Clever Gardening Ideas You Can’t Live Without

Gardening is hard. Everyone who has or hasn’t attempted to have a garden knows that.

However, it doesn’t have to be! There’s a plethora of ways to make gardening as easy as pie, and we’re here to help you.

Keep Plants Hydrated Without You Being There

This is a super handy idea if you’re going on vacation or happen to go on a lot of business trips. You can still have a garden if you live a busy life! To keep your plants watered, take a roll of paper towels (attached) and weave them through your garden. Then dunk both ends in glasses of water. The paper towel will absorb the water and spread it across to your plants. Make sure the pot or garden is higher than the level of the water or it may suck all the water out of glass right away.

Soda Bottle Drip Feeder

This you have to do before you put the plant in the ground, but it’s a great idea because the plants can get water directly to their roots instead of having it trickle down from overhead. Use a tool to poke holes in the bottle (less is more) and bury it in the ground with the opening just peeking through the top of the soil. Then plant your plant next to the bottle and eventually the roots will wrap around the bottle and use it as its water source.

Pot-in-Pot Planting

Normally, when the seasons change, you dig up old flowers and then plant the new ones. However, you can save tons of time by using this awesome pot-in-pot system. Just dig a hole and add an empty plastic pot. Then, put your plant in the plastic pot and simply switch it out for another whenever you want.

Foam Peanuts

Sometimes for large flower pots you don’t really need to fill the while thing with soil. It makes the pot super heavy and wastes soil you could use for something else. Instead, put foam packing peanuts at the bottom of your pot and lay a landscape fabric over it to make sure the soil above doesn’t seep through.

Garden Bin

If you have limited space, this is a great idea. Take a storage bin and puncture holes in the bottom for drainage. Use the tip above and insert packing peanuts across the bottom so it doesn’t get too heavy with the soil you put above it. Plant your flowers and voila, you have your own little garden.

Milk Carton Garden Tools

Sometimes there just aren’t enough garden tools to go around. Luckily, you can make many tools out of plastic milk cartons by cutting out the desired tool shape and using the milk handle as the tool handle. Check out all the different tools this woman makes here.

Grow Roses from Potatoes 

You may not know that you can grow plants simply by cutting them and placing them in something where they can grow roots. So, instead of buying a rose bush, just cut roses at the stem, about 9 inches long, place them in potatoes, place the potatoes in the ground, and wait for the rose stems to grow roots. Check out how it’s done here.

Put a Diaper in Your Plant

Place a diaper at the bottom of your planter to help your plant retain moisture. This way, if you miss a watering day, it isn’t too big a deal.

Raised Cinder Block Beds

This option for raised beds is awesome, especially when you don’t have the carpentry skills to make one out of wood. You can use cinder blocks to create raised beds and make it as wide or narrow as you want, depending on the amount of space you have. Just remember to put cardboard down before the soil.

Use Vegetable Water

The next time you boil vegetables, save the water. The water actually has lots of nutrients from the veggies that will be good for your plants. Wait for the water to cool and use it to fertilize them.

Line the Bottom of Pots With Coffee Filters

It happens to the best of us – soil down the drain or on the ground after you water your plants. However, there is a way to prevent this and save the soil you paid for! Line the bottom of the pot with coffee filters so the water can still get through but the soil won’t.

Control Invasive Plants

So, you want to grow invasive plants? Here is how you do it: Cut off the bottom of a plastic pot and place it in the ground. Then, place your invasive plant in the pot. The pot will act like a container, shielding your other plants from the one that tends to take over. Get the details here.

Homemade Weed Killer

You can actually make homemade weed killer by combining these three ingredients you most likely already have in your house. Just make sure to not get it on anything you don’t want killed.

Pinch Your Herbs

This is such an interesting tip. Apparently, with certain herbs, such as basil, pinching them encourages growth. If you pinch the upper part of the stem, it sends a distress signal to the rest of the plant telling it to grow bigger.