Veggie gardening is serious business, but it should be relaxing and enjoyable as well. At times, urban gardening can be downright entertaining, especially when you hear about some of the bizarre tricks people come up with to make the most of their veggie gardening experience. Here are the five most bizarre tricks we’ve heard about in the garden:
5 Leave those smelly gym socks in the garden.
If deer are a problem, you can give your nose a temporary reprieve from smelly sweat socks. Because deer and other common garden pests have an acute sense of smell, the human scent will help to deter them. You didn’t think you were the only one, right?
4 Clean your rusty tools with a can of soda.
Accidentally left your favorite trowel in the garden and found it rusty a few days later? Been there, done that. Pour some carbonated soda on the rust and give it a good scrub. The rust will disappear! Follow it up with a good rinse and a spritz of cooking oil to keep those tools good as new.
3 Save your egg shells, save your tomatoes.
If you’ve ever had a problem with blossom end rot, you know it can ruin a tomato crop in a flash. An extra boost of calcium can help improve the odds that you won’t have that particular plague, so save your eggshells and finely crumble one or two into each planting hole when you transplant tomato seedlings.
2 Vodka as insect repellent?
Not only does vodka make a tasty cocktail, a bit in a spray bottle is an effective way to keep the insects at bay. Fair warning though, the neighborhood lush may begin to hang around a lot more.
1 Watering your tomatoes with human urine.
No, it’s not a sick joke and yes it does work. Scientific research has backed this up several times over, citing increased nitrogen and other nutrients in the urine as a potential benefit. I even wrote a blog post about my experience with this bizarre trick last year.
Have you tried any of these tricks? Do you have others that you think should be on the list? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
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I save coffee grounds all winter and put them in the garden on top of the soil, slugs will not crawl through the rough feeling coffee grounds, i had slugs last spring and did this and they did not come back.