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3 Brilliant Gardening Hacks to use During Lockdown!

Given that most of us are now spending WAY more time at home than we’re used to, maybe it’s about time we started showing our homes a little TLC. But if you’re the outdoorsy type, you might prefer to spend that TLC on your beloved garden!

Have you been neglecting your garden over the past few months? (Or years? Ouch!) Then grab your spades and forks and turn that messy, torn-up, withered old patch of grass into a beautiful backyard escape you can be proud of.

Here are 3 brilliant gardening hacks you can use during lockdown!

Pop Bottle Mini Greenhouse

Struggling to get your seeds to grow? Wish you had a greenhouse to help give your plants-to-be the warmth they need to flourish? As it turns out, there’s something that’s probably in your kitchen right now that serves as the perfect home DIY greenhouse for your seeds…

Take an empty 2 litre bottle of pop (finish drinking it, of course. Don’t waste any!) and cut it in half across the middle horizontally, leaving the bottom of the bottle and the top in separate pieces.

Then, using the top half, grab a small pot with soil and seeds you want to give a little extra boost and place the top of the bottle over it. It might fit over the entire pot or just rest on top in the soil. Place the pot out where it’ll get plenty of sun and you’ve got yourself a homemade mini greenhouse! Once the seeds have started sprouting and the roots are set, you can remove the bottle and let them grow naturally. Sorted!

Toilet Roll Seed Tubes

Everybody is so obsessed with toilet rolls these days! You’d think they were an endangered species! But before throwing away your empty toilet rolls, consider using the cardboard tubes to get creative in your garden.

As it turns out the thin cardboard tubes are great at decomposing naturally in soil, making them ideal individual seed planters. Have you struggled placing multiple seeds in one pot, only to find their growth is stunted because of overcrowding? Cut them in half across the middle (just like with the pop bottles above) and place them in a waterproof container. Don’t worry about the lid.

Then fill the individual toilet rolls with soil and seeds in each. When the seeds have started sprouting slightly, they’re ready to move to the garden where you can plant them straight in the ground along with their tubes! Just be sure to cover the tubed completely so they can decompose properly. With any luck, your seeds should grow separately and fruitfully from now on!

Water Absorbing Pot

While it is important to keep plants hydrated just like us, it is possible to over-hydrate them, especially when it starts raining unexpectedly!

Excess water is dangerously bad for a plant and can do irreversible damage to the roots, and every other part of it as a result.

So what can we do to stop this? Well, if you’ve got any old, used sponges lying around your kitchen, you’ve got the perfect solution! Don’t use brand new sponges, that’d be a bit silly!

Take your old sponges and, before filling your plant pot with soil and seeds, cut up a sponge and place the pieces at the bottom of the pot. This will help absorb any excess water that settles at the bottom, leaving the rest of the plant well-watered as it should be.

It's funny just how many uses random items around the house can have! But let's face it, if we were ever going to figure them out, now is the time!

Do you have any interesting garden or home hacks people could do with knowing?

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