it protect the delicate roots during transplanting.
Note your garden hacks in Gardenize
There are many different factors that affect how well we succeed with our garden and cultivation, our plants and flower beds. And a way to actually learn from yourself and get better at what influences your own conditions is to document! This is where you have so much benefit of Gardenize. By taking pictures of what you do in the garden, when you do it, you quickly get a good logbook of various factors, and can even do tests to compare if the garden hacks works or not.
With a Gardenize PLUS account, you can easily complement the images with longer notes by logging in to the computer and writing down what you have done. On the computer you can also easily go back and look at how it looked a year ago in your garden.
Log in and try for free for 14 days!
/Jenny
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