Category Home Science

•  A hairy nitrogen source

Human hair is by far one of the best nitrogen sources that you can add to your compost heap. Three kilograms of hair contains 450g nitrogen, making it about 25 times as rich as manure. The nitrogen only becomes available when hair breaks down and mineralizes, so it is less useful for fast-growing plants.

• Help from your pet

Sprinkle unused, alfalfa-based feed or bedding onto your compost pile and toss well. Alfalfa, or lucerne, is high in nitrogen — an excellent compost activator — which will help to hasten decomposition.

• Attract earthworms with coffee grounds

The larger the number of earthworms wriggling about in your soil, the better its tilth. Attract the worms to planting beds or other garden areas by digging coffee grounds into the soil.

• Warm up the soil with clear plastic

What free resource will kill weed seeds, most plant diseases and nematodes in your soil? The sun. Till a patch of soil and water it, then lay a sheet of clear plastic over the area (a split-open dry-cleaning bag works well) and anchor the edges with stones. After four to six weeks, the sun’s heat should have rid the soil of most plant menaces.

•  Composting in a leaf bag

Turn autumn leaves into compost by storing them over the winter in large, black plastic leaf bags. When filling the bag with leaves, add a small spadeful of soil and sprinkle with seaweed liquid fertilizer as an activator. Then water sufficiently to ensure all leaves are saturated.

Tie the bag closed and bounce it on the ground a few times to mix the contents. Store the bag in a sunny place so that it absorbs the heat of the sun. By spring the leaves will have rotted into rich compost.

•  Rake-it-up pine-tree mulch

Money doesn’t grow on trees. But if you grow blueberries, free mulch does — if you have any pine trees in your garden. Naturally acidic pine needles will not only leach the acid blueberries crave into the soil but will also help to protect the plants’ shallow roots. Just rake up the pine needles and spread them beneath the blueberry plants to a height of about 5cm.

•  Aluminium bird-pest prevention

If you grow productive fruit trees, don’t throw away the aluminium pie dishes that come with shop-bought pies. Use them to scare away blackbirds, starlings and other fruit-loving birds. Poke a hole in the rim of each plate, thread a 60-cm piece of dental floss, fishing line or string through the hole and triple-knot it tightly. Hang a couple of plates onto the branches of each fruit tree and the job’s done. Old CDs also work well as reflective bird scarers. Shiny reflective objects that swing in the wind are far better at discouraging birds than stationary plastic or metal cats and scarecrows.

•  Make your own invisible net

You don’t always have to buy netting at a garden centre in order to protect ripening cherries and other tree fruit from birds. Just buy two or three spools of black thread. Stand beside the tree, grab the loose end of the thread and toss the spool over the tree to a helper — it’s a fun job to do with kids. Continue tossing the spool back and forth until it is empty. The invisible thread won’t seal birds off from the tree, but once they run into it a few times they may look for their ripe fruit lunch somewhere else.

•  Ant stick-ups

Ants won’t be able to climb your fruit trees and munch on ripe fruit if you wrap the trunks with one of these sticky materials:

1.  Contact paper, folded in half with the sticky-side out.
2.  Two-sided clear tape, wrapped around the trunk in a 7cm-deep band.
3.  Sheets of cardboard secured with masking tape and sprayed with an adhesive insect spray.
4. A cardboard sleeve taped shut and smeared with petroleum jelly.

•  Fertilize with banana skins

Grow stronger tomato plants by putting 3-4 banana skins in the bottom of each planting hole. (Note: there is no need to eat all the bananas at once. Freeze the skins in freezer bags until you have enough to work with.) When you plant a tomato seedling, pop the skins in the hole with a mixture of dry leaves, manure and soil. Banana skins act as a kind of time-release fertilizer, leaching potassium and trace minerals into the soil.

•  Aluminium foils root-cooler

To help ripen vine fruit towards the end of the season, lay lightly crumpled aluminium foil around the base of tomato plants, shiny side up and anchor them with a few stones. The foil will reflect the sun’s rays upward, ripening the fruit that are shaded by foliage, and repelling aphids. Foil is also effective when used under peppers — chillies and capsicums — and cucurbits — cucumbers, melons and squashes).

•  An ornamental yet practical support

If you cultivate tidy tomato plants that grow to a certain height and then stop, consider painting a stepladder in bright colours and using it as an ornamental A-frame trellis. Plant one seedling 7-10cm from each leg, and then tie the stems loosely to the ladder as they grow. As the plants mature, they will be supported by the ladder’s sides and treads and no ripening tomatoes will have to rest on the soil and risk rotting.

•  Sugar for sweeter tomatoes

When tomato fruits start to show colour, add a spoonful of sugar to the watering can — especially when you have found a variety that you like but that seems a bit too acidic. (That tomato taste we all long for results from an optimum balance of acidity and sweetness.) Your tomatoes will not only be sweeter but juicier.

•  Prevent blossom end rot with Epsom salts

The bane of many a tomato grower, fruit-spoiling blossom end rot is often caused by a calcium deficiency. It appears as a dry shrivelled area that then darkens on the base of the fruit. This is caused by uneven watering, which results in periodic calcium deficiency in the developing fruit. Mulching and reducing water stress is important, but Epsom salts, which contain magnesium sulphate, aid the transport of calcium. Place 90g at the base of each hole and lightly cover before planting.

•  Grow tomatoes in hay

If you live in a flat without a garden and don’t have anywhere that is suitable for growing tomatoes, take a bale of hay (preferably lucerne) up to your balcony (if building regulations permit) and you will have a nitrogen-rich medium that heats up like a compost pile. Starting in very early spring, water the bale daily to activate the heating process.

Once the bale decays into fertile compost (usually after seven to eight weeks), its cool enough for planting. Create a grower bag by stuffing this compost into a sturdy garbage bag. Seal and place the bag flat, after creating a few drainage holes at the bottom. Create four holes in the top and plant a determinate (or dwarf) tomato variety seedling such as ‘Tiny Tim’ in each hole. Watering daily will keep the plants growing well for the rest of the season.

• Sun boxes for vegetable seedlings

When you’re starting vegetables indoors near a normally sunny south-facing window but the early spring sun won’t cooperate, maximize the rays with aluminium foil-lined sun boxes. Cut out one side of a cardboard box and line the three inner ‘walls’ with foil. When you face the boxes towards the outside, sunlight will reflect back onto your vegetable seedlings. Plants will not only catch more sun, but their stems will grow straight rather than bending towards the light.

•  Foiling cutworms

Before setting out a tomato seedling, wrap each stem with a 10 x 10-cm collar of foil, leaving it loose enough to allow the stem to grow as it expands. Plant the seedlings with 5cm foil above the soil and 5cm below so that the cutworms won’t be able to penetrate the shiny armour.

•  Night-time warmers

If an unseasonably cold night has been predicted, get outdoors as early as you can and flank your vegetable plants with something that will absorb the heat of the sun all day and radiate it at night. That ‘something’ could be large, flat stones or terracotta tiles left over from your new floor. Another solution is to bend wire coat hangers into hoops, secure them over the plants and drape them with black plastic garbage bags for the night.

• Secure trellis-grown melons with pantihose

If you grow your melons on a trellis, a sling made from a pair of old pantihose will keep the enlarging melons from falling to the ground. Cut off a leg of pantihose, slip it over a melon and tie each end of the pantihose to the trellis.

•  Keep root vegetables straight

To prevent horseradish and special varieties of carrots and parsnips from forming forks or getting bent out of shape, which is usually A caused by stones, grow them in sections of PVC pipe placed vertically in the ground and filled with rich soil and humus. When you harvest the roots in autumn, you’ll be surprised at how straight and thick your vegetables have grown.

•  Hang a bag of mothballs

Mothball-haters include rodents and insects, so consider putting some of these smelly balls into your vegetable garden. Caution: don’t let mothballs touch the soil or the toxic chemicals in them (usually naphthalene or dichlorobenzene) could contaminate it. If you think you can simply place mothballs on lids, tiles or other flat surfaces to keep them off the ground, think again. In no time at all, wind and garden invaders will knock them off. For safety’s sake, put a few mothballs in small mesh bags and hang them from a trellis.

•  Grow onions through newspaper

Here’s a bit of headline news: one of the easiest ways to grow healthy onions is through newspaper mulch. Why? Because onion stalks cast a very slim shadow at best, letting in the sunlight that will sprout weed seeds. A block-out mat of newspapers will stop weeds short.

In early spring, wet the soil of the onion patch. Then spread three or four sections of newspaper over the area, hosing down each one. With one or two fingers, punch holes about 12-15cm apart through the wet mat and place an onion set or onion seedling within each. Firm moist soil around the sets or seedlings and cover the mat with shredded leaves and grass clippings. Weeds won’t survive as your onions grow and thrive.

•  A tyre tower for potatoes

Increase your potato yield by growing potatoes in a stack of tyres. Fill a tyre with soil and plant two whole or halved seed potatoes about 5cm deep. Once the potatoes have sprouted around 15-25cm of foliage, place a second tyre on top of the first and fill with more soil, leaving 8-10cm of foliage exposed.

Repeat the process again and your three-tyre tower will triple your potato crop. Potatoes sprout on the underground stems — and the taller the stems, the greater the number of tasty tubers you will produce.

•  Two sprays for pumpkins

Ward off fungal diseases in a pumpkin patch by spraying each pumpkin with a homemade mixture of 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and ½ teaspoon vegetable oil stirred into 1 litre water.

Fungal diseases aside, some gardeners claim that they can enrich a pumpkin’s colour with a different spray: aerosol whipped cream, applied around the base of each plant every three weeks.

•  Grow your own loofahs

The loofah gourd (Luffa cylindrica) is a purely practical choice for gardeners: it’s grown primarily for its dried pulp, which we know as the exfoliating beauty sponge of the same name. Simply plant and cultivate loofahs as directed on the seed packet — although in cooler climates with short growing seasons you’ll need to start the loofah gourd seeds indoors.

When a gourd lightens in weight and its skin begins to brown, peel it. Wet it thoroughly and squeeze out the seeds with both hands, then put the gourd on a rack to dry for two to four weeks or until hard. (Placing the gourds near a heating source will speed the process.) Use a sharp knife to slice the dried loofah crossways into rounds to make homegrown skin scrubbers that the whole family can use.

•  Free houseplants

Every time you eat an avocado, save the stone and grow a houseplant. Just clean the stone pit and insert three sturdy toothpicks into it just above the base. Fill a drinking glass with water and put the stone on its rim. Change the water often and top it off as necessary.

After several weeks, the stone will sprout a shoot and roots, at which point you can put your fledgling houseplant. Keep the pot in a sunny position and pinch back new shoots, including the central leader stem, to make the plant bushier. Planted in rich soil outside, it should fruit in seven years. (Do not pinch out the leader before planting.)

•  Coffee filter soil guard

When potting plants in flowerpots, put it small coffee filter in the bottom of the pot first, then add drainage material and soil. This way, excess water will leak out of the drainage hole while the soil stays put.

•  Cleaning hairy or corrugated leaves

 Smooth-leaved houseplants can be cleaned by wiping with a damp paper towel, but hairy or corrugated leaves require special care.

1. Brush dust away An effective way to clean African violets and other hairy-leaved houseplants is with a soft-bristled toothbrush, a paintbrush or, best of all, a pipe cleaner. Brush gently from the base of each leaf toward the tip.
2. Breeze dust away Dust plants with corrugated leaves with a hair dryer. Set the appliance on Cool or Low and blow air onto every leaf.
3.  The cloth-glove trick

Wearing an old cloth glove lets you clean houseplant leaves in half the time. Just run each leaf through your gloved fingers from bottom to top and you’ve dusted both sides at once.

•  Go one size larger

To prevent houseplants from becoming root bound (and dying out too quickly), replant them in a larger container. Add extra soil to the bottom and sides of the pot, and your plants should grow faster and live twice as long.

•  A when-to-water pencil gauge

Houseplant manuals tell you to water whenever the soil dries out, but determining dryness is easier said than done. Here’s an easy trick that’s foolproof: push a pencil deep into the soil then pull it out. If bits of dirt cling to the bare wood point, the soil is still moist. If the pencil comes up clean, it’s time to water your houseplant.

•  Water with ice cubes

Place ice cubes on top of the soil of potted plants, making sure that they don’t touch the stem. The ice will melt slowly, releasing water gradually and evenly into the soil.

•  Pot within pot

Use a casserole dish, Dutch oven or large saucepan to water cacti and succulents. Just pour a few centimetres of water into the pot, put in the houseplant and leave it there until no more air bubbles come to the water’s surface. Drain the plant well before putting it onto a saucer. Other houseplants that benefit from the pot-in-a-pot method include anthuriums and grassy-leaved sweet flag (Acorns gramineus).

•  Film protection for seeds

If you’ve just sown flower seeds in a seedbed and are pleased with the spacing and soil coverage, you can go one extra step towards warming the soil and speeding germination, and keeping the earth moist and thwarting birds foraging for seeds. All it takes is spreading a layer of clear plastic wrap over the seeded area. Anchor the plastic with rocks and remove it as soon as the seeds have sprouted.

•  A salt that flowers crave

Epsom salts consist of magnesium sulphate, which, as a supplement to your plants’ regular feedings, will deepen the colour of blooms and help to fight disease. Every three or four weeks, scratch 1 teaspoon Epsom salts into the soil around an annual or perennial’s stem and water well. Alternately, dissolve 1 tablespoon Epsom salts in 3.5 litres water. Every two weeks or so, pour some of the solution into a spray bottle and spray the leaves of your flowers.

•  Prop up tall perennials

Peonies, delphiniums and gladiolus are among a number of tall perennials that generally need support. A wooden stake is the usual answer, but a less obtrusive option is a tall, old lampshade frame. Place the metal frame, narrow side down, amid seedlings when they’re about 15cm tall, working the frame into the soil to a depth of about a centimetre. As the seedlings grow, tie them loosely to the top of the frame with twist ties. The leaves will obscure the frame as the blooms above stand tall.

•  Bromeliads like fruit

To encourage a potted bromeliad’s rosette of leaves to sprout its pretty flower, place the plant in a plastic dry-cleaning bag with a ripening banana or three or four ripe apples. The ethylene emitted from the fruit will stimulate flower production.

• Splints for bent stems

If any of your flower stems are bent, pick one of these common items to use as a splint: for thin stems, a toothpick or cotton bud; for thicker stems, a drinking straw, pencil, ballpoint pen or paddle-pop stick. Fix the splints to stems with clear tape, but not too tightly.

•  Ties for stakes

‘Ropes’ made from old pantihose have long been used to tie snapdragons, hollyhocks, tomatoes and other tall flowers and climbing vegetables to stakes (they’re soft and pliable), but pantihose aren’t the only household item that will serve the purpose. Try these ties:

1. Gift-wrapping ribbon left over from birthday parties
2.  Broken cassette tapes
3.  Plastic garbage bag ties
4.  Dental floss (the thicker kind)
5.  Velcro strips
6.  Fabric strips cut from old sheets
7.  Strips of hessian or sacking material

•  Make a flower dome

 Get creative and use an old umbrella — stripped of both its handle and fabric — as a frame for a flowering climber or vine. In the spot of your choice, drive a 1.5-m metal pipe wide enough to accommodate the handle into the ground about 30cm deep, then slide the umbrella stern inside. Plant seedlings of morning glory or any other thin-stemmed flowering vine next to the pipe. Over the next few weeks a unique garden focal point will take shape.

•  Make hand cleaning easier

 If your garden gloves have gone missing but you need to work in the soil of your flowerbeds, just scrape your fingernails over a bar of soap before you start doing the messy work. The dirt will come out from under your nails more easily when you scrub your hands.

•  Bag bulbs to prevent rot

Brown paper bags filled with sawdust or coconut fibre peat are the easy answer to the winter storage of tender crocus, tulip, daffodil, iris and other bulbs and rhizomes. Put a 5-cm layer of sawdust or peat in the bottom of the bag and then arrange bulbs of the same type on top, making sure that they don’t touch. Continue layering the bulbs and organic material until the bag is about three-quarters full. Clip the bag closed with clothes pegs or bulldog clips and use a marker to label each bag with the name of the bulbs contained inside.

•  Plastic bulb protectors

To keep underground pests from burrowing and nibbling on newly transplanted bulbs, seal the bulbs off in wide-topped plastic containers. Before planting, punch drainage holes into the bottom and sides of a large plastic bottle or carton, bury it in the soil up to the open top and fill it with soil and humus. Plant two or three small bulbs in the container or one or two larger bulbs. This won’t stop rats or mice from attacking your bulbs, but it will protect them against burrowing pests.

Old plastic storage boxes are more space-efficient — and you may find other kinds of potential bulb protectors if you go rummaging through your garage or shed.

•  Flavour food with scented geraniums

Scented geraniums have edible leaves that release a fragrance when rubbed. Among the varieties to grow in pots (or, in warmer climate areas, flowerbeds) are those with the aroma of rose, lemon, apple, apricot, lime, coconut, cinnamon, ginger, mint or nutmeg. Foods that benefit from the addition of finely chopped scented geranium leaves include fruit compotes, biscuits, cakes and poached pears.