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Building a perfect garden consumes not only time but money. However, you can find many substitutes for your gardening accessories right in your house. Check out these 31 practical hacks to save your budget while growing a wonderland garden!
Don't waste your toilet paper roll. Instead use them as plant containers. Simply place the paper rolls filled with soil and seeds in a waterproof container, and your seeds will have their own space to grow.
There's a better use for vintage teacups than letting them sit and gather dust. Place a layer of small pebbles at the bottom, fill the teacup with potting soil, and finally place a succulent in it. There you just found a sweet home for your succulent.
Plastic forks can also be a powerful weapon in the garden. Stick the handle of the forks around your plants with the tines sticking up, and animals will stay away as they’re afraid of getting stabbed.
Old spoons can find their second home. Find some flat spoons or use a hammer to flatten them out and let your imagination run wild with craft painting. After you've decorated them and named them, just put them in the right place in your garden.
An old colander can be used for a whole range of different purposes. With a coffee filter and plenty of soil, an old colander can be turned into a lovely flower pot. Add a chain to the handle of the colander, and you have a floating planter.
A bee bath is a highlight for a vibrant garden. Find a shady spot, and place a pot upside down as a base. Then set a bowl on the top with some marbles inside. Fill it with an inch of water, and you can just wait for the bees and butterflies to visit.
Another way to keep hungry animals away from your plants is using soap. Grate a highly fragrant bar of soap and spread it around your plants. The smell of the soap can keep the animals away while not harming your plants. You can also hang it from tree branches.
Worried about leaving your plants for a few days and letting them wither? They won't as long as you have a paper towel. Twist the paper towel into a tube shape, place one end in a jar filled with water, and stick the other end into the soil. If you do that then the plant will always have enough water.
A potato may seem plain, but it can be the perfect home for a single stem. Simply use a knife to drill a hole in it, cut an inch of the branch from the stem of a rose, and stick it into the hole. In a few months, you'll have a rose on a potato.
Plant roots can quickly rot when sitting in excess water, but this problem can almost be entirely solved with an old sponge. Just put the sponge in the bottom of the pots, and it will absorb more water and let in more air.
Banana peels make good compost when mixed in with a compost heap. It helps your plants grow by adding calcium, potassium, and sodium to the soil. Cutting banana peels into pieces will make the absorption happen even more quickly.
Leaving garden tools around can hurt yourself or end up blunt. However, sticking your oil sprayed tools in a bucket filled with sand and a little bit of mineral oil will save you the trouble.
Epsom salt is not only good for people but also for plants. All you need to do is mix two teaspoons of Epsom salt with one gallon of water and pour onto your new seeding. It will help the seeds to sprout and absorb nutrients.
Slugs in the garden can be a headache. However, a bottle of beer can solve the problem. Simply place a tray of beer in the slugs' favorite spot and lure them in to drown in it. So, you don't have to put up with your plants getting eaten.
Don't just dump your empty wine bottle; make it your plant waterer! Poke a hole in the cork and stuff it back into a wine bottle filled with water. Then stick it in the soil, and the plant will stay hydrated!
There are many other uses for the old sink when it is replaced. Cut off the end of the water pipe in the sink and fill it with soil and seeds. Place some rustic plates in the planter as decorations, and it will make for an amazing corner of the garden in spring.
Extra water causes not only root rot but also soil loss. To avoid such a case, you can simply put a coffee filter at the bottom of the pot and then fill the pot with soil. The filter helps the water to drain easily while retaining the soil.
Cinnamon has many uses besides enhancing flavor. It helps save young plants from disease and keeps slime molds and mushrooms from sprouting in pots. It also can be used as a rooting agent and a weapon to deter ant infestations.
Honey can be a natural growth stimulant for your plant cuttings. You can scrape the roots off the plants, dip them in the honey, and then bury them in the soil. Or you can put the honey-dipped cuttings in water with a teaspoon of honey in it.
PH level is important when it comes to planting. With baking soda and vinegar, you can easily tell which plants you can cultivate. If the soil bubbles when you pour vinegar on it, it means the soil is alkaline. If it bubbles when you add baking soda, then it is acidic.
You can save a lot by using citrus peels as plant containers. All you need to do is drill 1 or 2 holes in the bottom of the skin and then fill the skin with soil and seeds. Citrus peels can be mixed directly with compost to provide nutrients for plants.
When spraying weed killer, you may accidentally injure your precious wanted plants. In this case, a spray collar is needed. Take off the top and bottom of a metal food can, and you will have a ready made spray collar when you next weed the garden.
Already planted the seeds and then realized that you don't have a watering can? A simple trick can help you out: Take an empty milk jug and prick several holes in the cap with a needle. Fill it with water, and you have a simple sprayer.
A sudden frost is a threat to plants. Instead of covering the whole plant-growing area, you can protect individual plants with cloches. You only need to cut the bottoms off milk cartons and place them over your fragile seedlings.
Weeds are always annoying because they suck the nutrients your plants need. However, there's a better way than just tossing the weeds out. Put them in a bucket of water and after the nutrients are released from the weeds, pour the water back onto your plants.
It's pretty essential to have pot markers to distinguish all similar-looking plants. Old wine corks can be a stylish pot marker. Spearing the corks with plants' names on kebab skewers and placing them in the garden will make for an impressive show.
If you want to separate some plants from your garden, you can build a raised garden bed. Line some cinder blocks up in a rectangle and use planks to mold and shape. Then fill the garden bed with fresh soil, and you can grow your plants.
Don't just throw your soda cans away, for they can be mini planters. Just fill the cans with soil and plant some seeds, and you will have your personalized pot plants. Just be careful not to cut yourself when taking the tops off.
It's not easy to evenly space your seeds by hand, yet you can find helpful tools in your kitchen to do it. Find a muffin tin, press it into the soil, and you'll have a well planned field.
Vinegar is a good choice when considering natural herbicides. By spraying a mixture of vinegar, salt and dish soap on the unwanted plants, it sucks water out of the leaves, and causes the weeds to wither eventually.
Small pests like snails like to eat plants. An effective way to keep them away is to place broken eggshells around the plant. To avoid being cut by the debris, they crawl out from the plants. Do make sure to get rid of the egg smell though, or it may attract rodents.
