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Guinea pigs and rabbits.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:42 pm

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Yes you did read the title correctly. Even your pets can be of use in your garden!!!

Use the straw from the weekly changes of the guinea pig or rabbit hutch. Put it in the bottom of your pea and bean trenches. A 2" layer of this straw, together with the droppings, will give a nitrogen rich boost to your plants as well as helping to conserve water in the soil.



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Hairbrush.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:38 pm

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Blanket weed is (or was) the bane of my life. My pond seemed to grow the stuff like there was no tomorow!!!
A quick and easy way to deal with it is to buy a cheap, round hairbrush and tie it firmly (with waterproof tape) to the end of a garden cane or similar long piece of wood. Push the hairbrush into the weed and twist round and round. The weed wraps itself neatly around the brush allowing you to remove it completely.



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Grated soap.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:34 pm

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Squirrels can be a real pain to the gardener can't they? Oh they look sooooo cute when they're doing acrobatics atop your fence but when they start chewing on your fat, juicy bulbs it's quite a different matter!!! GRRRR.

You'll have to accept that squirrels are here to stay so leave out a few pieces of over - ripe fruit for them as a gesture of goodwill.

Now to your bukbs. The best squirrel deterrent know to man is GRATED SOAP!!! Get the cheapest and strongest smelling you can buy. Poundland do four cakes of nasty smelling stuff for just £1. LOL
Squirrela hate the smell too and will avoid it like the plague. Simply grate the soap and sprinkle it over the surface of the soil where your bulbs are planted. You may have to re-apply after rain but a bar of soap is certainly cheap enough and should last you all season.

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A great way to use roofing felt.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:23 pm

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Here's another way to deal with those pesky slugs and snails.

If you are anything like me then you'll have ends of roofing felt rolls in your garden shed. Just the ordinary stuff you re-roofed that same shed with a few months ago remember?

Cut a hole in the middle of a 6" square of the felt, just wide enough to fit round the plant stem. Now cut a sideways slit halfway across. This is so that you can slip the square, like a collar, around the plant.
There are two reasons why this works to deter snails and slugs.

1.) The surface is very rough and hurts their underbellies. Altogether now ..... aaawww poor wittle slugsies and snailses. LOL

2.) They appear to hate the smell of the bitumen glue in the felt, especially on a warm summer's evening and they haven't cottoned on to clothes pegs on their noses yet!!!!!




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Horse hair's a pain.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:07 pm

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Natural slug and snail deterrents are always the best and, yes, horsehair works a treat!!! Stables get rid of huge quantities every week so why not go and scrounge some from them?
Place it in a 4" diameter ring around slug/snail susceptible plants and weigh down with stones. Ensure that the stones don't form a 'brigde' though for those slimey pests.

Slugs and snails can't travel over horsehair because the hair is an irritant and the grease in it reacts with their slime and burns their bellies. Aaawww what a shame. (snigger)

Have you ever seen a horse covered in snails or slugs? No!!! Well there you are then. LOL

This blog entry has been viewed 1016 times

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Teasing weeds.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 2:00 pm

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Weeding in between delicate seedlings and around the base of fragile potted plants can be a bit tricky can't it? Well get a hold of an old pair of your OH's/daughter's eyebrow tweezers - they make the job a whole lot easier!!!!
Just make sure they are her old ones!!! LOL

This blog entry has been viewed 907 times

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Plants love beer.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:57 pm

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How to keep those indoor, foliage plants healthy.

Cleaning the leaves with leaf shine may make your plants look lovely and glossy but it does nothing to kill bacteria.
In order to grow big, strong and healthy a plant's leaves must breathe through their pores and exchange gases.
Blocked pores means that your plants could, literally, choke to death.
Help is at hand though!!! The best anti-bacterial cleaner for plant leaves is BEER!!!!!! The weak acid in beer will successfully kill harmful bateria in the plants pores. A weekly clean of both sides of the leaves with cotton wool soaked in beer will do the trick.

Go on get your OH to leave a small amount in the bottom of his can/glass for you whenever he indulges in his favourite hobby. LOL



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Egg boxes.

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:47 pm

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As you no doubt can tell I try to utalise most things and use them in my garden. Now this tip saves you throwing away those empty egg boxes.

Egg boxes make an ideal collecting container for the many sorts of free seeds that nature gives to the patient gardener. Forage for those dead flower stems and gently tap the seeds from the seed cases or flower heads into the box compartments - remembering to label each lot of seeds as you go along.

Back indoors, carefully cut out the compartments and trasfer each lot of seeds into individual envelopes (home-made of course) and mark with details of when collected etc. Store the envelopes until sowing time.

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Cocktail sticks attack cats!!!!!

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:37 pm

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Cats can easily be persuaded to avoid your newly planted seed trays, containers and window boxes, instead of using them as convenient loo stops, by peppering the surface of the compost with cocktail sticks. Leave about 3/4 of an inch of each stick protruding from the compost.

Now make yourself a nice cuppa and sit down comfortably.

Listen.

Hear anything?

YES!!!!!!!

That's the last time that cat will try to poop in your garden pots believe me. LOL

This blog entry has been viewed 800 times

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Garden style!!!!

Category: Gardening tips. | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:31 pm

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Next time you have a clear-out of your wardrobe, keep any woolly jumpers or fleeces you intend to throw out. They make great liners for hanging baskets!! You can easily cut out planting holes and they are big enough (at least mine are LOL) to fit any size of basket.

This blog entry has been viewed 771 times

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