With the nice weather this week, I heard and saw a lot of lawn mowers going. I cannot stress too much the importance of No Mow May to help pollinator populations. Even this week with the nice weather I still have not seen a honeybee. Plenty of bumblebees and mason bees, but not a single honeybee even in our garden center. With the milder winter, the bee supply customers we have had coming in said their hives faired well and some have been adding new boxes to existing hives, but I haven’t seen anything from the wild population yet. 

Well enough about the bees for this week. This week I wanted to talk about some helpful gardening hacks, those tips collected over the years that make projects go easier. Like storing garden shovels, trowels and spades in a bucket of sand with oil in it. Not just any old oil, use fresh linseed oil so that you don’t attract animals with vegetable or peanut oil. Also the linseed oil is cleaner than motor oil or bar and chain oil. By pressing the shovel blades into the oily sand, the sand will eventually rub off any rust already on the blade and the oil will coat the surface of the blade to prevent future rust. Save old garden hose after it breaks, they have plenty of uses. Use as a bark protector when staking up young trees. I had a customer come in just last week looking for just such an item as he did not save his old hose. You can put a piece of hose down to the bottom of the hole when planting a new tree or shrub, so that you can pour water down to the bottom of the hole to get the roots to run deeper. You want the roots growing deeper the first year to increase their survivability. After the first summer, pull the hose out and refill the hole with soil before winter. If you’re starting seeds indoors in 4 inch or 6 inch plastic or clay pots, put a coffee filter in the pot first so when you go to plant your seedling outside you can just flip the pot over and the plant will come out freely without having to disturb the roots. Plant your plant with the coffee filter still attached as it will just decompose in the ground. Now this is one I just heard about, and I am going to try it this year to test. Use a little baking soda around your tomatoes to make them sweeter. Baking soda is high Ph and I guess that will translate into the tomato. With a larger garden this year, I’ll try this on a couple of my tomatoes. 

Foxfarm makes a product, Bemby - Sweet and Dandy, that we carry that is suppose to do that as well for cannabis growers. I just never thought of it for tomatoes. Ever have old bananas lying around, don’t throw old bananas out. Even when they are too far gone for banana bread, put them in the garden, no they won’t grow but they are high in potassium which is as beneficial to plants as it is to us. Just like throwing eggs shells into the garden to add calcium to the soil. These are things that your garden plants can use right away, no need for composting. Pipe insulation can be used for more than just pipes, not the fiberglass rolled type, but the three foot long foam pipe insulation that looks like a wacky noodle pool toy. These can be used to put foam handles and grips on your gardening tools to prevent calluses. The pipe insulation has a slit down one side so that it can be opened up to put over the handle then close it tight and wrap with duct or electrical tape. Recycle one and two liter soda bottles, by using them as hot caps this time of year. Just cut off the bottom and put over your seedlings on cold nights. 

During cold but sunny days, leave the bottles on the plant, just take off the cap so that the plant will not get too hot. Recycle canned vegetable and dog food cans by opening both ends and using around seedlings to prevent cutworms as cutworms do not like to climb. Press the can an inch or so into the soil so the cutworm won’t go below the can. Plant annuals or seasonal plants in a pot inside pot method. Let’s say you have a ten inch potted begonia that will flower right up until frost. Instead of just planting it in your flowerbed - put a similar ten inch pot in the soil and then just put the ten inch begonia pot in it. In the fall when the begonia dies you can lift it out quickly and replace it with a new ten inch potted mum instead. I hope even one of these hacks will help you out this spring and if you have a hack to share, stop by and let me know. I may know a lot about gardening, but I certainly do not know it all and I love to keep learning...

And lastly kiddy pools make great holiday plant waterers for potted plants when you go on vacation. I have a cattle foot bath.