Garden Maintenance

Tools- What you may need

There are numerous garden tools ranging from hand to power operated tools available on the market. However, you don’t need to purchase fancy or expensive tools. The tool size and requirement entirely depend on the size of the garden and its physical conditions. The basic digging spade, digging knife or trowel, wheelbarrow, hoe, rake and pruner are the tools mostly used.

Spades are used for digging and scooping which makes it one of the more commonly used tools for gardening purposes.

Garden Maintenance

Basic Gardening Tools

The basic tools that every gardener should have in their shed. It does not mater if you are a newbie or advanced gardener. The tools below will definitely make your gardening life much easier for you.

Garden Maintenance

Use, Reused, Recycle

Rain Barrels/ Buckets

Rain barrel

Water is a necessary commodity used daily when gardening that will increase charges to your water rates. The use of barrels or large buckets (in the Caribbean we call them pigtail buckets) is an inexpensive way to collect rain water to use in the garden to conserve water and cut down on the water bill. I also view it as a bonus using rain water which is natural to use in the garden. You can purchase these at any hardware store or as an inexpensive approach, collect them from friends and family who may have done some renovations and recycle them as they may have been used as paint buckets or drywall mud.

Garden Maintenance

Pest Control

Crushed Eggshells

To protect your plants from pests like slugs and snail you can sprinkle crushed eggshells at the based of the plant, it can be used to deter some pests away. They act as good fertilizers, the egg shells are composed of more than 95% of minerals. Mainly calcium carbonate (37%), which is an essential element required for plant’s growth. It also consists magnesium, potassium, iron and phosphorus in good quantity.  Whether raw shells resulting from omelet or the preparation of a delicious cake, or even shells cooked for boiled eggs, they can join your compost bin. But before dropping them off to your compost bin, finely crumble the shells. All their minerals then be found in your soil. In addition, the eggshells neutralize the pH level of the compost you made from them. One thing you should remember that eggshells do not make the soil alkaline but neutralize it.

 Disease Free Healthy Tomatoes

While planting tomatoes, place a handful of coarsely crumbled eggshells in the bottom. This will provide a good amount of minerals and trace elements to a tomato plant in all of its growing season slowly and steadily.This will also help in healthy growth of tomato plant and develop its resistance to diseases, especially against blossom end rot occurs due to lack of calcium.