Garden

OILY RAG
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Gardening off the smell of an oily rag

Compost

When planting my strawberries I have given them a mulch of wet shredded paper from my shredding machine. It matts together nicely keeping light out to prevent weeds and I should have nice clean strawberries to eat. Makes use of your old bank statements too. Or your advertising junk is very colourful when shredded. Will break down eventually and feed the worms helping the soil. - Canny Scot, Christchurch.
If you have the space available, a great place for collecting your kitchen scraps is in the top draw! If your cutting board is above a utensil draw, move these utensils and create a compost draw. Of course you will need a plastic container to put the scraps into. A long shallow dish works best(similar to a kitty litter tray) but whatever fits. We are using a old ice cream container at the moment. My mum taught me this. So handy when tidying up the left overs on the cutting board - open draw and sweep in. Does need to be cleared regularly so scraps don't end up jamming against the top of the draw. Also helps to line draw with newspaper in case of any spills... Hides the unsightly piles of scraps in the corner of your kitchen as well. (My other half has taken to using newspaper to line the plastic container as well to save him rinsing constantly.) - T.B., Palmerston North.
I have four round black plastic compost bins. I fill these with the household scraps and clean garden weeds. When bin 1 is full, I start bin 2, etc. By the time bin 4 is full, bin 1 is ready to use. If there is any uncomposted material in the "using bins", transfer it to one at the far end of the line. It will eventually break down. – G.B.
To make rich compose, place lawn clippings, weeds and other garden waste into a big black plastic bag (such as a big garbage bag). Seal the bag and leave. Turn it once a week an after three months you will have good garden compost.
Getting rid of Cutigrass. We have the misfortune of having almost a dozen of these huge weeds in our garden. After much pondering I decided to chop down around the base & leave them to decompose. Instant mulch. Not only has it covered some bear ground & stopped numerous other weeds from taking hold, it has also provided valuable humus on a steep clay bank as it breaks down. No poisons, some effort but free compost. - S.P.

Fertiliser

A dead electric kettle/jug is good for watering plants and giving them liquid fertiliser. The kettles with a gauge that tell you how much water is in them are particularly useful if you're mixing liquid fertilisers. Also, if you know how much water a particular plant needs you can mark the water gauge with a permanent marker pen (eg Sharpie) and/or write a list on the kettle (eg "Venus fly trap 500ml weekly"): this avoids overflows. A kettle with a small leak is fine if you're using it outdoors. The kettles that have a detachable cord usually use a common type that will fit other appliances, so they're worth keeping (especially if you have a habit of melting kettle cords!). -Boaz, Auckland.
Instead of buying blood and bone for your Garden, get a Fisherman's heavy duty meat grinder (Burly Maker) and Grind up the bones to use as fertiliser. Dry the bone meal in the oven as you cook your next Roast, or just dig it straight in. - TXMA, Glenfield.
Don't throw away your plastic milk bottles. When they are empty fill with cold water. Place lid on and shake. There is a good milky residue. Use the contents to water your pot plants. It acts like a pick me up. My African daises thrive as do my many other indoor plants. It saves you from having to buy costly fertilisers. - D.B.

General

Broken ceramic and earthenware pots? Knock them into small pieces and use as drainage material at the bottom of tubs or in soil. Larger shards of colourful glazed pots can look very effective when used to accentuate borders in flower and vegetable plots. - Thirties Depression Baby, Auckland.

Greenhouse

A cheap "glasshouse". I made mine by purchasing clear plastic shower curtains (Kmart seems the cheapest and Bunnings the more expensive) and attaching them to the inside of my balcony with curtain hooks. Apart from the easterly breeze which blows them around, have managed to keep my plants warm and sprouting nicely. - Trixie, Christchurch.

Kids gardens

When my grandchild was a preschooler and I looked after her during the day, we spent many long hours in the organic veggie garden One thing Emma wanted to do was to grow something herself, by her self We chose the silver beet that we purchased, then Emma planted, them watered them & cared for them Now I am thrilled to say that she will go down to the garden, pick the leaves, wash them & above all loves to eat her silver beet. All you Nannies give it ago!!!!! - Nannie Suzanne, Okere Falls -Rotorua.

Lawns

Use a push mower instead of a petrol driven mower. They are cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, create no pollution, and will keep you fit.

Planting

Making a seed propagator is quite easy, any container with drainage. Just sow seeds, water and bend some wire in a hoop, then cover with gladwrap. This should act like a mini glasshouse. - Trixie, Christchurch.
Being a "keen as mustard" type of Oily Ragger I decided to build a large raised garden in the paddock next to the house with enough room, I thought, to grow enough veges to feed an army, to lower the food bill and generate some nature time and of course a great excuse to get a bit grubby! - which I in later months had to double in size and am at present thinking about a bit more room! After hours of begging, borrowing etc a certain gardening magazine, and armed with my rather tatty Yates guide, I was prepared to sow my first seed and did so in the egg cartons I had ferreted away for my project of the year. After the third seed sowing expedition I ran out! "Help a world wide egg carton shortage" I thought - then remembered that these are sold in the millions at shops so someone should have some. Promptly putting on my thinking cap I begged and bribed, with fresh veges, my friends and family to get more but alas this was not meant to be by the fifth sowing that is - I had cleaned everyone out! Given that we have our own chocks things were looking rather grim on the egg carton front! When all else fails "google it" and that was when I found that I could fold up and make paper pots in a number of ways. Ah-ha! A good way to use up newspaper, non-shiny pamphlets, photocopying paper, invoices, statements, phone bills, electricity bills etc - you name it I have a seed sown in it. Once the seedling has formed it's first set of real leaves these can be hardened off and planted into the garden with - like the egg cartons and toilet rolls - no disruption to the precious root system and the pot will disappear very quickly so the plant can grow through and establish it's self to help me pay for the egg cartons that I traded for veges! So I now look forward to getting my junk mail and bills as all I can see is the food that they will start. All I need now is a gardening guru on tap - seen as I am a relatively beginner gardener and wished I had listened more to Nana and granddad when it came to what is what and why this and that happens! But as always any help is gratefully received and recycled! Also a seedling in a paper pot is great to give as a living gift ready to go into your recipients garden - no waste and if you save seed from the previous year very, very cheap. I put together a "house warming" pack for a young family which had paper pots folded, home made seed raising mix in a couple of ice cream containers, 5 packets of self collected seed complete with growing instructions and some hand made row labels to finish it off. - Keen as Mustard, Rural Palmerston North
Place seeds such as peas, beans, luffa, etc in warm water for two days then plant. We are having a gardening competition so we are looking for ideas like this. We will be judging in December and taking a bus around to see all the gardens. - Manawahe School, Whakatane.
If planting large seeds like beans, use the inners of toilet rolls, part fill with seed mix, put in the seed and top up. You can get about 12 of these to stand up in an ice cream container. And in due course plant out the whole tube. No transplant shock. The cardboard will rot away quickly. – G.B.
Go to an organic shop. Purchase lentils, chick peas, haricot beans (navy) etc and come home and pop them in punnets. They will grow for you, Plant them in the gaden as normal and harvest when ready. - K.S., Morrinsville.

Plant markers

Be sure to write the name on the lower part of the label as well as it won't fade so quicly underground. - P.J.H., Waverley.
Next time you think about throwing out your old ice cream boxes cut them into strips and make little plant markers with them. Make sure you use a waterproof marker when writing on them. - Canny Scot, Christchurch.

Plants

When the milk bottle is emptied fill with cold water with lid on shake well, and use the residue on all your plants. If you have a fish tank, when emptying save the water for pot plants etc. These hints work well - you don't have to buy plant food. - D.M.
We had no luck growing capsicum from packeted seed so brought a fresh capsicum, scooped out the seed and planted that fresh and Walah - lots and lots of plants. - K.S., Morrinsville.
Keep you packets of seeds in the bottom of the fridge in a container and they will stay useable for years. I once grew carrot seeds that were 5 years past the use by date. - K.S., Morrinsville.

Potting mix

Reuse potting mix safely .I fill a 3 ltre plastic ring basin with the old mix (moist) and give it 12 minutes on high in the microwave. Give it a stir at about 10 mintes. I test with my big thermometer and if its reading over 90 degrees so all the nasties have been zapped. If you don't have a suitable thermometer give it 15 minutes in the microwave to be sure. This is much better than fresh potting mix for sowing seeds in just as it is . But for planting out plants some slow release fertiliser needs to be added. - P.J.H., Waverley.

Silver beet

I grow silver beet - however don't always eat it all. I also had a problem with the plants going to seed as I didn't pick it fast enough. Now I just pick and chop up and freezing in bags works nicely. Bags can also be reused. When I cook I just put the frozen silver beet in.- Rocky, Napier.

Slugs & snails

Stop wasting money on slug pellets, they don't work, slugs don't even like them. save your eggshells , dry them in oven ,crush and sprinkle round the plants you want to protect. Snails will not cross them. They break down and benefit the soil too without chemicals. P.S. I tried the newspaper tip but caught no snails. - Canny Scot, Christchurch.
We want to share a wonderful moneysaver I stumbled on. I crushed a piece of newspaper and shoved it among plants to save going to the house. Next morning I recovered and in it were 20 slugs of all sizes. I was so excited I put more crumbled paper around the plants. By the following morning I had 110 slugs. Prior to this I used expensive slug pellets that didn’t seem to work. Crumbled paper is the answer. It’s a plant and money saver. - P.M.

Tomatoes

Every one has left overs and they go in the fridge and come out a week later when you are growing tomatoes and taking a lot of laterals off and you forget your gloves and have tomatoes on the vine and you have lots of green on your hands from working with the vines take one or two tomatoes and squash them between your hands it will remove all the green of your hands we did this when i worked for someone picking tomatoes commercially so i know it works. - Tui, Thames.
One can grow tomatoes inside. Transplant seedlings, when need be put in a warm sunspot & you've got a plant growing! - P & J Funnell