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Quick Tips For Plants & Garden
- Plant Lots of Garlic: Garlic is an effective and natural bug repellent. Plant lots of it in your garden in among other vegetables to protect them from pests. You could also make your own garlic spray by boiling a pint of water, throw in roughly chopped garlic cloves and steep until the water cools. Remove garlic bits then spray on plants frequently.
- Boiled Eggs Water & African Violets: When you boil eggs, save the water and when it’s reached room temperature–use it to water your african violets. The calcium in the water helps with blooms and plant growth.
- Rose Bush Booster: Save your egg shells and once you have a bunch, crush them up and dig them into the roots of your rose bushes. You could also save the water from boiled eggs, or soak egg shells in water, then water the roses with that enriched water.
- Clean Garden Pots: Some of you may have already been able to haul out and plant garden pots, containers and hanging baskets, lucky you! but for the rest of us–you can clean last year’s grime & rings away with a 50/50 water and vinegar solution. Works well on both plastic and clay containers.
- Leftover Beer: Pour the half empty bottles and cans of beer into a pail and leave sit for a few days for the alcohol to evaporate and the beer to go flat. Use the flat beer to give plants a little drink, this gives them extra nutrients. Great way to use up waste from a party! Don’t forget you can also use a can of beer in lawn care for a grass booster.
- Use Dishwater To Spray Plants: After washing dishes in the sink, use the dishwater on houseplants (make sure it’s not too warm). Spray or gently pour the soapy water over the plants and bugs won’t be too happy about it. If using a regular sized spray bottle, you can add another tsp of liquid dish detergent if a stronger soap solution is needed. Don’t do this more than once a week.
- Keep Potted Plant Soil Moist: Found this tip in an old magazine for homemakers: When going away for a few days, soak a large sponge in water and place it at the base of house plants, they will stay moist for days. I would use a fresh sponge and not one used at all for cleaning.
- Organic Weed Killer: Kill weeds dead with a good shot of vinegar. For best results, don’t dilute with water and choose a time to spray weeds when there’s no sign of rain. Household vinegar is around 5% acetic acid concentration which will do the trick for baby weeds. If you can find a stronger vinegar (like pickling which is about 9%), that will give better results for more mature (and stubborn) weeds.
- Dead Grass From Dog Urine: If your dog isn’t trained to potty in one particular spot, here’s something you can try to keep your grass from being killed off: Faithfully water the spot where the dog urinates. You’ll have to watch and pay attention to where they go, but watering it asap to dilute the urine should help the grass. If the grass has turned brown already, try sprinkling a generous layer of white granulated sugar over the area and then watering.
Also see 25 Tips For Plants & Flowers – Timeless Wisdom Collection.
These quick tips were previously published on Tipnut as single tips, they’ve been moved to this page for better organization and convenience. Any bookmarks you may have had will automatically forward to this page.
The comments below are timestamped earlier than the post date since they have been moved from the original tip post to here so they won’t be lost.
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If you’re talking about the calcium in the egg shells, there’s a lot of years of decompostion before it will be available to the roses. You’ll get better results faster by using compost and liquid seaweed or fish emulsion to boost performance organically.
Years?! Oh my! Thanks for the info Doug
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One could probably use sweet water aquarium water to water the plants. Should be enough nutrients in there to keep them happy.
Water after boiling vegetables could also be useful for that. At least if you have not added salt to it.
I have another tip, to be used if you already have dead spots on your lawn. Just take a spade, dig down around the little spot, and flip the sod over to expose the dirt. Loosen the dirt by jabbing your spade into it a few times. Sprinkle some grass seed and water daily for a week… works like a charm. Of course, you have to stay on top of it or the spots get too large.
I have tried the regular household vinegar on all sizes of weeds, and unwanted grass, in my gravel driveway – several times.
The weeds and unwanted grass turned brown in the hot summer sun each time. Even when the vinegar was applied and worked for at least a week before it rained, the weeds and unwanted grass still perked up as healthy as ever as soon as it rained.
For me the regular household vinegar has not worked in my driveway! Any suggestions for additional natural and safe substances, other than looking for the 9% pickling vinegar (I am inclined to doubt that it will permanently work either)?
break up drywall over the spot and water; it helps absorb the dog urine
I have 3 dogs. What I have found that works wonders is giving the dogs a bit of tomato juice. The acid it the tomatoes cuts the acid in the urine and eliminates brown spots. A tablespoon of tomato juice or paste a week does it. I also feed the dogs leftover spaghetti. They love it!
I just bought a pre-mixed organic weed killer. It was kind of costly though the ingredients are not. The ingredients are vinegar, lemon juice, clove oil, and yucca (to make it stick). Anyone have this recipe? It worked like a charm on everything from dandelions, to clover, to poison ivy, to blister weed.
Another great way to boost your roses is with banana skins. Toss them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Once a month (or as much as once a week, depending on how much work you want to put in), take out two or three banana peels and pop them in the blender with a cup of water. Pour the resulting puree around the base of your rose bushes. Work it into the soil (doesn’t have to be very deep). The rose bushes will benefit from the extra potassium, and as an added bonus, it helps deter aphids.
Dishsoap and warm water to execute all beetles including junebugs. Catch them and place them in the soapy water and watch them go bye bye. I have tried this and its been a blessing!
We had a Shetland Sheepdog who took a liking to a cup of tea (no sugar but with milk)who, up until the time she ‘discovered’ it, left spots on the lawn. Within a week or so of a regular ‘cuppa’, the lawn spots never happened again.It works!
To LORI
Do you have the amount of each ingredient for the organic weed killer? I have been looking for something that is safe to kill poison ivy. Could you post it if you or anyone has it? Thank you
We are being rationed water here in Los Angeles.
Can I use leftover soapy dishwater to ground water my tomatoes?
rid rose bushes of those pecky green bugs that congregate around your newly formed buds
Dont discard the leftover tobacco when you butt your smoke. empty the unused tobacco(without the paper) into a small container and fill with tap water. Let stand for a couple of days then strain into a spray bottle. Spray the affected areas evry couple of days.Within a week they will almost disappear