Inexpensive gardening tricks

Keep these handy garden tricks in mind during the growing season. They're all easy to do and won't cost a cent. Well, except for the trick with the pennies...

Just as you test a baking cake for doneness by sticking it with a wooden toothpick, you can do the same to see whether a garden bed needs watering. Stick the toothpick into the soil as far as it will go, then examine it. If it comes out clean, it's time to water. If any soil clings to the pick, you can forgo watering and test the soil again the next day.

Tomatoes aren't the only garden plants that like lots of water. Others with a big thirst include squashes, melons and rosebushes. How to keep them quenched? Bury plastic water jug reservoirs alongside. Here's how.

1. Perforate a jug in several places.
2. Dig a planting hole large enough to accommodate both plant and jug and bury the jug so its spout is at soil level.
3. After refilling the hole and tamping down the soil, fill the jug with water.
4. Top it to overflowing at least once a week and your plant's roots will stay nice and moist.

When planting a fern, put a used tea bag in the bottom of the planting hole to act as a reservoir while the fern adapts to its new spot. The roots will draw up a bit more nitrogen. You can also give them a very weak solution of household ammonia and water — 15 millilitres (one tablespoon) of ammonia to one litre (four cups) water.

To keep direct sunlight from burning the leaves of ferns, azaleas, yews, hollies, hostas and herbs such as thyme and chives, add borax to your watering can. Use 15 millilitres (one tablespoon) of borax to 3.75 litres (one gallon) of water. Wet the leaves of the plants and soak the soil with the solution a couple of times in the spring (more than two treatments is overdoing it). Your plants will be better able to stand up to the sun's hot rays in summer.

Boiled foods release nutrients of one kind or another, so why pour their cooking water down the drain? Let the water cool, then use it to give a garden plant or two a healthy drink. But take note: When you cook any of the following, do not add salt to the water because salt is harmful to plants.

• Eggs: Hardboiled eggs leave calcium in the cooking water, so use the liquid to water calcium-loving solanaceous garden plants: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, tomatillos.
• Spinach: Plants need iron and spinach water gives them not only iron but also a decent dose of potassium.
• Pasta and potatoes: Starchy water will spur the release of plant nutrients in the soil.

Have a jar of pennies around from back when those were useful for more than throwing into fountains? Use the coins as a splashguard in a window box. Watering plants in window boxes often splatters mud onto windowpanes, as does a driving rain. To solve the problem, simply spread pennies over the soil surface.

If water is leaking from a tiny hole in your garden hose, stick a wooden toothpick into the hole and then break it off at surface level. Wrap electrical tape or duct tape around the hose to secure the toothpick. The wet wood will swell and form a tight seal and the leak will be history.

Some of the best things in life are free — including handy hints to help your garden grow — so enjoy!