Uses for fallen leaves

I live in the woods. My house is on a 2-acre clearing smack dab in the center of the woods. When your house is surrounded by acres of trees you have a lot of fallen leaves to pick up every year! I don't mean rake a little bit and that's it! Nope, we actually need machines for this! I like to joke that my husband vacuums the lawn, but well...he does! lol

At first you just rake them into the woods or burn them or even suck them all up with the lawn vacuum thing and dump them somewhere deep in the woods where they can't blow back out. After a while though you come up with ways to use said leaves, after all leaves could be very useful for a gardener!

There is one school of thought that leaves and dead plants should be left where they fall as certain insects will hide in them over winter and the leaves help them to survive.

Unfortunately many common garden pests are on that list and allowing them a space to survive over winter is making more pest problems for yourself next year!

I'm pretty sure that's how my earwig problem got so bad the last 2 years! 

I also didn't till for 2 years because of a new fence, so that certainly didn't help. Tilling does help break up their little buggy homes and disrupts the lifecycle of many garden pests.

Unfortunately, I can't blame my earwig problem on 1 thing...but I'm sure the 2 changes worked together to make the garden particularly buggy this year. That won't happen again!

30 years gardening and still learning and trying different things. About the leaves though...

How to start seeds cheaply

Lots of people are looking to start a garden this year! I can totally understand that, especially with the way food prices are. Unfortunately because food prices are up people don't have a lot of extra money to spend on a garden. It's a real catch 22 isn't it? 

Don't worry, you're in the right place! I love to talk about frugal gardening and seed starting is no different. 

Over the years I've come up with lots if ways to save money on seed starting supplies and today I'd like to talk about them. I'm going to do a mini round up here with a bunch of the posts that I've already written on parts of this topic.

I'm also going to round it out with some new ideas, so let's get started on how to start seeds cheaply!

20+ Unexpected things you can compost

Good compost can make or break your garden. You can either make the richest, most natural fertilizer to nourish your plants. Or you can spread a bunch of problems like disease and weeds. If you know what to compost and in what amounts though, your compost will come out perfectly from your own compost bins.

You probably know the basics of composting, adding brown and green materials in the right proportions. All the details of proper composting are at the end of this post if you don't though, but I want to talk about things you didn't realize that you could compost.

Everything from toothpicks and used matches (they're made of wood or cardboard) to Kleenex, balloons and latex gloves! 

There are a lot of things you can't add to your compost like meat, oils, plastics, anything not biodegradable etc. There are a lot of things you can add to your compost pile though, that you never thought about. 

How to save money buying the right clearance priced perennials

It's the time of year when garden departments at the local home store are scaling back their inventory. Both perennials and annuals are on sale and you can find some amazing bargains if you know what to look for.

I literally haunt the sale section of Lowes this time of year!

At least half of my perennials were bought there at clearance prices over the years! Though it can be frustrating to wait till next year to see your plants at their finest, your finances will thank you!

There is a trick to buying clearance plants though. You don't want to buy something that you can't use or that is sickly or too root bound to recover. After all, many of these plants have spent way too long in tiny pots without fertilizer or proper care. 

On the flip side, as long as you can provide good care and get them in the ground soon enough to establish some roots before winter, they should wake up in spring like they never were neglected! You might even get a few blooms now. 

That's how I got the black eyed Susan's that take over my patio planter every year. They were a pitiful blob of greens with 4 half dead flowers for $3 one September.
Now I have them absolutely everywhere in my yard!

I'm also a huge fan of buying tulips and daffodils right after Easter. They are often marked down to $1 a pot and are great to fill in areas with bulbs cheaply.

Of course this won't work for most annuals. Perennials though follow a pattern of growth and dormancy and as long as you get them in the ground and established before winters freeze, they'll do just fine....even if they seem a little unhealthy the day you buy them.

You'll want to check out the plants thoroughly before purchase though. Here is how I evaluate a plant to determine if it's a lost cause, or well worth the  price!

Quick and easy low tunnel to protect seedlings against a late frost

This is the crazy time of year when you just don't know what the weather is doing. It feels an awful lot like spring but I know that it any second the weather might turn cold and we might get a sprout killing frost. However, I'm impatient and I already have some seeds in the ground, so how do I protect my seedlings from a late frost? 

I have a very quick and easy way to protect them that costs only a few dollars and can be thrown together in minutes. You only need plastic, some braces and something to hold the plastic down on the edges so it doesn't get blown off. The best part is, you can buy almost all your supplies at the dollar store! How's that for frugal gardening?

11 garden mistakes that will cost you $$$

It's almost time to plant the garden! Can you tell I'm excited? I love this time of year when I'm deciding what to plant this time and looking back on my past harvests.

Unfortunately I've made some gardening mistakes over the years, and it's cost me some serious cash. I did learn from my mistakes though so that's what I want to talk about today.

First though, I need to tell you the story of the Summer of Kohlrabi. I bring this up now because it was a costly mistake, and because I mention it in my post on deciding what you should plant in your garden.

That's a pretty popular post this time of year and is getting read a lot. 

A few different people have asked me about this story recently, so here it is: Skip down to the bold type if you want to just get to the garden mistakes! 

Remove rust from garden tools

I admit it, I don't always remember to clean my garden tools when I'm done with them. Actually, I rarely remember! Unfortunately that means that as I get all my hand tools out for my spring gardening, that many of them are rusty. I guess it's time to clean the rust off the garden tools. Luckily, it's not as hard as it sounds. 

Rust is another name for iron oxide, which occurs when iron or an alloy that contains iron, like steel, is exposed to oxygen and moisture for a long period of time. Also known as: evidence I didn't clean and dry my tools before putting them away. 

Rust can be removed from large garden tools with a grinder or in milder cases a wire brush and steel wool. I only needed to remove rust from hand tools so I opted to use an acid instead.

While there are many acids that could do the job of removing rust, white vinegar is around 5% acetic acid and is already in my pantry. Plus I'm cheap, so that's what we're using today! I'm all about being frugal and vinegar is the most frugal cleaner I know of.

13 uses for peroxide in the garden (and on houseplants!)

Hydrogen peroxide has long been a bathroom staple, known for its cleansing and disinfecting properties. Those same  properties though, are the reason why peroxide has so many amazing uses in the garden.

Not only can hydrogen peroxide be used to clean and disinfect tools, but it can also destroy fungus and even pests like aphids.

Hydrogen peroxide is very similar to water except it has one more oxygen atom.

So while the H20 we drink has 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen, hydrogen peroxide is H2O2 which is 2 hydrogen 2 peroxide. (I promise this ends the science lesson for today!) 

When you add that extra oxygen atom to the plant, it can do a lot of really great things....and one horrible one!

Hydrogen peroxide comes in various concentrations but the most common one is 3%. That's the one in the brown bottle at the grocery or drug store.

It'll say on the back  of the bottle though, so flip it around just to make sure. 

3% hydrogen peroxide is the strength I use, and I wanted to point this out because that is what I have experimented with and when I mention how I mix the peroxide to use it, it's with the 3% strength. 

If you happen to have a different strength of peroxide, then you'll have to adjust for the difference or the solution will be too strong and can cause problems.

Landscaping DIY for under $20

The area under my front porch has been the messiest spot in the yard since we moved here. The guy that built this house did many things quite oddly and this is one of them.

The base of the stairs seems rather large and just sort of ends. Random concrete stepping stones and large rocks were all chucked under there. The dirt was uneven to the point that if you were to walk under there, you'd trip constantly.

I don't think grass was ever planted under there as it was a tangle of weeds amid bare spots. The size, shape and slope of the area made it awkward to cut with the mower. Even when it was all trimmed up with the weed wacker, it just always looked sloppy.

Finally I got sick of it and decided to get it fixed. First I talked to a landscaper that wanted almost $200 to redo the area. Apparently the fact that the house was built into a hill on one side made it more difficult.

After I stopped laughing, I started planning. I don't really have any experience with landscaping though, so there was no telling how this new garden project was going to turn out!

I mean, I can replant garden beds but putting them in completely was going to be a new adventure! 

Plus this bed was going to be the special home to a night blooming plant.

My friend Jenny had been fascinated by the fact that some flowers bloom at night. Like morning glories, but backwards. She died a few years back and I had been trying to grow night blooming flowers ever since. This year was the first year I succeeded. 

I had 2 of these plants that needed a home, so I had to get this right!

Between planning and finish, this new garden bed project took several turns. I knew I needed to completely remove all the grass and weeds under the porch and replace it with something weed resistant. 

Click on pictures for a better view!

I decided a weed barrier was necessary and thought mulch would look nice. The husband shot that down with a few snarky comments about wood chips and termites near a wood sided house. *sigh*

5 reasons why plants love garlic

Quite a while back I wrote about all the uses for cinnamon in the garden and have been surprised at how many times that post has been viewed! It would appear that organic gardening is very popular right now and many people would rather use natural remedies then chemical, store bought ones. Who can blame them? After all any chemicals put on your garden ends up in your food, right?

Well I thought it was time we talked about garlic! Garlic (Allium sativum) can be used in lots of different ways in the garden also. Garlic is well known to have antimicrobial properties, but did you know it can inhibit certain fungus too? 

From chasing off herbivores to curing fungus, garlic is very versatile and of course...organic. After all who wants to be dousing their homegrown produce in chemicals, right? Especially since something natural can d the job just as well!

Plus garlic is super cheap compared to pretty much anything available in the garden center, right?

How to mulch with grass clippings

Have you ever tried mulching the garden with grass? Weeds are always a big problem for me and my weed barrier fabric was really late getting here this year. Since it didn't get in on time, my garden was quickly becoming overrun with weeds.

I turned to grass clippings to save my garden from drowning in weeds.

I try to stay on top of the weeds, but it seems that no matter how many weeds I pull out or how much time I spend pulling them, they're always one step ahead of me!

Normally I mulch with straw, but between not being able to find any straw and waiting on my weed barrier fabric to arrive, the weeds had started to get out of control.

Confession time: I've been known to mow parts of my garden when it gets too bad! If the mower fits between the rows....I'm going for it! Trust me, it works. Mow the weeds down then water a bit and those weeds pull out so easily!

But this is not about the things I do when I'm desperate to see the dirt again, this is about preventing that from happening.

That's where mulching comes in. I've mulched my garden for many years but usually I use straw, which was mysteriously hard to find this year. 

So I needed to come up with a different method because I really do think my garden does better with heavy mulching.

Marigolds: grow your own pest spray (Try this!)

I'm sure by now you've heard that you should plant Marigolds in your garden to keep insects away. While there are conflicting studies and first hand accounts, by and large it seems like many people give it a try anyway....and why not? Marigolds are pretty, hardy and easy to grow. Plus, they might help. 

Marigolds are a very easy to grow flower, plus they bloom continuously through the summer. Marigolds range in color from pale ivory colored to bright orange with rust colored variations. 

There are more than 50 different species of marigolds, but the ones we're discussing are the carnation like flowers known as the common marigold (Tagetes) not Calendula (Calendula officinalis) aka pot Marigold. 

The only reason I mention this is because whenever anyone talks about using marigold, they usually are referring to Calendula. Calendula has a ton of fabulous properties and it's often used in soaps or lotions and even teas. I use it in my Skin Healing Salve recipe and my Sunburn Tea Bath. 

As amazing as it is, Calendula will not have the desired effect in this application though. You need the normal marigold that you can buy in any plant nursery. (see photos)

15 Garden supplies from the dollar store

Gardening can be expensive! There is always something else you need for the garden and buying everything from the nursery...or even the big box store can get expensive. There is no reason to spend that much money! I buy lots of garden supplies at the dollar store (I prefer Dollar Tree) 

Many are the same exact item I buy at the garden supply center and others I go through so quickly that I feel like I'm just throwing money away! I'm more of a frugal gardener...so, here are all of the garden supplies I always buy at the dollar store and what I use them for.

Plant sprayers: for misting seedlings and indoor plants or applying foliar sprays.

Garden twine, clothesline, pantyhose: use pantyhose to tie up top heavy plants to keep them from toppling over or  tie smaller pieces around individual fruits or vegetables to protect them from pests. Twine and clothesline can used for climbing vines.

Pots and planters: I swear, every year the selection gets better! They stock everything from plastic seedling pots, terracotta and ceramic pots to large plastic planters.

8 Organic liquid fertilizers you can make!

Organic gardeners are always looking for ways to improve their soil naturally. Of course you can buy organic fertilizers in a garden center but wouldn't it be more natural to just make them?

I have tried many ways to make organic fertilizer for my garden over the years and have found them to be just as good as commercially available fertilizers. Plus I just like knowing what is going into my plants.

So what kinds of organic soil amendments are there? We all know that coffee grounds give plants a nitrogen boost and compost tea is a great fertilizer.

Most people also know about it's stronger cousin, poop tea fertilizer. (I'll still include those recipes just in case you're new to the MYO fertilizer arena) 

There are so many more fertilizers that you can make though! I've been looking way past common into the arena of kitchen scraps and garbage!

I really like to find a new use for things you were going to throw away anyway, and make them into valuable fertilizers for your organic garden.

We've talked about dry organic soil amendments in the post Feed Your Garden. Today I want to talk about making your own liquid organic fertilizers.

Most of these are made by allowing the chosen material to steep in water for several days. After a few days most of the soluble nutrients will have seeped into the water solution.

Unless you actually want to ferment the material, this is where you want to stop steeping and use the fertilizer on your plants. I personally don't ferment fertilizer but some people have great success with it.

7 Ways to use beer in the garden

It's summertime and if you're anything like us, you have the occasional gathering which results in a bit of a mess to clean up afterwards.

I often spend an hour or more disposing of half empty bottles of soda, water and beer. What a waste! I save the water bottles to use on my houseplants but did you know that you can also use beer in the garden?

Stale beer has yeast, proteins, sugars and other beneficial nutrients like potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and more. Beer also has carbohydrates which feed the microbes in the soil, who in turn feed the plants. 

Plus after sitting out overnight the alcohol has evaporated. Alcohol can harm plants so if you happen to have skunky beer you want to use up, just open it and let it sit for a day or two before using it.

I've composed a list of 7 ways you can use beer in and around your garden to benefit plants and attract insects. 

Uses for beer in the garden

Fertilizer: 
Watered down beer will add nutrients and nitrogen to the soil to give your plants a boost.

Compost starter:
Give your compost a jump start by dumping beer on it. The yeast and sugar in the beer feed the beneficial bacteria in compost to really get it cooking.

Feed your garden: Coffee grounds, eggshells & wood ash

What do used coffee grounds, broken eggshells and ash from your fireplace all have in common? They can all feed your garden and house plants with important nutrients! Plus they are all organic soil amendments, which is always an added bonus when gardening!

Good soil is the most important part of a successful growing, but it doesn't get that way on it's own. While it may start out as what we would call 'good' or 'bad' soil, it can be changed in many ways. 

For instance, certain vegetable plants add nitrogen to the soil while others use it up. Companion planting can be used to balance these additions and subtractions but sometimes you have to turn to soil amendments to fix what's wrong.

You plants need nutrients to support healthy growth. While there are lots of nutrients that go into healthy plants the three main nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Unfortunately nitrogen gets used up pretty fast, so it's important to add it back. This is why many gardeners fertilize regularly. 

Both potassium and nitrogen are water soluble and can get washed away with heavy rains or watering.

Phosphorus is essential for producing flowers so your flowering plants will have a higher phosphorus requirement.

8 Reasons why plants love cinnamon (These really work!)

Did you know that plain old kitchen cinnamon is an amazing fungicide? Not only that, but cinnamon can be used in the garden so many different ways. I've discovered 8 different ways to use cinnamon for plants. From fungus killer to rooting hormone, cinnamon has got ya covered!

There are 2 things that I'm sure you know about me by now.

1) I'm frugal
2) I prefer to do things as natural as possible.

Pretty simple right? I try to do things the way my great-grandma did. She lived on a farm in the 1920's, and raised 6 kids on 1 income! Everything did double duty and it was done the cheapest way possible. I'm just like her! 

So I'm often looking for simple solutions instead of the expensive commercial crap the media tries to convince us we need now.

That type of search is exactly what led me to cinnamon as a remedy for what ails my plants. I mostly use cinnamon for seedlings since cinnamon prevents dampening off disease, but it can be used several other ways. 

Here are my most common uses for cinnamon in the home & garden.

Using recycled K-cups as seedling pots

Every year I start a good amount of my garden plants from seeds. Actually, I start just about everything but the annual flowers I put in the planters. I'm also frugal, so I often buy my seed starting supplies when they go on clearance in the fall.

This past year I bought some 'mini greenhouse' kits with growing pellets for $.99 each. At that price I bought all 3 that they had! This is how I started my seeds this year.

I simply watered the pellets to make them expand, added seeds, put the lid on then filled out the diagram. I put the mini greenhouse in a sunny window and waited.

Everything was sprouting well and really filling in the growing pellets. I was starting to wonder where I'm going to move them next, when I remembered.....

Now bear with me a second here cause this is where we go back a few months. In January my husband showed me an article that mentioned how many hundreds of thousands of K-cups end up in landfills every year.

Great! Like I needed something else to feel guilty about...right?

So I started saving them with hopes of finding a way to recycle them. I peeled off the foil tops and shook the coffee grounds out to use in my garden and compost. I let the cups dry out, but didn't really know what to do with them.

In February though, Lisa from Fresh Eggs Daily wrote a post about using K-cup as seed starters. Great idea! Unfortunately I had already started my seeds at the time, but these would be perfect now for thinning them out!

I lined up the recycled K-cups in the same configuration as the growing pellets. I actually used the lid of the mini greenhouse since I wasn't using it anymore, and it worked perfectly!

I also wrote the name of the seedling on the outside of the cup in sharpie for good measure!

Next I added my soil mixture and watered them all so the soil would settle. I gently teased apart the soil in each pellet using a toothpick and transplanted 1-2 seedlings into each K-cup.

This is the before & after.

I filled in each cup with soil and watered again, being careful that the seedling didn't fall over and was well supported by the soil.

Then I moved them back to my sunny window and that's it! The K-cups should give them enough room that they can establish a strong root system for when I transplant them into the ground in a few weeks....plus I saved some plastic from the landfill!

Now granted, this only save a small fraction of K-cups from the landfill. Some is better than none though, right? I am looking for other ways to reuse K-cups though so if you have a great idea, please forward it to me so I can give it a try!

Thanks and happy healthy seedlings to all!

~L  

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Free flowers....seeds and volunteers

Am I the only one that gets free seed packets in the mail? I get a packet from a heating company every year with a Christmas card. I get another packet from a national publishing company and still more from friends and neighbors when they get those 'party favor' seed papers. 

Normally I just don't use them since I have my gardens planned out way in advance. This year though I decided to try them out. 

I planted each packet in a separate pot (planning on thinning later)  and sat back and waited. The results were a little unexpected. Well, I expected the seed papers to not work at all and that was exactly what happened! 

Just from looking at them I could only see maybe 3 seeds on each.....the odds were against that one to start with. Plus I know they're made with wet paper mush type product. 

Any time you get seeds wet they run the risk of starting to germinate, so for them to be pressed into paper and dry up would be the end of that sprout.

8 Recycled seed starter containers from single use plastic

It's almost time to put the seedlings in the garden, and if you're like me you started some of them weeks ago. I'm very frugal when it comes to a lot of things and seed starting is no different. Now, I know I'm not the first one to use old plastic containers to start seeds in. Not only is it a common idea, but it's so very practical. Especially with single use plastic!

Our lives are so full of plastic that designed to be used exactly once, that it just makes sense to reuse it in any way we can. Now I know my seed starting area is not perfectly lined up with same size plant cells and trays, but I save money and maybe help save the planet a little too. Win-win!

Besides, have you ever seen the prices on seed starting trays? They can go from $1 for a small 6 cell tray to up to $15 each for a larger one! That's just crazy if you ask me, especially since we throw away so many perfectly usable plastic containers all the time. 

So today I want to share with you a few of my favorite recycled seed starting containers.