Tips to Help You Squeeze More Out of Your Garden

Winning tip:Keep your hose from harming your delicate plants

I determine this works perfectly to forbid any injury or price to my finespun works when hauling hoses around the garden . I install two 2 - foot rebar spikes where my hose always tends to rub a treasured plant , and skid the hose between the two . To foreclose human injury from the sharp rebar detail on top , I cover it with a cap from the computer hardware store . This keeps the hose from harming my plants and work much better for me than the fund - bought sort ; with those , I find that the hose is prostrate to climb up out of the track .

— Pam Morgan , Monroe , North Carolina

Thwarting annual-munching rabbits

Rabbits are quick to educate us about their food preferences . This spring , repellent were n’t doing the trick , and a poultry - fencing retainer ( definitely not aesthetically pleasing ) was the only matter between my scrumptious annuals and serious desolation . After a specially destructive nightlong bunny maraud , I was arrange groceries away and looked at the open - mesh green groceries bags ( onions , tater , citrus , etc . ) in a novel light . Could they be useful in rabbit armed combat ? I cut 18 - inch lengths of bamboo stakes , made tripods around susceptible Modern flora ( zinnias , cosmos , globe amaranth , etc . ) , and sleeved the interlock over the top and down to the ground . After several weeks the ravaged annual recuperate enough to be safe and for me to unsleeve , drench with repellent , and in reality enjoy .

I ’m the first to admit that these mesh tents are n’t pretty , but I prefer them to having chicken - wire corrals around intact beds ( including works that do n’t ask protection ) . And I ’m recycle , recycling , and repurposing . ( The short zinnia in the photo was victimized before I dreamed up the arm trick . )

— Tony Fulmer , Arlington Heights , Illinois

Squish those leaves

My grandmother used to joke that you get under one’s skin half a pound of holes when you bought a lb of Swiss cheese . Bags of leaves are something like that — full , but with lots of empty space because the leaves just wo n’t compact enough . I found a solution by using a large empty greenhouse pot ( # 10 or so ) and a watering can . Put a bunch of leaf in the bag , water gently on top , and squish them with the bottom of the glasshouse pot . reiterate until the bag is full , at which point you ’ll have filled it with twice as many leaves as you would have otherwise .

— Tatiana Holway , Providence , Rhode Island

Contain your mint

I do all of my vegetable horticulture in containers and kindle bed . When the bottom rust out of an old galvanized bath this class , I bury the remainder in a novel herbaceous plant bottom . That should serve keep my mint in check !

— Jane School , DeKalb , Illinois

From groceries to garden supplies

I repurposed a shopping go-cart into a handy garden go-cart . Standard newspaper leaf old bag fit perfectly in the chief compartment , and the rearward field goal hold excess bags and small-scale gar - den prick . The unit folds 2-dimensional for warehousing . The cart is well pull from the rear , and the wheels will roll over most obstacles .

— Tom Scott , Columbus , Ohio

pic : courtesy of the contributor

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