Recycled waste to be used in your garden

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I've never really thought about saving onion bottoms, but it sounds good in principle, so let me know how your next experiments go! :) . I've always saved one garlic bulb and regrown those though, doesn't seem worth buying new sets each year when I have everything I need.

I tried to save seeds a couple years ago..from carrots... It didn't go too well. I kept telling myself I'd put a paperbag over the seedheads, but forgot and went on holiday for a week.. When I'd returned, the seedheads had popped and scattered my seeds everywhere!
The next spring, despite digging, adding compost and raking the soil over my whole plot, I had carrots coming up EVERYWHERE. I shouldn't complain because they grew properly and I was able to harvest them.. but when you're digging up beetroot or potatoes, you don't expect a handful of carrots too! They were in my paths, around my trees, in pots on my patio, and I'm sure my next door neighbour got some too!

After all the hassle of trying to find them, I figured it probably just easier to carry on buying a packet of seeds for 40-something pence than go through that again!

As for regrowing beetroot greens, aren't the smaller new leaves supposed to be sweeter and more succulent/tender?

I also grow a variety of cabbages that if I keep cutting tops off, will grow another head and will keep me in cabbages for about 18 months. I can't think of the variety off the top of my head but they're amazing little plants and I'd fully recommend them to anyone. I'll find out the packet later for you. Begins with a D lol...
 
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My grandfather had cabbages regrowing from the stumps, but the darned snails keep getting to them once they make any real progress. I had pruned the chewed up leaves back a bit and moved them to a better spot (they are in containers).I'd been keeping an eye on them and they were doing fine until someone else started to interfere with them.

I have about had it with snails. I was waiting a couple days to pick the first strawberry (they are those bright lipstick colored ones) and I've never grown them before... well, something had already taken a huge chunk out of it. Grrrrrrr!
 
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Snails and slugs are quite the problem here, too. I have huge pieces of tight netting over my entire plot, once things get closer to harvest. Fruit cage netting is up all year round, and there's a line of organic slug pellets around the edge of each net, and round my greenhouse. It's like a fortress against them..Battle of the Alamo, so to speak. I won't be tolerating half eaten veg leaves this year, that's for sure!
 
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So far nothing I've tried has worked. I read that copper gives them a bit of a shock so I am on the verge of placing pennies around all the - pennies and bottlecaps. With all the rain we've been having trying the beer trick would just be a waste of time. I do rather enjoy flinging them across the yard though when I pick them off by hand.
 
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So far nothing I've tried has worked. I read that copper gives them a bit of a shock so I am on the verge of placing pennies around all the - pennies and bottlecaps. With all the rain we've been having trying the beer trick would just be a waste of time. I do rather enjoy flinging them across the yard though when I pick them off by hand.
Didn't the egg shells work for you? they always have for me. How about some coarse salt around the container so that the snails don't get there. I hope you can save those cabbages.
 
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Didn't the egg shells work for you? they always have for me. How about some coarse salt around the container so that the snails don't get there. I hope you can save those cabbages.


Maddie, I think it is due to all of the rain we have been having daily (and you thought things were wet over there, lol!) I may experience three or four showers in one day! At least the plants will get the benefit of the calcium from the shells. Maybe tomorrow I will try a few pennies.
 
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Maddie, I think it is due to all of the rain we have been having daily (and you thought things were wet over there, lol!) I may experience three or four showers in one day! At least the plants will get the benefit of the calcium from the shells. Maybe tomorrow I will try a few pennies.

Now I understand why the egg shells didn't work. Here it has been raining incessantly. Too much of a good thing is bad. Its a struggle to keep my plants from rotting and dying out.
The copper coin thingy is something I didn't know. Let me know if that works for you.
 
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Now I understand why the egg shells didn't work. Here it has been raining incessantly. Too much of a good thing is bad. Its a struggle to keep my plants from rotting and dying out.
The copper coin thingy is something I didn't know. Let me know if that works for you.


Maybe I should try putting pennies in bottle caps just in case the edges of the caps don't stop them. Most people either put down salt or beer, but the rain would wash either of those away. I have one of the strawberry plants protected, I just have to find something to put over the other one. The only thing is that if I protect the plants from pests, they will also be protected from pollinators. (Sigh) In the future I will just dry the egg shells and powder them.

Oh, I'm now trying hair. Supposedly hair is aggravating to soft bodied pests. It also adds nitrogen to the soil over time so we'll see. I cut it up into really short pieces onto the soil in some of the pots. I just remembered a trick for balling up aluminum foil to deter aphids from roses; I wonder if it will work for the ones on my milkweed...

Oh, I recycled watermelon rinds into preserves Wednesday. Not for the garden, but it didn't go to waste. I still have the green peel in the freezer to go into the compost.
 
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Maybe I should try putting pennies in bottle caps just in case the edges of the caps don't stop them. Most people either put down salt or beer, but the rain would wash either of those away. I have one of the strawberry plants protected, I just have to find something to put over the other one. The only thing is that if I protect the plants from pests, they will also be protected from pollinators. (Sigh) In the future I will just dry the egg shells and powder them.

Oh, I'm now trying hair. Supposedly hair is aggravating to soft bodied pests. It also adds nitrogen to the soil over time so we'll see. I cut it up into really short pieces onto the soil in some of the pots. I just remembered a trick for balling up aluminum foil to deter aphids from roses; I wonder if it will work for the ones on my milkweed...

Oh, I recycled watermelon rinds into preserves Wednesday. Not for the garden, but it didn't go to waste. I still have the green peel in the freezer to go into the compost.

LOL girl you have been working far too hard I guess. Yeah the beer trap works beautifully if it doesn't rain. Why don't you try some gravel. It could keep the place looking neat and keep those pesks away.
 

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