Introduction to Surprising Gardening Tricks:
Today, we learn surprising gardening tricks. If you love to garden, you can be sure that there are people like you in every single country in the world. Europe, Africa, South America, North America – you name the location, and there is a 100% chance that there are people there that cultivate plants as a hobby or as a means of supplementing their diet.
Throughout ages, there are different tricks that people have developed to help their plants grow and to scare off pests. Sometimes, these are time-honored traditions and other times they come from modernity and immediate necessity.
Urban farming has gained in popularity and often, a city dweller will have completely different methods from someone who grew up in the countryside. If you are into gardening you must know these surprising gardening tricks around the globe.
Here are some interesting, surprising and sometimes a bit strange gardening tips from around the world, from the cities and from the country:
Old Coffee – a City Slicker’s Classic
If you’re like me and find old coffee lying around your office (or worse, you car!) at the end of the day, trapped in soggy to-go cups and totally forgotten, don’t despair. You can actually use it to water your windowsill plants or your rose bushes if you have them.
Don’t use this trick more than about once a month if you have plants that like neutral soil. It adds acidity and is nitrogen rich. A great booster, not only for you. This tip is brought to you by office workers of cities big and small. So don’t pour your coffee down the drain, and stop feeling bad about yourself!.
Read: Techniques for Bonsai Gardening.
Pflanzensoziologie and Sichtungsgarten – Welcome to Germany
The Germans are known for order, and when it comes to gardening, this is something we could all learn. A Sichtungsgarten is a “viewing garden” developed for enthusiasts to come and take note of what plants grow well together how they look. These gardens are often attached to institutions that study them, and at the end of the year, you can look at a report of how much maintenance went into taking care of your favorite part of that garden. This includes man-hours, water, and other resources.
If you think that’s too much for you, you don’t have to garden with a stopwatch and a ruler. Simply keep a gardening journal at hand, and take notes of your progress. You will see that it will help you plan a better year to year.
Sack Gardens from Nairobi, Kenya
Listen up if you’re an apartment dweller and move around a lot, or if you just like to rearrange your plants from place to place. The sack garden initiative has started in the poorer areas of Nairobi, where people don’t have enough room to actually farm but need help supplementing their nutritional needs.
The idea is simple – you need a large industrial sack full of good earth mixed with compost and other nutrients. Because they are so much larger than a garden pot, you can use it to grow bigger plants like tomatoes or even tubers like yams, potatoes or Jerusalem artichokes. If you cut holes in the sides of the sack you can make a strawberry pyramid as well!.
In addition, this might help gardeners that are struggling with soil quality, irrigation or have a limited amount of space to grow some serious crops. It’s best to use a jute sack if possible – it breathes better and it can be recycled or composted.
From London With a Victorian Greenhouse
Although Greenhouses can be seen in every major city (the municipal kind or the kind attached to an educational institution) it all started in England during the Victorian era. Today, the creme de la creme of society competed for the most impressive plant collections from overseas – and not only the kind you can plant in your garden – a lot of the plants they collected could not survive the harsher British climate, so they were placed in greenhouses.
These little gems of architecture were usually heated, and some can still be admired to this day in the likes of Kew Gardens. Greenhouses have become absolutely necessary in modern farming and vegetable cultivation. Of course, the industrial greenhouses are a lot different than the classic Victorian buildings.
If you are planning a greenhouse, it’s worth to think about making it a little bit more decorative and thought through than just a plain old metal and glass geometric structure. Wooden greenhouses can be built in a variety of styles, and you can get a little Victorian gem in your garden installation and all if you look around on the internet.
Of course, you don’t have to make it into a tropical garden paradise – use it to jump-start your vegetables early, using a greenhouse vegetable growing guide.
Three Native American Sisters
This is a tradition going back 5,000 to 6,000 of years among the Indian Tribes of North America. The three sisters are actually corn, winter squash, and climbing beans.
Why those three? They are the staple food of these native people and have been a part of their culture for generations. They are always planted together because they are perfect companion plants.
As gardeners, we should think very carefully about companion planting and learn from this great Native American tradition. What they have developed is actually a perfect system of companion planting, even if they didn’t realize the chemistry behind it.
The corn provides a structure for the climbing beans to climb – no need for poles or a lattice. The beans provide nitrogen for the soil and help other plants grow. The squash creeps along the ground, and shades the soil with its wide leaves, helping to eliminate weeds and keep her companion plants happy.
In modern gardening, there are many more of these companion plants, and they include carrots and tomatoes, onions and cabbages, basil and tomatoes.
Learning Gardening Traditions
Sometimes it’s good to look outside of your own growing neighborhood to see what other people are doing, and what good ideas they came up with. An age-old tradition in one place may turn into a new growing trend in another part of the world in a season!.
That’s all folks about surprising gardening tricks.
Read: Bee Pollination Importance.