We want to share a wonderful money saver I stumbled on. I crushed a piece of newspaper and shoved it among plants to save going to the house. Next morning I recovered and in it were 20 slugs of all sizes. I was so excited I put more crumbled paper around the plants. By the […]
Stop wasting money on slug pellets, they don’t work, slugs don’t even like them. save your eggshells, dry them in oven, crush and sprinkle round the plants you want to protect. Snails will not cross them. They break down and benefit the soil too without chemicals. P.S. I tried the scrunched up newspaper tip but […]
I decided to start tidying my small vege garden today, ready for spring planting. In the centre of it there was an old square recycle bin, lying upside down. As I lifted it up I just about fainted; the inside was covered with snails! There must have been a thousand! Now, what to do with […]
A pukeko is a bird with a strong sense of smell and it can be deterred from the garden with the smell of mothballs – but this may have an effect on beneficial insects in a vegetable garden too. Mothballs are usually used around flowers like roses.
We always plant our pea seeds in lengths of spouting filled with potting mix. When the seeds have germinated and are ready for the garden, all we do is dig a trench and push the length of pea plants into the trench. Works better than trying to get the seeds started in the soil and […]
I live in a small unit with a courtyard. I will be buying potting mix, which I will be putting directly into bags. I bury the bags out in the courtyard and plant directly into those bags by simply cutting small slits in the bag. No mess no fuss. This will be my first go […]
I grow silver beet – however don’t always eat it all. I also had a problem with the plants going to seed as I didn’t pick it fast enough. Now I just pick and chop up and freezing in bags works nicely. Bags can also be reused. When I cook I just put the frozen […]
Save seeds from supermarket or market purchased vegetables. If the seeds are moist such as tomato, pumpkin etc, space them out onto handitowels or toilet roll sheets. Write the date and variety on the paper. I love checking out farmers markets for unusual varieties of vegetables that contain seed to grow. You get to have […]
When raising seedlings, put old tea bags in a dish of water and sprinkle or place your seeds on top. When they shoot and grow up a bit, transplant them to potting mix in raising cups with tweezers from your wife’s manicure set (while she’s out!). This way you definitely get only one seed per […]
When planting carrot seeds, put an egg tray in the ground at ground level, fill with seed mix soil & plant 1 carrot seed per egg hole When the carrots come up, you don’t have to thin them, they grow to a good size because they are spaced & if any don’t come up you […]