How To Save Money By Growing Crops In The Garden

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

9 ways to grow seedlings and crops without wasting money

You don't have to spend a lot of money to grow strong seedlings and reap a rich harvest. Experienced gardeners have a few tricks to save money.

Don't buy seedling molds

Instead of purchased forms for growing seedlings, you can use improvised means. For this, cups from yoghurts and cottage cheese, cut plastic bottles and sour cream cans are suitable.

If you want to make eco-friendly containers, use eggshells or tea bags. These containers can be planted in the ground directly with the seedlings, as they decompose easily in the ground. Also, eggshells will be an additional fertilizer.

Fight fungus without chemicals from the store

To protect plants and seedlings from fungal diseases, use hydrogen peroxide mixed with water at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 1 liter of liquid. The ready-made solution can be used both for prophylaxis and for medicinal purposes.

To prevent fungal diseases, it is important to ignite the soil in which you plan to grow your seedlings. To do this, it is necessary to evenly distribute the soil on the baking sheet and send it for half an hour to the oven preheated to 70-90 ° C.

Save on top dressing

In order for young plants to develop faster, they need fertilizers that contain nitrogen. You can prepare such a top dressing yourself. To do this, collect the sleeping tea leaves or coffee grounds, mix it with the ground in a 1: 5 ratio. Sow seeds into the prepared mixture.

The cake will fill the soil with a large amount of nitrogen, so that the seedlings will grow strong and healthy. In the garden, tea leaves and coffee grounds can be used as mulch or added to a compost heap.

Cover the beds with straw

In order not to spend a lot of time on watering and weeding, it is enough to cover the beds with a layer of straw 5-7 cm thick. Thanks to this, there will be much fewer weeds, since they will not be able to develop without enough sunlight.

In addition, mulch will prevent moisture from evaporating, so watering can be done much less frequently.

Use natural fertilizers

Purchased fertilizers can be replaced with some spices. Ground cloves, cinnamon and turmeric are best for this. These seasonings will protect plants from parasites, improve their metabolic processes, and stimulate growth and prevent the development of pathogenic microbes.

To prepare a nutritious infusion, pour 1 teaspoon of any of the three spices with 1 liter of boiling water, cool and let it brew for a couple of hours. Then strain the liquid through 2-3 layers of cheesecloth and pour into a suitable container. You can fertilize plants with this infusion no more than 1 time in two weeks.

Take care of the compost

Compost is one of the best types of organic fertilizer. However, to prepare it, you only need to use healthy waste.

The basis of such fertilization should be the remnants of fruits and vegetables, for example, potato peels, cabbage leaves, wilted berries, apple cores, etc. The main thing is that the waste used does not have obvious signs of infection with viral and fungal diseases.

Get rid of aphids with sugar

To get rid of aphids without using insecticides, it is enough to attract ladybirds to your garden, which feed on these pests.

To do this, you need to dilute 140 g of sugar in 1 liter of water and treat the area of the garden infected with parasites with the prepared syrup. Within a couple of days, several dozen ladybirds will appear on it, which will quickly destroy all aphids.

Drive out slugs with wood ash

If you want to get rid of slugs, just spread a small layer of wood ash along the beds. Gastropods will not be able to overcome this obstacle, because it will stick to their bodies and interfere with their movement.

It is better to scatter the protective agent in the late evening, when the slugs crawl out of their daytime hiding places. By the way, ash not only saves plants from parasites, but also saturates them with micronutrients necessary for normal development.

Grow Calendula for Colorado Potato Beetles

Calendula, which is colloquially called "marigolds", scares off the Colorado potato beetle. Therefore, to protect potatoes from a voracious insect, you need to plant these flowers around the entire perimeter of the beds.

Also, you can save yourself from the invasion of the Colorado potato beetle by growing legumes on the site.

The described tips help to simplify gardening work and save on the purchase of many tools, so you can safely use them.