12 Top Home Gardening Hacks
While we all love beautiful flowers and delicious homegrown fruits and vegetables, it can sometimes be difficult work! While they won’t take all the hard work out of gardening, here are 12 top home gardening hacks to help make it a little easier and better still, you’ll probably have most of these items already around the home!
Coffee grounds
Plants love coffee almost as much as humans; add some coffee grounds to your soil to give the plants the nutrients that they want. For all the ways coffee grounds can benefit your garden, see our 10 Ways to use Coffee in your garden.
Coffee filters
Place a coffee filter at the bottom of your pots to keep the soil from draining out the drainage holes with the water. It saves soil and keeps the area around your plants clean!
Save scraps
Kitchen scraps can be used for all sorts of things in your garden! You can mix them up in compost to make the soil more nutrient-rich or you can keep the seeds from fruits and vegetables to get your own starters. No matter what you do, there’s always a better use than just throwing them away!
Test old seeds
Nothing is worse than planting seeds only to never see anything come of it. If you have a pack of old seeds and want to know if they’re still good without using precious garden space, just place them on a wet paper towel. If sprouts start coming out of them, then they’re good and you can plant them in the garden!
Rain barrel
Save water by creating your very own rain barrel to collect water for your garden. Very little effort is required, leave a couple of buckets out in the rain and you’ll have water for the next time you need to water your garden.
Mini greenhouse
A normal-sized greenhouse can take up a lot of space in the garden, with some creativity you can make your own version. Take two 2L bottles, cut the tops off, place one top upside down into the bottom piece and place the second top the right way up and put it around your seedlings to make a great environment for growth!
Paper towel feeder
Whether you’re heading away for a few days, or are a bit forgetful when it comes to watering, this is the perfect tip for you. Take a paper towel and tightly roll it up, putting one end in a glass of water and the other end in your pot or container. This doesn’t work for large gardens, but your houseplants will sure thank you for keeping them hydrated while you’re gone.
Fertilise with vegetable water
Create your own circle of life at home! Cook the vegetable you grow, and then use the vegetable water you cooked with to fertilise your garden. Vegetable water holds lots of nutrients that plants love. Pour, grow, eat and repeat!
Homemade watering can
The perfect watering can is difficult to find, however you can make your own at home. Poke a few holes in the lid of any container and you’ve got yourself a custom made watering can. Milk bottles work best, but anything with a handle will do the job.
Toilet paper seed tape
Seed tape is an awesome way to quickly and easily plant tons of seeds without having to worry about spacing and placement. However, it can often be much more expensive than just buying a pack of seeds. By using a roll of toilet paper as your own seed tape, you save both time and money when it comes time to plant! Simply measure out the correct seed spacing on the toilet paper, pop a seed at the correct spacing and roll out the toilet paper roll when you’re ready to plant. Too easy!
Toilet paper roll pots
Once you’ve gone through all your toilet paper seed tape, don’t just throw away the empty roll! Make your own biodegradable flowerpot that can be put straight into the ground! Simply cut your toilet roll in half and fold in the bottom, add some soil and seeds and you have your very own seedling pot.
Powdered eggshells
Eggs seem to have a million and one uses, and gardening is no exception. Give your garden a calcium boost by crushing up eggshells into a fine powder and sprinkle into your soil. Eggshells are also great for pest control and mulch. You can also use them as a seedling starter pot, much like the toilet paper rolls above.