You don’t even need green thumbs for these gardening hacks. Get growing with our list of handy gardening hints:
Baking Soda Makes Tomatoes Sweeter
Sprinkling baking soda around your tomato plant lowers the soil’s acidity, making your tomatoes less tart and more sweet.
Soak Your Seeds In Warm Water 24hrs Before Sowing
Soaking your seeds in warm water before sowing kick-starts the germination process, making your plants grow faster.
Egg Shell Seedlings
Another way to give your new plants an edge is to plant your seedling nice and safe in egg shells. This handy recycling tip helps your seedlings get more calcium for a strong start in life…
Instead Of Throwing Away Eggshells, Put Them In Your Garden
… Or if you have no seedlings, but plenty of egg shells, grind them up and toss them in the garden to enrich your soil with calcium. Alternatively, sprinkle pieces of shell around your plants to help protect them from insects.
Give Your Compost The No.1 Treatment
Another way to enrich your soil is, of course, fertiliser. Enrich your compost and speed up the process by answering the call of nature upon your compost heap. All waste is useful!
Try A Nicer Smelling Compost
Don’t fancy relieving yourself on your compost, or filling your car with smelly biodegradables for your garden? Try fish, blood and bone fertiliser. While it sounds grim, it is in fact a dry fertiliser that doesn’t smell, making it a great option both for in-door fertiliser and for the squeamish.
Use Bark Chips
Save water by laying bark chips on your flower bed. In addition to preventing weeds from popping up, bark retains water wonderfully, meaning that you don’t have to water your plants as often.
Beer Kills Slugs
Slugs getting you down? Worry not, get them drunk! Pour beer into a shallow dish and leave it out over night. Thirsty slugs will drink their way to the giant lettuce in the sky.
And finally, now that we’re all in touch with nature, here’s a bonus tip from the wisdom of the Native Americans:
To discover whether your soil is warm enough to plant your seeds, drop your trousers and sit down. If you have a chilly bum, it’s too cold to plant in!
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