For-Real Landscape Fabric

Use old jeans. They are durable, dark, they let air and water in while blocking weeds. Top with mulch, straw, or grass clippings. Synthetic bedding can also be used for landscape fabric. Use it as the underlayer for mulch, brick or gravel.

Lazy-Bed Gardening

Use cardboard as an uber-mulch! Break down the boxes, and tear into wide strips. Wet thoroughly and cover the area you want to plant. Cover with mulch that can be worked into the soil later. Keep moist. It takes about 6 months to kill all the grass underneath. You can turn the mulch into the soil, pulling out any large pieces of carboard that are left, and you're ready to plant. Do this in the fall for spring planting.

I am a container, raised bed kinda gal. I don't seem to be able to help myself. LOL Find something to place on the ground, fill with dirt, and plant in and you have MY WAY. Now this is not from a book. It is from a gardening gramma. She'd take an old book case someone threw out, knock the back out, lay it where she wanted, and fill it with dirt and plant flowers in it!  Once she had a wide sided one and the two of us painted on it for color and fun!

Things you can use for mini raised beds are (from a book I'll credit below)

1. a pie plate with the bottom cut out.

2. the rim of an old springform pan,

3. a plastic ice cream container with the bottom cut out.

4. a shoe box with the bottom cut out

5. a milk jug with top and bottom cut off

6. an old bottomless drawer

7. if you are ambitious, you can cut an old trash can into 'slices' and use them.

You just never know what you will need to recycle. A friend used wine bottles, to line a flower bed. She turned them upside down and stuck the necks in the ground. Now this won't work with children because you can break them, but it was a kinda neat way to use them.

Save your tea bags for adding acidity to potting soil. Use the water you boil pasta and potatoes in and water your plants. They like the starch and titch of salt and oil.

Clean clay cat litter can be used in the bottom of container gardens -it drains freely, releases nitrogen and eventually breaks down. Clean cat litter can be worked into clay soil to break it up, and it enriches sandy soil.

Improving germination: 

buy large paper cups without waxing and plant in them cover with plastic to hold in moisture and warmth - kroger has a clear bread baggie that is not a zip-loc. They used to be 200 for a dollar. You put the newly planted seed cups inside one and fold the bottom under until the seeds sprout. If you are working with trays or flats, reuse the bags you get from the dry cleaners.

The old electric blankets you have can be spread on a table, place a metal cookie sheet or equivalent to protect the heating elements rom moisture, and set your containers with newly planted seeds on top. It acts as a warmer. Heating pads can be used too. Sometimes you'll find these cheap at yard sales or thrift shops. It's ok if the high setting doesn't work.

If bending down is hard for you, use old wrapping paper tubes to drop seeds into the soil where you want them.

Skeins of unused yarn make effective pest traps. Soak the skeins in water and place them next to plants. Lift them each morning and destroy the slugs, earwigs and potato bugs that are hiding there.

Seed starting helpers:

1. The bottom portions of cardboard milk or
2. yogurt containers.
3. Tin cans.
4. egg cartons
5. Cereal boxes with ends stapled shut - cut in half lengthwise.
6. Clear clam type plastic produce boxes (the snap on lids trap warmth and moisture.
7. Chinese take out boxes.

 

Old plastic sweater boxes can be used as a salad bowl during the winter months. Punch holes in the bottom and set the box inside it's lid on rocks or gravel. (You can use cardboard as long as you reinforce the bottom with duct tape.) Fill the box with potting soil and plant your seeds. They'll germinate in just a few days. Place the box in a very sunny, south facing window and you'll have lettuce for salad in a few weeks. I swear, if there is anything I hate, it's buying salad from the store in plastic bags! Spinack can be grown the same way.

If you are raising flowers that have bulbs, the bulbs can be placed in egg cartons and over wintered in the garage or basement. Don't let them freeze. 40-50 degrees is ideal.

Grow light - If you have no place to attach one overhead, use a shop light with grow or florescent bulbs. Make two stacks of heat-proof items like bricks, buckets, clay flower pots. Position the light so it rests 2-3 inches above the seedlings. As the plants grow, reposition the light to accomodate taller plants.

All right everyone... I think I'm done for now. Green Blessings to all.

~Amber

Most information here comes from a book called "Panty Hose, Hot peppers, Tea Bags and more for the Garden" A Rodale Organic Gardening Book.