It’s almost time to dig out your gardening gloves and tools to prepare for spring planting. Whether you’re a beginner gardener or someone who’s been at it for years, we can all use a few tips to make gardening easier, right? We’ve found some terrific gardening tricks for everything from testing your soil composition to starting your seeds and beyond. Check them out! And don’t miss our post with tips to get rid of weeds and out garden DIYs to make your garden the envy of the neighborhood.
Gardening Tricks You Need to Know
Place egg shells around the bottoms of plants to add calcium to the soil. The shells also discourage pests and small bugs.
via The Chic Site
If you’re an early planter, warm up the soil before you put your seeds or plants in the ground. All you need is some black plastic sheeting and bricks. Let it sit for about a week, and you’re good to go!
via Whole Lifestyle Nutrition
Insulate tomato plants with plastic wrap if you live in a cooler climate. It creates a greenhouse effect and warms up the plants to help them thrive. (We have more plastic wrap hacks!)
via Don’t Waste the Crumbs
Do a quick mason jar soil test to determine the soil composition of your garden space, and make adjustments as necessary.
via Preparedness Mama
Use an old golf bag as a caddy for your garden tools.
via Real Simple
Garden markers can help you easily identify what’s planted where. We love these wine cork and fork garden markers. You can use them as decor in your potted plants, too! (See more wine cork projects.)
via This Mama Loves
Make your spring gardening chores easier with a DIY watering can. It’s the perfect size for watering seedlings and small plants.
via A Journey to Dream
Secure row covers with binder clips on the edges. This will protect young plants from cold weather (and pesky animals who happen upon your seedlings).
via eBay
Use a sled to easily transport heavy items to and from your garden shed.
via Ann Arbor
Now this is a total time saver… Wash your produce right after you harvest them to save you from taking dirty fruits and veggies into the kitchen. This tub and colander (affiliate) combo is the perfect tool.
Brighten up your space with small container gardens that you can enjoy all year long. Beautiful teacups are the perfect containers for herbs, succulents and other small plants.
via The Inspired Room
Grow plants in diy hanging baskets made from old colanders. (See 15 more ways to use colanders!)
via The Micro Gardener
Put a diaper in potted plants to help them retain moisture. Neat!
via Sand Paper and Silly Putty
If your mailbox has seen better days, replace it and put the old one near your garden to store your garden tools.
via Repurposing
Want to bring the baby out with you to the garden? Put a crib sheet over the pack and play to provide shade and to keep bugs away.
via Little Baby Watson
Check with your local home improvement store for free containers to start your seeds. They’re usually happy to give them away! If you can’t find any, though, use one of the starter methods below.
via Happy Money Saver
Start your seeds in eggshells. By starting your seeds instead of buying plants that have already begun to grow, you can save big bucks on your gardening costs.
via Squawk Fox
Old milk cartons make great seed starters, too.
via The Crafty Swedes
Don’t throw out those citrus peels. You don’t even have to pull the seedlings out — just plop them into the ground, peel and all, when they’re ready to be planted.
via My Roman Apartment
Is yard space limited? Hack Rubbermaid containers to grow your own container garden on your back porch. They’re large enough to accommodate just about anything you’d want to plant.
via Back Porch Garden
Plastic forks inserted stem side down into the ground can help keep little critters away from small plants. Totally going to try it this year to deter our annual bunny invaders.
via Positive Gardening
