Yes folks.. here I am again but this time, instead of her 'flashing the cash', we are giving you major tips on how to save some dosh.. aka money.. when buying gardening equipment.
FIRST.. locate your garden.. heehee.. it must be somewhere out there but it is hidden from sight because old grass and weed have grown overnight so you cannot see it. So speak sharply to them and proceed forthwith to shed to call upon Messrs Lawnmower and Strimmer to do their duty.
NOTE: They work better if you give them a bit of grub, so don't forget to take a fuel can with you the next time you are out and about and get petrol. You'll find they work better!
SECOND: Mow the grass and or strim, you will be tired but very pleased with your efforts and the 'jungle' will look more like the place you know instead, of a wilderness where monsters might be lurking.. aka Spanish Slugs.
We trust you have already decided what Annuals (Flowers) or Vegetables you are going to grow this year? That you know when your last frost date is, have got your protective gear clean and ready for use when your tender plants are ready to go out.
But first you have to sew the seeds to grow those tender babies.
Right.. let's give you these amazingly good tips..
Trot off to your nearest 99p or Poundland or $1.00 store and purchase about four or five Cat Litter Boxes. They are made of strong plastic and are quite deep. Next, mosie-on-down the aisles until you come to their Gardening section, where you will find Seed Cell trays, they're usually packed 3 to a pack or those cardboard seed packs which are usually five to a pack.
Pick up some small plastic flower pots whilst you are at it and one hard plastic box with a snap-on lid, the height should be no less than about 6 - 8" in height.. two packs of plant labels and a marker pen. Pick up a couple of bags of SEED Compost, this is much finer than regular compost and the compost for baskets, a wide roll of Cling Film, a tub of Slow Release Vegetable Plant Food. AND.. a bottle of Sterilisation Fluid OR White Vinegar.
Go home, find your seeds.. we hope you've got them ~ unlike her who completely forgot to order her most favourite Beetroot seeds.. less said about that, the better.
We hope that you've been saving the inner rolls from lavatory paper, what do you mean "WHAT?".. dinna fret, not all of you always think ahead about such important matters.
Clear your work bench.. kitchen counter.. unpack your spoils and place a cat litter tray on the 'bench', pour enough water into the tray, so that when you place a seed tray in the litter seed tray, the water rises into each cell.
Using a table spoon, which you have especially for this purpose, put a spoonful into each cell plus a few granules of the plant food. Wait a minute or two for the compost to soak up a bit of the water and become moist (or spray the compost to hurry this up a bit).
Mark a seed label with what you are about to plant and attach it to the tray, put in a seed making sure that it is placed the right way, ALL Bean seeds have a top and a bottom, the bottom has a little mark, this should be placed downwards, all Squash and Courgette / Zucchini seeds should be placed on their edge.
Top up the cell with another spoonful of compost, give the tray a gentle spray of water and cover the top with the cling film. Place the tray in a warm BUT not hot place and wait for your babies to grow, at the first sight of growth, remove the cling film.
Now go back to your loo rolls.. This is the very bestest way to grow Sweet Peas! SniffSniff, how we jurst lurve their smell!
Take the seeds and with a sharp knife, carefully chip away a little piece of their hard shell and place them into a glass of luke warm water, after a couple of days, the shells will crack open a bit and you can plant them.
Take the loo roll, place them standing upright into the plastic box which has a lid, pour in a little amount of water and put compost and a few granules of the plant food into each roll, it should come up about halfway, then place three seeds into each roll and top up with more compost.
Make sure there is another water in the box so that the cardboard rolls will become damp but NOT soggy, you don't want the roll to rot or the seeds will rot too! Place the lid on and snap it shut, place into a warm but not hot place.
When their shoots appear, remove the lid, make sure the box in a good light to encourage growth, check to see if the compost is moist, when the shoots are green and at least 4" high, harden them off by putting box outside in a sheltered spot for two days before planting each roll into the soil next to a growing support.. make sure that you scatter lots of slug deterrent around the seedlings.
She haunts our local Costa Coffee for empty plastic bottles and cans, she cuts the tops and bottoms off the bottles and put them over the Sweet Pea rolls (and all other seedlings) to prevent Mr.Slimy Slug from crunchy-munching her plants. At the end of the season, the plasti 'slug' rings are cleaned in a bucket** and placed over a very long bamboo cane and put into shed.
The cans work as REALLY efficient eye protectors, so you get no pokes in the eye when bending down to be nasty to a weed. Placed on top of each and every Bamboo Cane in our garden, they are great and last forever!
The bright red CocaCola tins are good at keeping Mr.Pigeon away.. they jiggle about when the wind blows and make a clinky-clanky noise.. very effective they are too!
There you have.. very cheap propogators and other useful VERY cheap gardening tricks, now you cannot say rhat we never give you anything! And the only things that have to be replaced each year are cling film and cardboard cell trays, because you plant them into the soil when the seedlings are ready to go out!
But plastic pots, plastic cell trays, litter boxes and the plastic box with the lid can be washed used again and again** and cost peanuts.. compared to those fancy-schancy ones from Garden Centres!
Now she is off out and I'm going to listen to Mr. James O'Brian on LBC.. 97.3.. why did we tell you to buy sterilisation fluid or white vinegar?
**Because you must always clean your work bench or work surface ~ especially if you've been using a surface in the kitchen ~ and tools and pots should be sterilised by dunking them into a bucket of water with a sterilising agent in it. We get a litre bottle of MILTON'S from Poundland or our locL 99p store, keeps bugs and germs at bay!
PipPip..
GeeGee Parrot.
April 10th, 2015.
FIRST.. locate your garden.. heehee.. it must be somewhere out there but it is hidden from sight because old grass and weed have grown overnight so you cannot see it. So speak sharply to them and proceed forthwith to shed to call upon Messrs Lawnmower and Strimmer to do their duty.
NOTE: They work better if you give them a bit of grub, so don't forget to take a fuel can with you the next time you are out and about and get petrol. You'll find they work better!
SECOND: Mow the grass and or strim, you will be tired but very pleased with your efforts and the 'jungle' will look more like the place you know instead, of a wilderness where monsters might be lurking.. aka Spanish Slugs.
We trust you have already decided what Annuals (Flowers) or Vegetables you are going to grow this year? That you know when your last frost date is, have got your protective gear clean and ready for use when your tender plants are ready to go out.
But first you have to sew the seeds to grow those tender babies.
Right.. let's give you these amazingly good tips..
Trot off to your nearest 99p or Poundland or $1.00 store and purchase about four or five Cat Litter Boxes. They are made of strong plastic and are quite deep. Next, mosie-on-down the aisles until you come to their Gardening section, where you will find Seed Cell trays, they're usually packed 3 to a pack or those cardboard seed packs which are usually five to a pack.
Pick up some small plastic flower pots whilst you are at it and one hard plastic box with a snap-on lid, the height should be no less than about 6 - 8" in height.. two packs of plant labels and a marker pen. Pick up a couple of bags of SEED Compost, this is much finer than regular compost and the compost for baskets, a wide roll of Cling Film, a tub of Slow Release Vegetable Plant Food. AND.. a bottle of Sterilisation Fluid OR White Vinegar.
Go home, find your seeds.. we hope you've got them ~ unlike her who completely forgot to order her most favourite Beetroot seeds.. less said about that, the better.
We hope that you've been saving the inner rolls from lavatory paper, what do you mean "WHAT?".. dinna fret, not all of you always think ahead about such important matters.
Clear your work bench.. kitchen counter.. unpack your spoils and place a cat litter tray on the 'bench', pour enough water into the tray, so that when you place a seed tray in the litter seed tray, the water rises into each cell.
Using a table spoon, which you have especially for this purpose, put a spoonful into each cell plus a few granules of the plant food. Wait a minute or two for the compost to soak up a bit of the water and become moist (or spray the compost to hurry this up a bit).
Mark a seed label with what you are about to plant and attach it to the tray, put in a seed making sure that it is placed the right way, ALL Bean seeds have a top and a bottom, the bottom has a little mark, this should be placed downwards, all Squash and Courgette / Zucchini seeds should be placed on their edge.
Top up the cell with another spoonful of compost, give the tray a gentle spray of water and cover the top with the cling film. Place the tray in a warm BUT not hot place and wait for your babies to grow, at the first sight of growth, remove the cling film.
Now go back to your loo rolls.. This is the very bestest way to grow Sweet Peas! SniffSniff, how we jurst lurve their smell!
Take the seeds and with a sharp knife, carefully chip away a little piece of their hard shell and place them into a glass of luke warm water, after a couple of days, the shells will crack open a bit and you can plant them.
Take the loo roll, place them standing upright into the plastic box which has a lid, pour in a little amount of water and put compost and a few granules of the plant food into each roll, it should come up about halfway, then place three seeds into each roll and top up with more compost.
Make sure there is another water in the box so that the cardboard rolls will become damp but NOT soggy, you don't want the roll to rot or the seeds will rot too! Place the lid on and snap it shut, place into a warm but not hot place.
When their shoots appear, remove the lid, make sure the box in a good light to encourage growth, check to see if the compost is moist, when the shoots are green and at least 4" high, harden them off by putting box outside in a sheltered spot for two days before planting each roll into the soil next to a growing support.. make sure that you scatter lots of slug deterrent around the seedlings.
She haunts our local Costa Coffee for empty plastic bottles and cans, she cuts the tops and bottoms off the bottles and put them over the Sweet Pea rolls (and all other seedlings) to prevent Mr.Slimy Slug from crunchy-munching her plants. At the end of the season, the plasti 'slug' rings are cleaned in a bucket** and placed over a very long bamboo cane and put into shed.
The cans work as REALLY efficient eye protectors, so you get no pokes in the eye when bending down to be nasty to a weed. Placed on top of each and every Bamboo Cane in our garden, they are great and last forever!
The bright red CocaCola tins are good at keeping Mr.Pigeon away.. they jiggle about when the wind blows and make a clinky-clanky noise.. very effective they are too!
There you have.. very cheap propogators and other useful VERY cheap gardening tricks, now you cannot say rhat we never give you anything! And the only things that have to be replaced each year are cling film and cardboard cell trays, because you plant them into the soil when the seedlings are ready to go out!
But plastic pots, plastic cell trays, litter boxes and the plastic box with the lid can be washed used again and again** and cost peanuts.. compared to those fancy-schancy ones from Garden Centres!
Now she is off out and I'm going to listen to Mr. James O'Brian on LBC.. 97.3.. why did we tell you to buy sterilisation fluid or white vinegar?
**Because you must always clean your work bench or work surface ~ especially if you've been using a surface in the kitchen ~ and tools and pots should be sterilised by dunking them into a bucket of water with a sterilising agent in it. We get a litre bottle of MILTON'S from Poundland or our locL 99p store, keeps bugs and germs at bay!
PipPip..
GeeGee Parrot.
April 10th, 2015.
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