Garden chores can be real time-robbers such as plowing, planting, mulching and cultivating. Then there's watering, harvesting and pest patrol. All these chores - the caring for, nuturing and fussing over a plot of ground - are actually a direct intuitive relationship between people and the environment. Without them, the lore of gardening, enriched by the efforts of countless individuals over the years, would be lost.
This six part series will provide some inventive gardening tips that hopefully you will find time-saving.
Soil Sifters
Got some rocky soil? Minnow traps make great soil sifters. The bucket-like quarter- inch mesh trap is very effective, durable and easy to handle, and makes sifting go really fast. They can be purchased for around $10 at most fishing-tackle shops.
News-Worthy Onions
At planting time, place a carpet of hole-punched newspaper in your garden. Then place one onion set in each hole, and weigh the paper down with some rocks and soil. The newspaper lets the water in and keeps the weeds out and you don't have to worry about spacing. 3-ply sheets of newspaper are joined together by tape or staples, and 1-inch holes, spaced about 4 inches apart, are punched with a one-inch-diameter duct pipe and hammer. To make the hole cutting faster, fold the paper accordian style, and punch through all layers at the same time. Then in the fall, just plow the paper under.
Leaf Shredding
Wondering what to do with all those leaves in the fall? Instead of hauling bags to the curbside for collection, create your own natural fertalizer known as "Black Gold". First the leaves need to be shredded. The easiest way to do this, after racking them into a pile, is to run your lawn mower over them. If for some reason you don't have a lawn mower, using an old fan blade attached to an electric drill will work very well too. Attach the fan blade to a 16" long quarter-inch-diameter metal rod. Insert the rod through the lid of a 5-gallon plastic bucket and then into the drill. Fill the bucket with leaves, fasten the lid and power on to start shredding using an up-and-down motion. Once the leaves are shredded, place them in a separate compost pile, and by this time next year, you'll have one of the best fertalizers to amend your garden soil.
Jute-Backed Carpet Mulch
Jute-backed carpet makes a great mulch as it doesn't mold and can be used year after year. Cut the carpet in strips wide enough to fit between garden rows. You may not have to weed your garden once and the plants are protected from the ground. The carpet keeps your shoes from getting muddy when walking through the garden after watering or a hard rainfall. Garden cleanup is easier as you just have to roll up the carpet strips and store them at the end of the rows, and it's ready to roll out again next spring.
Soil Texture Tester
What kind of soil texture do you have? A home made soil tester you can make yourself is an easy way to find out. Fill a jar with two-thirds water and one-third soil, and shake it well. Let the jar sit on a windowsill for a few days. Heavy sand particles will settle at the bottom of the jar, followed by silt and then clay. Organic matter will float. To make your analysis, determine the percentage of each layer and compare with good soil texture which is 45% sand, 35% silt and 20% clay.
Blender Compost
For apartment gardeners, a traditional compost may not be practical since space is very limited. One adaptation is to use the blender for kitchen scraps. The scraps are accumulated into the blender with water, and blended quite finely. The "liquid compost" is then poured into a bucket with a lid. Later, the buckets are emptied into trenches dug in planters and recovered with the soil. It decomposes fast, benefits the plants, and doesn't take up precious space.
Dig those Potatoes
Did you know that potatoes can easily dig for you while they grow? Now that's a multifunctional vegetable! If you have an area of soil that you'd like to use but is still quite compacted, grow some potatoes there. Just place seed potatoes on the ground, flattening any grass over them, and then covering all with about 6 to 8 inches of mulch. That's it aside from more mulch to keep them covered as they grow. After the harvest, the ground it soft and moist and workable. What a time saver!
Microwaved Sterile Soil
A fast solution to sterilizing soil without pesticides or smelly oven baking is to use your microwave. Fill large plastic bags, about one and a half gallon size, with soil and seal with a rubber band. Punch a few holes to let the steam out and place in the microwave at full power for about 5 minutes. The soil may be too hot to handle so take care when opening and spreading it out to cool.
De-Thatching Your Lawn with Beer
A bit of an unorthodox but effective method of dethatching lawns is to use one flat can or bottle of beer in a sprayer bottle attached to the end of a garden hose applied to approximatley 500 square feet of lawn. Something in the beer seems to start a reaction which results in rapid decomposition of the thatch. It works best in hot, humid weather, only only when the soil is moist and warm, and it doesn't seem to hurt the lawn.
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