07 November

5 Super-Easy Garden Hacks–Get the Green Thumb without all the Work!

We all love gorgeous fresh flowers and juicy home-grown veggies, but gardening can be time-consuming, back-breaking work. Don’t do more than you have to! These 5 simple garden hacks will help you work smart, not hard, so you can still have the garden of your dreams, and spend more of your time relaxing by the pool this summer.

1. Stop weeding your flower bed

Sick of weeding your flower bed? Here’s an inexpensive, easy way to keep weeds away: instead of throwing away those cardboard boxes from the stuff you order online, break the boxes down and place the flattened boxes around the bases of your flowers. Cut holes in the boxes to give the flowers plenty of room, and then cover the cardboard with a layer of mulch. The cardboard will keep the sun’s rays from reaching the soil beneath and triggering weed growth. This barrier will last for a couple of seasons, and then the cardboard will naturally break down into the soil. Only use plain cardboard for this purpose, not the glossy-coated kind.

2. Dry your fresh herbs the easy way

If you grow your own fresh herbs, you probably need to dry at least some of them for storage. This process can take a lot of time and space, or require a mechanical dehydrator. But did you know that you already had a rapid dehydrator? Your car! Just place a single layer of herbs on a sheet of newspaper, put the newspaper with the herbs on it in your hot car, and close the doors and roll up the windows. The herbs will quickly dehydrate, leaving your car smelling wonderful in the process.

3. The simple way to plant annual flowers

Annual flowers are beautiful, but planting them in the ground can feel like a waste of time when you know that you will just have to plant them in the same spot again next year. Not anymore! To save work, all you have to do is bury plastic outer pots in the spots where you want your annual flowers to be, with the tops of the pots level with the ground. When spring rolls around, simply drop pots of annual flowers in the pots, and you’re done! When the warm season is over you can keep flower pots filled with mulch in the spaces as fillers until next year’s potted flowers are ready to go in.

4. Easy, all-natural way to remove salt deposits from clay pots

Clay flower pots are made to be reusable, but they can accumulate ugly salt deposits that are very difficult to remove. You don’t have to throw your clay pots away, though: a mixture of equal parts white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water will do the trick.

5. The easy, organic way to keep slugs and snails off your veggies!

Slugs and snails can really destroy your garden, but many families are concerned about using chemicals to keep pests out of their gardens. One natural, organic way to keep slugs and snails out of your garden is to put crushed egg shells around the edges of your garden. The egg shells will keep the slugs and snails out, and the shells will eventually contribute natural nutrients to the soil.

Use these 5 tips, and work smart, not hard to get the garden of your dreams!

Photos By Rasbak