16 Gardening Tricks That Every Gardener Should Know About
by CODY TM
With the new season of gardening among us, there are multiple beginners just starting to grow their first plants. Gardening can seem complicated at times, but luckily, there are an abundance of tricks and tips to help you get started!
1. Homemade Weed Killer
To create your own weed killer, the recipe calls for 1 gallon of white vinegar, 1 cup of table salt, and 1 tbsp of liquid dish soap. No one really has time to pull weeds all day. Chances are, you already have these ingredients lying around your kitchen, so whipping up a batch of weed killer wouldn’t take too long.
–Be careful because this solution can be harmful to grass as well, so it’s best used in sidewalk cracks, landscape borders, and other areas with unwanted grass or flowers, and not spots where the spray may be harmful to your other plants. Also, if you spray the weeds when they are exposed to direct sunlight, it works its magic a lot faster.
2. Dry Creek Bed Garden
To break up a large portion of the yard, consider a dry creek bed for added visual interest. It not only looks fabulous, but it’s also great for landscape drainage and redirecting rain water on a slope. With the added benefit of the creek being low maintenance.
3. Homemade Rain Barrel
Rain barrels are easy to assemble and only take around 30 minutes or less to build. Collect the rain directly from your gutter spouts, and use it to water your garden, lawn, and potted plants. You will just need a heavy duty trash can, a drill, a pair of pliers, and a few other basic tools. There are even kits The Rain Barrel Depot can provide you as well.
4. Keep The Pets Out
Animals, especially cats, view the entire garden as one huge pooping station. This can cause you to pull out your hair from all the little surprises found around your garden. To stop these pesky little friends from pooping everywhere, strategically place a few plastic forks around your plants to deter them from destroying your fresh herbs, fruits, and veggies.
5. Rubbermaid Container Garden
If you have the lack of a backyard, do not worry! Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Using Rubbermaid storage containers, fill the bottom with packing peanuts and a layer of garden fabric so that they are easy to move. This method could even work on an apartment balcony.
6. Give Your Garden A Calcium Boost
Just like grinding your food makes it easier to digest, grinding eggshells makes it easy for your garden to absorb the calcium egg shells provide. Acting like a nutritious snack or breakfast for your garden!
7. Epsom Salt in the Garden
Epsom salt has a lot of uses. Epsom salt is rich in magnesium and sulfate which are crucial to plant life. For potted plants, mix a couple of tablespoons of the salt into your watering can once or twice a month. Even sprinkle it in your garden’s soil to help your seeds germinate better. Tomatoes and peppers benefit the most because they both tend to have a magnesium deficiency. Add a tablespoon or so in with the soil when first planting, and then sprinkle more into the soil once mature.
8. Fertilize Your Plants
Be sure to save your vegetable cooking water! The water has a lot of nutrients that your garden thrives on. Wait for the water to cool down first, and then use it to “fertilize” your garden or potted plants. This makes for a green and happy garden! I don’t recommend drinking the water or pouring the water over your plants while the water is still boiling. You may accidentally cook your plants!
9. Pinch Your Herbs
Pinch the upper portions of your herb plant stems off to encourage new leaf growth. Herbs have a natural instinct to stay alive so when they are pinched, they send a signal to the dormant leaf buds to grow.
10. Pot-in-Pot Landscaping
I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of redoing the landscaping every time the seasons change. Dig a hole for your seasonal plants and fill it with an empty plastic pot. Now you can just drop your seasonal flowers in there and easily switch them out once they’re ready to retire.
11. Line Pots with Coffee Filters
This is a wonderful method for indoor plants. Most of the time when you water indoor plants in the sink, you can lose a lot of the soil down the drain. Not to mention the mess it makes under the pot. Coffee filters allow the water to still drain, but keep the dirt contained.
12. Eggshell Starters
Get your garden started early by planting your seeds in eggshells indoors before the weather permits outdoor growth. There are several reasons why eggshells are the perfect pot for this, but the biggest is that they are cheap. Or if you own chickens then the eggs are obviously free. Eggs are full of calcium to give your seedlings that extra boost and easy to plant in the garden when ready.
13. Roses in Spuds
Just a quick tip, rose bushes or any bush, can be re-planted just by having the trimmings of the previous bush you want to grow from. Push the bottom ends of your rose trimmings into a small potato to help it retain moisture as it develops roots.
14. Stop Invasive Plants
Cut the bottom off of a plastic pot and bury it in the ground! Use it for invasive plants that tend to grow too large and take over your garden. This simple garden technique limits the growth of the root system, giving you better control over the size of the plant once it reaches maturity, and also protects the plants around it. This method is great if you’re planning on growing blackberries.
15. Plastic Pot Watering System
Place a sink pot in the middle of your garden to create a well for easier and deeper root watering. This is especially helpful for squash. As the roots mature, they get deeper and deeper into the ground’s soil, making it harder for the water to reach in a dry climate.
16. DIY Mini Greenhouse
Get your seedlings off to a good start with their very own little greenhouse! The bottom 3/4 part of a plastic soda bottle makes for the perfect little dome to cover your little pots with. This is also a great way to get the kiddos interested in gardening.
There you have it, 16 tricks of the trade for gardening. Good luck out there in the dirt!
Sources: listotic
from: http://www.realfarmacy.com/16-gardening-tricks-every-gardener/
Deadly earthquake Nepal – At least 802 fatalities so far – economic losses 3-5 billion US$
Last update: April 25, 2015 at 1:34 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Earthquake-report.com only survives with (mostly small) PRIVATE DONATIONS. Your gift will be highly appreciated.
This page will automatically refresh every 6 minutes as we might be adding updates. Do not close it but leave it open in a browser tab.
This report has been compiled by Armand Veraveck, Dr. James Daniell (CEDIM Karlsruhe), Jens Skapski and Carlos Robles.
NEPAL EARTHQUAKE FATALITY UPDATE (latest numbers we have) : 802 (758 Nepal, 7 China, 35 India and 2 Bangladesh)
–
Update 13:02 UTC : SUPERFAST aid is arriving from India. On board Search and Rescue personnel. What a great move from India !!!
Update 12:49 UTC : We have no word yet from Chinese rescuers being send to Nepal. Nepal will need as much external SaR people as possible. They will have to be flown in from everywhere in the world. Chinese rescue workers are of course also working in China as a lot of damage has been inflicted in Tibet. China reported 7 people killed by this earthquake.
Update 12:46 UTC : The seismogram recorded by Geofon in Kabul. Closer to the epicenter it will be a completely filled up with color!
Update 12:41 UTC : the Nepali government has declared the State of Emergency (anything less was not logic)
Update 12:41 UTC : People searching for friends and family members in Nepal can best use both the Google People’s Finder
Update 12:38 UTC : reports starting to come in from Gorkha district where villages have suffered severe damage and now cut off.
Update 12:34 UTC : the tweet below is one of the first ones coming from the greater epicenter area
Update 12:10 UTC : A lot of Nepali laborers are reading our pages from Qatar and Oman. We @ER truly hope that all your friends and family members are safe
Update 12:06 UTC : The earthquake toll is further climbing in Nepal and India – 750 fatalities reported so far (711 Nepal, 7 China, 30 India and 2 Bangladesh)
Update 11:32 UTC : 630 fatalities reported so far (597 Nepal, 7 China, 24 India and 2 Bangladesh)
Important update 11:8 UTC : Based on the USGS intensity values a lot more fatalities are to be expected (depending on the imported shaking values 1400 to 7500 fatalities). Let’s truly hope that we do not reach 1000 but we fear for the villages in the direct epicenter area.
Update 11:10 UTC : New fatalities numbers : 565 Nepal, 24 India, 6 China and 2 Bangladesh or 597 total
Update 11:10 UTC : Below the focal mechanism of the earthquake who is showing a mainly Thrust earthquake type
Update 10:59 UTC : 6 people are now reported killed on the Everest (avalanches). Avalanches and landslides will cause many deaths elsewhere in Nepal but nothing is known so far.
Update 10:40 UTC : New fatalities number as reported by REUTERS (we could not get a confirmation elsewhere of this number) : 449 fatalities alone in Nepal so far. To be added 29 from Bangladesh, China and India – preliminary total : 478 Sad!
Update 10:24 UTC : The death toll in Nepal alone has climbed to 202 without 1 person from the direct epicenter area!
Important Update 10:09 UTC : Everything we have reported so far and counting already many fatalities (6 are reported in China) comes from the main populated town like Kathmandu. We have NO REPORT YET from the direct epicenter. Roads towards the hardest hit villages will almost certainly have been devastated and are at no use for rescue personnel. We expect major tragedies in these areas. It will take probably until tomorrow before we have news from the direct epicenter area. Sad, very sad.
Update 09:55 UTC : At least 19 people killed in India. Damage as far as Delhi! 2people killed in Bangladesh
Update 09:46 UTC : A friend just reports from Kathmandu : “Lots of casualties around as it is shaking since 2 hrs regularly every 15 minutes we are very much frightening and staying safely outside at outside our open building.”
Important Update 09:29 UTC : At least 150 people killed in Kathmandu, 1 in China, 10 in Pokhara, 2 at Mount Everest Base Camp and 11 in India (2 caused by mass panic)
Update 09:27 UTC : Emergency numbers in Nepal
Update 09:22 UTC : Reports are reaching us that the Base Camp of Mount Everest has been damaged seriously. Some people (number unsure have been killed – to be reconfirmed)
Update 09:20 UTC : As many as 10 people were killed in Nepal’s picturesque Pokhara area. If we overlook the situation we can tell that at this moment we have certainty that at least 100 people were killed during this earthquake. This count has not 1 person from the direct epicenter area.
Update 09:19 UTC : IANS reports that a total of five people, including two children, were killed when buildings collapsed in different parts of Bihar following the earthquake. The two children of the same family died in a wall collapse in Bhagalpur. One person each were killed in Sitamarhi, Darbhanga and Vaishali.
Update 09:12 UTC : The earthquake cost coming out of Dr. James Daniells theoretical models goes up to 2.5 billion US$!
Update 09:11 UTC : Nepal’s information minister has told BBC that there has been massive damage in Gorkha, Lamjung and Bhaktapur.
Update 09:08 UTC : some pictures circulating on the internet are clearly from other earthquakes. Why are people doing things like this?
Update 09:04 UTC : Damage and collapsed houses are reported not only in Nepal, but also in Tibet and in India. The death toll is further rising.
Update 08:53 UTC – 1.8 million people have sustained a very strong shaking and potential damage.
Important update 08:38 UTC : so far 30 people have been reported killed in Nepal. This number will rise every hour. No news from the epicenter area yet. 3 people killed in Bihar India and 1 in Siliguri
Update 08:33 UTC : We expect most of the villages on the map below to have been almost completely devastated. These are mostly small villages up to a couple of thousand people. Many people will have been in the field or in the open air due to the time of the earthquake
Update 08:30 UTC : Carlos : Nepal’s Lamjung, the epicentre of the quake, has reportedly flattened and only few buildings there are believed to be standing. (zeenews India) – 1 dead in West Bengal after wall collapsed
Update 08:28 UTC : reports are telling us that damage and injuries are noted as far as Bangladesh and India. A Chinese tourist is reported dead at Pohara
Update 08:14 UTC : We do fear for total devastation of the epicenter area based on what we can see from 80 km away in Kathmandy. Distressed people fearing that their loves ones are dead. Cruel!
Update 08:05 UTC : Message from the Everest area (far away from the epicenter)
Update 07:59 UTC : Our Median with a lot f uncertainlty comes out at an expected 1750 fatalities. Let’s hope it is less. Below world famous Durbar Square in Kathmandu. The temples are just in rubble !
Update 07:53 UTC : Sherpas are reporting avalanches on the Mount Everest (not necessarily leading to victims)
Update 07:51 UTC : Official death count so far is 5 in Nepal and 1 in India (these are the first numbers). We expect it to rise at least into the hundreds.
Update 07:50 UTC : 400 feared trapped in Kathmandu’s Dharara Tower after massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake (source NDTV)
Update 07:42 UTC : The 19th century Bhimsen Tower in Kathmandu has collapsed.
Update 07:32 UTC : Especially the older Kathmandu buildings have sustained damage BUT Kathmandu is +80 km from the epicneter. The real tragedy is expected to have occurred in a radius of 20 to 30 km from the epicenter
Image from Kathmandu
Update : The first fatalities are reported originating from collapsed homes
Update : massive aftershocks are reported from the earthquake zone. The aftershocks will add to the damage –
Important Update : USGS had increased the Magnitude to M7.9 at an extreme shallow depth of 15
km which means that there will be almost a complete devastation in a radius of 20 km around the epicenter.
Update : Both pictures below are from Kathmandu
Update : Cell phone service is paralyzed throughout Nepal (Tamil news). Strong aftershocks are expected. In fact a M5.5 just happened a few minutes ago. Also aftershocks are expected to be more devastating.
Update : Dr. James Daniel has put all data in his theoretical model and expects in between 1400 and 7500 fatalities. To be trusted shaking intensities are still missing so these numbers are still raw estimates.
Update : reports of collapsed houses in Kathmandu AND Pokhara
Update : Jens and Carlos who are monitoring local media are reporting huge damage in Pokahara and Kathmandu, both cities are at least 70 km from the epicenter.
Update : Based on theoretical models Dr. James Daniell expect losses to be between $250 and $750 million based on early population and intensity estimates
Update : ER expects a lot of fatalities. How many : too soon to make an estimate. Massive landslides alone can count for many. At least one good thing : the earthquake happened during daylight and in the Nepali spring = less victims
A cruel earthquake happened in the pre-Himalaya ranges of Nepal just in between Kathmandu and Pokara. We expected a lot of devastation and massive landslides
35km (22mi) E of Lamjung, Nepal
60km (37mi) NNE of Bharatpur, Nepal
75km (47mi) E of Pokhara, Nepal
76km (47mi) NW of Kirtipur, Nepal
77km (48mi) NW of Kathmandu, Nepal
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 7.8
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2015-04-25 11:56:26
GMT/UTC Time : 2015-04-25 06:11:26
Depth (Hypocenter) : 18 km
from: http://earthquake-report.com/2015/04/25/massive-earthquake-nepal-on-april-25-2015/