I’ve never proclaimed myself to be a great gardener. In fact, I’m much closer to the other end of the spectrum and consider myself lucky if my three remaining zucchini plants collectively produce just one zucchini for the season.
There’s a reason why I grow more food in water than in dirt!
Like the growing number of home gardeners, I’m all ears when it comes to learning the tricks to a successful garden and I’ve already learned a ton. In addition to watering the garden for free, I have new gardening tips to share!
5 Clever Gardening Tips for the Beginner Gardener
Gardening Tip #1: Insulate tomatoes with plastic wrap
Tomatoes thrive in stagnant, hot weather. Unfortunately, our weather here is neither. It’s a cool and windy 68 degrees year-round, so it takes extra effort to make warm weather plants produce fruit.
Wrapping the bottom two rungs of the tomato cage with plastic wrap simulates a greenhouse. The heat is trapped inside the plastic wrap and the plants are blocked from the wind. By the time the plants reach the top of the plastic wrap, they’re strong plants and well adjusted to the temperatures and wind!
How To Do It: Have a small helper hold the end of the plastic wrap onto a vertical stake with two hands. Wrap the plastic wrap around one full time, and then continue wrapping around as you work your way down or up the cage (we started at the top and worked down). Be sure to wrap at least two layers to get the full effect and make the plastic wrap stick to itself. I used the plastic wrap I had in the kitchen, but you might want to consider a 20″ heavy duty plastic wrap if you have several plants to wrap.
Gardening Tip #2: Insulate smaller plants with milk jugs
It’s the same concept as the tomatoes, but we’re using it on bell peppers in our $15 raised garden bed. Bell peppers also need warmer weather, but we’re hoping that insulating them with the milk jugs gives them a fighting chance through our cooler springs so maybe, just maybe, they might bear fruit come summer!
How To Do It: Using a pair of scissors, cut off the top and bottom of a used milk jug. Rinse it out well and place it over/around the plant. Be sure to pack a little bit of dirt against the outside edges of the milk jug so that it doesn’t easily knock over when the wind blows.
Gardening Tip #3: Catch pincher bugs with oil
Also known as earwigs, pincher bugs like to eat the leaves of the plants. Specifically, they’re eating our zucchini plants. They are hungry, vicious little bugs and you have to act fast if you want your plants to survive (trust me, I’ve already lost one!).
We tried the newspaper trick, where you roll up newspaper, get it slightly damp and place it in the garden bed. Then bright and early the next morning you remove the newspaper and dispose of the bugs. Apparently “bright and early” is much earlier than we wake up, so there wasn’t ever any bugs inside.
Then we tried to lure them and drown them with oil. And it totally worked! Our three remaining zucchini plants are doing much better and now stand a chance to meet the goal of one zucchini for the year!
How To Do It: You’ll need an old plastic container with a lid (think yogurt, sour cream or cottage cheese). Using a pair of scissors, cut a oval-shaped hole about 1″ from the top of the container. Repeat this so that there are 4-5 holes in the container. Bury the container in the garden so that the holes are ground level. Fill the container with 3 parts cheap cooking oil to 1 part soy sauce. The bugs will be lured in by the soy sauce and will drown and get stuck in oil. (To help gauge, we used about 3/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup soy sauce for a 32 oz yogurt container.)
Gardening Tip #4: Deter other bugs with cayenne pepper spray
While the homemade earwig traps are working well, there are still some bugs in the garden that are chomping on leaves (ants?). While the damage isn’t too bad, we’re taking precautionary measures and keeping them away with sticky cayenne pepper spray!
How To Do It: Combine 1 tsp of cayenne pepper with 1 cup of hot water. Stir to dissolve the cayenne as much as possible. Pour into a spray bottle and add about 1 tsp of liquid dish soap. Fill the bottle with water and swish gently to combine (don’t shake otherwise you’ll just make a lot of bubbles). Spray directly onto the leaves of the affected plants. Reapply every 2-3 days, or after watering, or as needed. I recommend getting durable spray bottles that you dedicate just for the garden and keep outside so they’re there when you need them. Otherwise it can be a pain walking back and forth from the garden to the house / garage / shed every time you see a bug.
Gardening Tip #5: Deep water tomato plants with a broomstick handle
Plants need water down at the roots, and watering at the surface level is fine for most of the time, but tomato plants especially benefit from a really good, deep water every few weeks or so. I didn’t have the forethought to install a plastic 2L bottle when I planted the tomatoes (nor did I have a 2L bottle!), so I came up with my own method for getting down deep into the roots.
How To Do It: Taking the handle of a broom, align it with the edge of the container and plunge it all the way to the bottom. Move the handle in a circular motion until you have a hole that is just a bit bigger than the broom handle. Remove the broom and repeat to make 4-6 holes in the dirt, depending on the size of your pot. Water directly into the hole until the plant is saturated!
Gardening Tip #6 (BONUS!): Fertilize the tomatoes while you’re deep watering
While you’re making deep holes near your tomato plants, go ahead and take advantage by adding a liquid fertilizer to the roots. I make a fertilizer tea for free otherwise I recommend an organic liquid fertilizer.
Gardening Tips I Haven’t Tried (Yet!)
I heard you can deter ants by boiling citrus peels in water. This might come in handy since they’re in the flowers of my zucchini plants quite often.
I also want to make a watering can out of a milk jug for the kids, so that when they help me water, more water ends up in the plants than the ground!
For watering tomatoes : cut small holes all around a water bottle, and bury it in the soil with your tomato plant. Make sure the “drinking opening” is coming out of soil… and pour water directly in the bottle when it’s time to water your tomato plant. This trick is great for plants growing in pots. Do not do this for zucchinis or cucumbers.
I need to remember to do this next year before I plant the tomatoes. Thank you for the note on zucchini and cucumbers – it’s so helpful for new gardeners like me!
Julie, I’ve tried something very similar to your method and it worked great! I guess the broomstick technique will do the same job. Based on my experience, the closer the water gets to the roots of the tomato plant – the taller it will grow!
~Sal
Why not with cucumbers?
They require really good scotch 🤪
I don’t have any new tricks to share, but I will testify to the milk jug method of protecting your starter plants. We started our tomatoes from seeds indoors one year, and we had given those weaker tomatoes up for a lost cause. I cut out the milk jugs, babied those little sprouts and voila! they produced just a much as the healthy ones 🙂
I definitely need to try those other tips for the leaf eaters. We have the same problem.
Awesome news on the milk jugs and your tomatoes! The olive oil trick is amazing – I hope it works for you too!
My trick for keeping milk jugs in place:
Once you’ve cut the bottoms off, use a nail to make holes in the four corners, then use landscape staples through the holes and into the soil to hold the milk jug stuck into the ground. Keeps them from blowing away or getting knocked over so easily.
I use 2-liter soda bottle to create “greenhouses” for small seedlings. It’s the same concept as the milk jug trick, but we buy our milk in paper half gallons. (And my husband loves soda…)
To get rid of ants, sprinkle corn meal on mounts, trails and flowers where ants are. The ants eat it and take it to the queen. Ants can’t digest corn meal, ants and queen will die in 2-4 days do not water when the corn meal is down and working. In a few days check the mound with a stick to see if there aren’t anymore ants if there are sprinkle more corn meal. Works for me every time.
I tried the cornmeal and it didn’t work for me. I’ve tried vinegar and water and epson salt with sugar.
For ants, you can also try cinnamon if you don’t have cornmeal. I used it in my flower beds when I noticed an abundance of ants. Just shake it all around your plants. From what I understand, it works like arsenic on ants but it’s safe for kids and pets. Just don’t water right after. It got rid of my ants.
Also, if you have slugs or snails, save your egg shells. You can let them air dry or bake them in the oven to dry. Then put them in a ziplock bag and crush them. Sprinkle the crushed eggshells in a circle around your plants. The snails and slugs won’t cross the shells because they are too sharp.
The eggshells also provide much need nutrients to prevent bloom rot on your tomatoes. You can till it into the soil when you plant your tomatoes (works in potted tomatoes too).
And thank you so very much for the earwig tip! I’ve been trying to find a safe way to keep them out of my veggies.
Great tips on the cinnamon and egg shells! I tried the cinnamon trick once in our garage and it worked – I hadn’t thought about the garden! So glad the earwig tip can help!
Any tips on keeping rodents or raccoons from devouring my tomatoes! At first I thiught it was birds so I covered my entire garden in netting but large bites in my tomatoes are still occurring.
Hi Paulette! I don’t have any experience with large rodents yet, but my best guess would not be netting over, but maybe a small chicken wire type fence around them?
My parents use rubber snakes the birds and small rodents are scared to come near.
Hair clippings (or from a brush) usually help deter all manner of rodents. So does protein laden urine (I know, it’s gross). Male works the best. Eat protein rich foods the day before. Mimics the smell of a predator. Cat and dog hair also work. Put it in nylons (make little pouches) and hang around the perimeter of the garden at varying heights. Replace every 2-4 weeks depending on rainfall. Hair is also good for the soil. Even works for deer
We live on a farm with a large tree grove and large pests! We play a radio in the barn next to the garden and it keeps the critters away!
Try Blood Meal, around your plants good for all plant as it is nourishing,the animals should not bother as the smell of blood scare them off, they smell it stronger than we do,, when I did this in my garden, I never had animals, although you will have to re dust after each watering or rain, but then you could always leave some spaces that do not get watered so much, or an electric wire around the perimeter , a few inches off the ground,, good luck,
for raccoons…….the only thing that has worked for us is a solar electric fence . Won’t really hurt the raccoons (if you are worried about that) but will give them a jolt and send them packing. I had to also install a low chicken wire fence outside the electric fence too for rabbits! 60 acres and they all want to eat ONLY my garden!! If you install a solar fence be sure to add a lightning arrestor and ground rods. ( available at most farm stores) We didn’t on our first fencer and lost it with the first storm. After adding the arrestor we have used the same solar fencer for over 20 years with good results. good luck!
If you have a lot of ants around your home or in your garden, it is most likely because you have aphids on tender plants. The ants are attracted to the honeydew produced by the aphids. The best remedy for aphids is ladybugs, released to the dirt at the base of the infected plant at NIGHT during warm weather. Speak to your garden center, You can buy them by the container and store in fridge till needed.
You use tea for a fertilizer, but no recipe. I made some horse manure tea using 10 gallons manure with 40 gallons water, but it seemed pretty strong. I watered it down about half and half, but didn’t seem to work well. A recipe I’m not afraid to use would help.
Hey there Cliff – if you follow the link to the article I was referring to, you’ll find a recipe for fertilizer tea.
What a natural gardener needs in one post. Thank you. This is great!
Hi if you want more than one zucchini per plant you might want to pollinate by hand….Just get a childs paint brush and gently poke it into the male flower and then transfer it to the female flower (the one with the miniture zucchini behind the flower. I use this technique and regularly get an over abundance of fruits.
I used mason jars over my plants when they are small to have like a small green house over the plants.
When I was starting my herbs in a pot I plastic wrapped the top of it to be like a garden house to start them and they growing great now.
Love all your tips.
Ps. But we don’t have milk jugs in canada 🙁
I’ve tried making a milk-jug watering can. It kind-of works, but you really need a hole in the top for air to come in place of the water.. its like pouring a jar of oil. A lot of water, then none, then a lot. You get air bubbles. I didnt like it so much.
Thanks for letting us know Julie! I haven’t tried that method myself yet. 🙂
I cut off three sides of the milk jugs, but leave one side attached. Flip it backwards, set the jug over the plant, and put a heavy rock on the flap. They won’t blow away.
A 2 liter bottle works great for watering plants. Just use an ice pick to put small holes in the lid.