Erin Garden Club and Horticultural Society

Tidbits to make gardening easier (or not).

• Troubled by earwigs? Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard. Tape one end shut and place under plants or wherever earwigs prevalent. At night the earwigs will crawl into the tubes formed in the cardboard but will be unable to get out in the morning. Apparently earwings are unable to back up.
  
  
• Wood ashes or broken eggshells on the ground in slug infested areas will wound to death slugs crawling over them.
  
  
• Lavender likes dry, sunny location. Water very sparingly or not at all.
  
  
• Daffodil bulbs need planting 4 to 5 weeks before the ground is frozen to establish roots, but tuplip bulbs can be planted right up until soil is too hard to dig.
  
  
• Chrysanthemums should be planted in a well-drained area, so they are not sitting in water in the Springtime, a reason for their demise.
  
  
• Water houseplants with tap water that has not been through a water softener. Let the tap water stand for a while so it can settle and reach room temperature before using.
  
  
• If a rose plant dies, plant the new rose in a different. place. If you must use the same area, remove all old soil from the hole and use fresh soil.
  
  
• When transplanting tomatoe seedlings to the main garden, put one teaspoon of epsom salts into each hole. The magnesium in the epsom salts promotes more basal breaks which produces more blossoms and of course more friut.
  
  
• Placing tomatoe cages around the peony clump early in the spring when the plants begin to emerge will keep the peonies from falling over when the flower heads become large and heavy.
  
  
• Shredded black and white newspaper mixed with grass clippings and deadheaded flower stalks makes for a perfectly balanced, all natural compost mix.
  
  
• Do not bag your leaves. Click here to see why.