Listed below are the top 10 gardening projects of greater significance for the year 2012. Some of the articles below are written in series. This means the article is written in several parts. Other articles may have accompanying relevant articles in embedded hyperlinks.
Top Ten Gardening Tips for 2012
- Improvised Garden Pot Using a Carboy
Are you looking for an alternative for a big sized pot that's relatively cheap, tough and able to withstand the elements? Then a carboy may be your best bet. This improvised heavy duty garden pot is rectangular and ideal when setting a plant against a wall.
Here's how you can transform a carboy into a finished garden pot that will suit that tight spot in your driveway or along a perimeter wall.
- Homemade Garden Pot Cover for Rains
Rain, rain and more rain. Not all outdoor potted garden plants are able to withstand overwatering especially when the monsoon rains arrive. With some simple and discarded household and supermarket items, there are a couple of ways to creatively make garden pot covers that will prevent continuous and torrential rains from killing your water-sensitive garden plants.
- Fertilizer Storage and Labeling Tips
Tired of lugging around big boxes or bags of fertilizers around the garden? Do you keep forgetting how to apply fertilizers (how much?, how frequent?) after you throw away their original box or container?
Here are some tips on how to organize fertilizers in handy and cheap containers that will prevent wastage. Label these containers to remind you of the right application so you'd never overfertilize a tender garden plant again.
- Collecting Rainwater with a Rain Barrel
Too much water during the rainy season? So many gardeners vouch how wonderful rain water is to the garden plants. So I devised a way to collect some of the rain water that flows from a tall concrete structure. The first step was to fabricate some mini-gutters to collect the rain water. The second step was to build a rain water barrel complete with a rain barrel platform and faucet.
- Steps for Air Layering or Marcotting
This is one of the most read article series in this blog. Air layering or Marcotting is so easy that I often wonder why not so many gardeners do it more to propagate plants. And I couldn't believe myself why I didn't do it much sooner.
Thus far, I've successfully air-layered dozens of plants, shrubs, vines. In fact, many of the plants we sell are propagated by using this technique. Its accompanying articles on techniques for harvesting and potting air layers or marcots are equally important.
- Garden and Yard Waste DIY Incinerator
Ugh. Too much garden and yard trash to clean up. If your local garbage haulers don't pickup garden and yard waste, like our garbage hauler's don't - here's an alternative to getting rid of garden trash. Although composting is definitely the way to go for garden and yard waste, don't discount incineration for hard to compost foliage.
Here's another tip. Mosquitoes hate smoke, and smoke coming from incineration is one way of getting rid of them - if only for the time being.
- Easy Homemade Fish Emulsion Fertilizer
Undoubtedly, this is another one of the most read articles in the blog. Homemade fish emulsion may not be for the faint of heart (or faint of stomach?). But there are ways to minimize the stench comes from the fish decomposition. The result, however, is a super nutrient-rich amendment for your garden plants. A kilo of fish waste will make several bottles of fish emulsion. And each bottle will go a long way because it is very economical to use.
- Homemade Hanging Basket Bracket
When there's not much floor or ground space for your garden plants, here's an option - hanging baskets! But you need somewhere to hang these type of garden pots. This DIY garden project is easy and makes use of simple houseware and hardware materials. It is simple, yet highly functional.
If you think this easy-to-make bracket is flimsy, think again. I've had this bracket for years and has survived many typhoons while supporting a hefty hanging basket containing a mature plumbago plant.
- Trellis Frame Assembly on Wall
Here's a simple climbing support for your vines. It works best as wall espalier. This series of articles explain how best to assemble the trellis frame from scratch as well as tips on how to join wires, drill anchors on a concrete wall and more. Other than a power drill to put hole on the concrete, you only need a few basic tools and a simple hardware to complete it.
Finally, read a tip on how to start a young vine on a trellis by putting a trellis starter for it to climb on.
- Collecting Honey and Beeswax
This particular project is something we didn't plan to do. Imagine our pleasant surprise when we found several honeycombs underneath an inverted garden clay pot. We were aware of the bees hovering all over our flower-rich garden, but never did we know they were honeybees and making honey right in the garden!
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