Once the harvests start coming in, gardeners often find themselves with an excess of one crop and another that did poorly. To make use of the extra crops and compensate for poor harvest, how about trading or sharing them up?

Check out these 5 communities where you can share your harvests.

Local Gardening Clubs

Local gardening clubs are full of enthusiasts in the same boat as you. So the question is, how can you connect with a local gardening club?

The Public Library

Start by checking with your nearest library. Many libraries have great clubs and garden-related activities like hosting a community garden, seed libraries, and harvest swaps!

Even if they don’t host one, they may have a list of community organizations and can help you get in touch with one.

Community Gardens

Check with local community centers to see if they have a gardening club. They often do have a group of garden spots you can rent where you can meet other gardeners.

Facebook/Social Media Groups

You can easily find local or semi-local gardeners to trade harvests within private groups. Just search for gardening groups in your area.

You can even go outside gardening groups and connect with homesteading groups who may have other products to trade like dairy goods, baked goods, or even crafts.

Online Etiquette

If you choose the online route, please understand that most private social media groups have expectations when you ask to exchange.

• Always check the group rules or private message an admin if they have rules. Many have a dedicated thread for people to find deals.
• Never share your or anyone else’s private information.

Online Safety

If you choose to meet up with someone you met online, follow these tips to keep yourself safe.

• Only meet in a well-lit public place, like a busy parking lot or the police station.
• Tell someone where you are going and the other person’s contact info.
• Take someone else if possible.
• Don’t give your phone number or address. Use online messages.

Farmer’s Markets

Buy produce, grab business cards from vendors, and network. Make some connections so you can ask them in the future.

As I mentioned, the markets are beautiful places to meet people who do crafts, raise meat or eggs, etc.

Roadside Stands

These are still popular in the South. Stands pop up in shady spots along the roads and popular parking lots beside food trucks. Stop, buy a small amount of produce, and ask them if they would be interested in a “produce exchange” in the future.

Master Gardeners/University Extensions

Most states have a program where agricultural scientists work with state, county, and city officials so they can help their local communities.

Master Gardeners are this organization’s branch that does community volunteer projects and fundraisers. This is made up of average gardeners and is a great place to find community and barter for harvests.

Find your local Master Gardeners

Conclusion

Gardening is a great way to relax and save money, and exchanging your harvests is a great reason to join a community of like-minded people. Which of these communities will you join?

Growing your own food can be incredibly beneficial for you and your family. The food supply chain can be complex and easily disrupted. When you grow your own, you get some peace of mind about it. But getting to that point can be difficult. Here are some tips on how to create a life growing your own food.

Move Somewhere With Plenty of Room

While this is not necessary to grow some of your food, growing all of your own food requires a lot of space. If you are moving to a new home in the near future, look for a property that provides the space you need to have a large garden. You might move for a number of reasons. For example, 40% of moves are due to work while 42% are for personal reasons. Meanwhile, 18% of moves are for military or government relocation. If you’re going to be moving anyway, you might as well get yourself into a space where growing your own food will be much more practical.

Be Thoughtful In Your Planning

Having a successful garden depends on a large number of factors. You need to have the right climate for many plants. If it is too hot or cold, they won’t be successful no matter how hard you try. So you have to be thoughtful about what you’re growing. Native plants are always a good option. About 92% of homeowners who add plants to their yards are choosing native plants. Since they have specifically evolved to thrive in your climate, they are most likely to be successful. Look for native edibles and make them part of your garden plan.

You should also make sure you’re growing things you and your family will actually eat. If you choose things that are easy but unappetizing, you’ll have a hard time motivating everyone to eat food from the garden.

Know Your Limitations

Gardening is a great activity, but it needs to be adapted to fit your specific lifestyle. If you have disabilities, lack time, or lack space, you will have to figure out how to garden in the situation you have. Don’t try to push yourself too far, it could result in injury. Up to 22% of slips and falls result in more than 31 days away from work. So if you’re injured as you start your garden, it’ll postpone your life of growing your own food as you recover.

Expect Setbacks

Gardening is unpredictable. You could do everything right and still not get a successful crop. A drought could destroy your garden or unusually cold weather could prevent it from starting at all. As you experiment with different crops, you need to expect that many of them will fail to thrive. If you expect to eat solely from your garden the first year you plant it, you’re likely to get discouraged when you realize how few plants actually survive until they’re fully grown.

Take Small Steps

If you’ve never gardened before, you shouldn’t dive into growing all of your food. Instead, take small steps toward your goal. Start with something small and simple. An herb garden can be easy to plant and care for, while also providing essential ingredients. Or you could try growing a small vegetable garden. As you gain more skills and experience, you can branch out into growing more and more of your own food. Eventually, you might be able to grow all of it yourself.

Growing a garden is a great way to care for your family and relieve some of your anxiety over food. However, it is important that you go into it with realistic expectations. If you celebrate small victories and take small steps toward your goal, you’re much more likely to be successful.

If you are new to gardening, it can be difficult to know where to start. There are so many things to consider – what type of plants will grow well in your climate, what tools do you need, and how often should you water your plants? No need to worry, we’ve got you covered with these 7 tips for beginners that will help make the process a little bit easier!

1. Start Small – Don’t Try To Plant a Whole Garden at Once

When starting out, it can be tempting to immediately grow a huge garden. However, it’s important to start slow and gradually increase the number of plants as you become more comfortable. This will help you to better care for your plants and avoid becoming overwhelmed.

2. Choose Plants That Are Easy To Care For

Low-maintenance plants are suitable for first-time plant parents. Some easy-to-care for plants include succulents, cacti, and herbs.

Plants with deep green leaves are also perfect for low-light environments and require less water. If you have limited outdoor space, these plants are for you:

• Spider Plant
• Aloe Vera
• Golden Pothos
• Snake Plant
• Rubber Plant
• Monstera Deliciosa plant

3. Light Source

One of the most important things to consider when choosing a spot for your garden is how much sunlight it will get. Most plants need at least six hours of sunlight per day, so make sure your spot gets an ample amount of sunlight.

If you are unsure about how much sunlight a particular spot in your yard gets, you can use a sun chart to help you determine whether or not it is a good spot for your garden. Once you have found a spot that gets plenty of sunlight, you can start planning your garden!

4. Amend the Soil With Compost or Fertilizer Before Planting

Amending the soil before planting will help your plants grow more easily. It will also help to prevent diseases as it encourages beneficial microbes. You can amend the soil with compost or fertilizer, or you can purchase a bag of pre-amended soil from your local nursery.

5. Water Your Plants Regularly, but Don’t Overwater Them

As important as the sunlight, never forget to water your plants regularly. However, it is also important not to overwater them, as this can cause problems such as root rot.

Water your plants deeply about once a week, or more often if they are in a particularly hot or dry climate. Be sure to check the soil before watering to make sure that it is dry – if the soil is still moist, you don’t need to water again quite yet.

Overwatering is one of the most common mistakes made by gardening beginners, so be sure to keep an eye on your plants and only water when necessary.

6. Weed Your Garden Regularly To Keep It Looking Neat and Tidy

Another important tip for gardening beginners is to weed your garden regularly. Weeds can compete with your plants for water and nutrients, and they can also make your garden look messy.

Try to weed your garden at least once a week, or more often if necessary. You can use a hoe, trowel, or even just your hands to remove weeds – just be sure to get the roots so that they don’t grow back. If you keep up with weeding, it will help your garden look neat, and it will also help your plants to thrive.

By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to becoming a gardening pro in no time! Just remember to start small, choose easy-to-care-for plants, water regularly, and weed often. Good luck!

Did you find this article helpful? Check out our other gardening articles for more tips and advice!

Read More:

How to Dye Flowers With Food Coloring

Seed Starting on a Budget Series: Watering your Seedlings

4 Best TV Shows for Gardeners

Gardening is an amazing hobby to take up thanks to all the benefits that it has to offer. It may be a bit of a learning curve to know how to do it well, however, because of the sheer volume of information surrounding gardening. Here are four helpful tips to make it easier for you to garden that you’ve probably never thought of to give you some ideas on how to improve your gardening efforts.

1. Remove All Jewelry

First off, it’s a good idea to remove any jewelry that you may be wearing before you go to your garden. This includes dandling earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings. The main reason to do this is that while gardening, a piece of jewelry may get stuck on a gardening tool and get destroyed or even hurt you. Sensitive jewelry will also likely tarnish under the effects of earth, gardening tools, and any cleaning solutions and more that may come into contact with them. Since the fingers may expand when exerted during gardening, a ring you put on with no issue may become stuck after a serious gardening session. In this case, you should not pull it hard or panic. Instead, submerge your hand in ice-cold water for 10 to 20 seconds then remove it from the water. After this, try to wiggle the ring up and down to get it off and it may come off easily.

2. Make Use of Leftover Coffee Grinds

If you enjoy a regular cup of coffee every morning, consider collecting any leftover coffee or coffee grinds to use in your garden. Sprinkling these around your plants will do a great job deterring snails, slugs, and fungal growth in general. As a plus, they will add magnesium, potassium, nitrogen, copper, and phosphorus to the soil and help your plants thrive. These can be especially beneficial for different herbs and vegetables that you may grow, and they are a natural alternative to chemicals that you may purchase. Additionally, this is great for the environment! Consider starting a compost with other leftover food if you haven’t already.

3. Consider Purchasing Flood Insurance

If you live in an area that has some risk for floods, you will do well to get flood insurance. If you have invested a lot of time and money into your garden, you would not like to see it all get washed away unexpectedly. Check to see if your home is in a flood zone if you aren’t sure. Remember that flood zones are always being updated, with around 25% of flood damage occurring in areas that are not considered to be high-risk flood zones. Purchasing flood insurance is a great way to secure your garden and your home as you cover the gaps that your homeowner’s insurance may have left.

4. Try a Mobile Garden

If you are not too sure if you will stay in your current home for a long time, there’s no reason why this should stop you from the joys that come with having a garden. Try planting a mobile garden and you can move with it if you do move. Since the average American moves around 12 times in their lifetime, this may be the best idea depending on your home situation. When you plant a mobile garden, you no longer have to worry about toiling with the soil only to leave all that you had planted behind. Look online for some images of ideas that you can use to plant a mobile garden and try them out for a chance to get some amazing results.

With these gardening tips, you have hopefully learned something that you didn’t know before. Put this new knowledge to good use and you may get amazing results from your productive and green hobby! Don’t wait until you lose jewelry or your garden floods. Get started today!

Have you ever looked at your tiny outdoor area and thought there’s no way you could ever grow anything in there? Well, think again. With a little creativity, even the smallest outdoor space can be transformed into a productive garden. Whether you’re thinking of growing your favorite herbs or veggies, there are many ways to get the most out of your limited space. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Plan for a Garden From the Design Stage

When you’re planning to build a new home, take the time to consider how you can incorporate a garden into your design. You can do this by working with a design-build firm. Design-build companies have a team of experts who handle everything from start to finish on a house project. This means they can work with you to come up with a plan that will include a garden area that makes the most of your space.

For example, if you have a small plot of land, the experts at a design-build company can work with you to create an L-shaped garden that will give you plenty of room to grow your favorite plants.

2. Consider Vertical Gardening

Another option is to create a vertical garden. This type of garden is perfect for small spaces because it takes up very little ground space. There are many different ways to create a vertical garden, such as installing trellises, hanging up baskets, or even stacking pots on top of each other. Not only does this save space, but it also makes your garden more eye-catching and unique.

If you’re interested in vertical gardening, then be sure to do some research on the best plants for this type of gardening. Some plants, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans, are well-suited for vertical growth. Others, such as lettuce and spinach, may not do as well.

3. Work to Minimize Soil Erosion

Soil erosion is a common problem in small gardens. It takes away valuable nutrients from the soil and can make it difficult for plants to grow. The two major factors that determine the rate of erosion are the amount of bare ground and the length of time the soil is exposed. There are several ways to reduce erosion in your garden, such as adding mulch or using ground cover plants. Mulch is any material, such as wood chips, that you place on top of the soil to protect it from erosion. Ground cover plants spread out and cover the ground, which also helps to reduce erosion.

If you have a sloped garden, then erosion will be a bigger problem. In this case, you’ll need to take extra measures to prevent it. One option is to try and reduce the slope of your garden. This can be done by terracing or using retaining walls.

4. Use Companion Planting

Companion planting is a gardening technique that involves planting two or more different plants close together. This can have several benefits, such as deterring pests, improving the health of the plants, and even increasing yields. When companion planting, it’s important to choose plants that have complementary needs. For example, you wouldn’t want to plant a water-loving plant next to a drought-tolerant one.

There are many different combinations of plants that can be used for companion planting. Some popular combinations include tomatoes and basil, carrots and onions, and cabbage and celery.

5. Renovate Your Old Garden

According to iPropertyManagement, 28% of property owners believe renovating is a less expensive choice than purchasing a property that better meets their needs. Well, this rings true for gardens as well. If you have an existing garden that isn’t as productive as you’d like, then consider giving it a makeover.

Start by getting a soil test to see what nutrients your soil is lacking. Then, add some compost or other organic matter to the soil to improve its quality. Once you’ve done that, you can start planning what you’ll plant in your garden. Be sure to choose plants that are well-suited for your climate and soil type.

No matter what type of space you have to work with, there’s a way to turn it into a productive garden. By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to growing your own herbs, veggies, or flowers in no time. So, get out there and start gardening.

Some people like to use old tires in their gardening. However, you might wonder, “are old tires too to plants?” It’s important to think about those things, especially if you eat food from your garden.

How To Use Old Tires In Your Garden

There are so many great, fun ways to use old tires in a garden. You can create all kinds of fun garden decor and art like that shown above. Other ways to use old tires in your garden include:

• Hang a tire swing from a tree.
• Build a small playground for your kids or pets with old tires.
• Fill the center of tires with soil and plant in there for a unique plant bed.
• Hang tires to create shelving for a vertical garden.
• Build chairs, tables, and other lawn furniture from recycled tires.
• Use tires to create a big, dramatic garden border or fence or edge a pathway in your garden.
• Stack tires to create a retaining wall.

Are Old Tires Toxic to Plants?

Lots of people like the options above for their gardens. They’re fun. They keep tires out of landfills. It’s a great way to make new use of something old. But, are old tires toxic to plants?

There’s actually been a lot of debate about this in the gardening community over the years. Although there’s been some research, we still don’t have a clear answer that’s absolutely definitive. On one hand, tires do obviously contain harmful chemicals that are toxic to humans. These chemicals leach into the soil over time. On the other hand, the leaching process is so slow, particularly on really old tires that have already done most of their chemical off-gassing during years on the road, that they’re probably not actually harmfully toxic to most humans.

That’s the argument on either side. If you ask specifically “are old tires toxic to plants,” then the answer is basically no. The plants seem to still thrive. But if you want to know if they’re toxic to you if you eat plants grown in them, the answer isn’t as simple. Likely a little bit yes, enough to harm you – who knows?

If you have small children that play in the garden, pets that dig and romp in the garden, or you grow food in your garden, then you might want to err on the side of assuming that they could potentially be toxic.

Alternatives to Old Tires in the Garden

If you want to be better safe than sorry, then you might want to consider alternatives to using old tires in the garden. Lucy Bradley recommends upcycling wood in the garden instead. Specifically, she recommends non-treated wood, ACQ pressure-treated wood, and naturally rot-resistant wood. You can use wood to build planters, raised beds, fences, vertical gardens, and playgrounds in the garden. The important thing is that you make sure you choose wood that hasn’t been exposed to chemical treatments.

Likewise, you can upcycle stone, concrete, and bricks. Again, you just want to make sure that these recycled materials weren’t first exposed to chemicals like lead-based paint or asbestos. Think of it this way: if you wouldn’t use it in your house then you probably don’t want to use it in your garden.

Read More:

• 5 Reasons To use Fish Amino Acids on Your Plants
• Frugal Container Garden
• The Number One Tenant of Frugal Gardening

Germination refers to the process of a seed becoming a plant. Some people don’t mind a very slow process. They’ll plant flowers that take two years to show their colors. However, sometimes you want an experience a little bit closer to instant gratification. While no plant is going to germinate overnight, there are techniques to increase germination rate of seeds.

What does Increasing Germination Rate Mean?

Obviously, what you’re trying to do here is to reduce the amount of time it takes for your plants to go from a seed to what you’d commonly recognize as a plant (a flower, a vegetable, etc.) However, note that often the process is really about improving the conditions for the plant. In other words, when you make the conditions optimal, the plant grows more quickly. It’s not as if you pour some magic fairy dust on the seeds and they suddenly sprout. Instead, you listen to what the seeds need and give it to them. That said, some plants really need dormant periods and slow germination to grow correctly.

Techniques To Increase Germination Rate of Seeds

After you’ve done some research to make sure that it’s okay to speed things up, you might use these techniques to increase germination rate of seeds:

1. Find Out What Your Seeds Need

We’re going to have general tips here that apply to many plants. However, you really need to research what each of your specific seed types need for optimal growth. Plant them at the right time of year, in the right growing medium, with the correct sunlight to optimize germination rates.

2. Disinfect Seeds Before Planting

Science in Hydroponics recommends using hydrogen peroxide or sodium hypochlorite solutions to remove microorganisms that might slow down germination rates.

3. Pre-Treat Seeds With Polyethylene Glycol Treatments

Science in Hydroponics also recommends pre-treating your seeds with PEG-6000. The specific amount and approach varies depending on the seeds you’re trying to germinate.

4. Pre-Soak Seeds Before Planting in Soil

AcuRite notes that you should get started on the right foot by providing ample moisture for seeds before you even plant them.

5. Then Keep Watering Well

Seeds tend to need a lot of water to become plants. You’ll usually use more water for seeds than you will once the plant starts growing. So, although you certainly don’t want to overwater your seeds, you should make sure to keep them well-watered during those early days.

6. Plant Inside Before Outside

AcuRite also points out that you do best to plant your seeds inside first. Then, make an effort to acclimate them to the move outside. By doing this part slowly, you actually increase germination rate.

7. Add Gibberellic Acid

Science in Hydroponics says that this is a great way to stimulate seed germination.

8. Add Beneficial Fungi

As mentioned above, you want to disinfect seeds from bad microorganisms. However, you can also introduce good organisms to the seeds. For example, some seeds do well when you add specific beneficial fungi to stimulate growth.

9. Temperature Is Everything

Every resource you’ll read about techniques to increase germination rate of seeds will emphasize the importance of getting the temperature right. Again, each plant needs something different. Some plants grow best in colder temperatures, others in warmer temperatures. Make the effort to find out what your seeds need and accommodate them if you want your plants to grow quickly.

10. Improve Your Soil

Make sure that your soil is ideal for the seeds you’re planting. Is it the right pH level? Does it offer the right kind of drainage and retention of moisture? Make the soil conditions right for the seeds to germinate into beautiful plants.

Read More:

• Seed Starting on a Budget: Germination
• What Are The Different Ways to Germinate Citrus Seeds?
• 5 Cheap Substitutes for Seedling Trays

Every garden’s soil has a pH level. You can work with different pH levels using different plants. However, you have to know where you’re starting. And in some instances, you might want to change the pH level. For example, if your soil is too alkaline for the plants you want to grow, then you need to add acid. Luckily, there are cheap ways to make soil more acidic.

Why You Might Make Soil More Acidic

Your garden soil might be alkaline, neutral, or acidic. None is necessarily better than the other overall. However, different plants have different needs. Therefore, you might need to make your soil more acidic in order to best grow the plants that you want to grow in your garden.

Rural Sprout notes that you might add acidity in order to:

• Improve nutrient consumption by your plants, making them healthier
• To change a specific plant’s color; for example, to turn hydrangea plants blue
• To grow specific plants that only grow well in more acidic soil

Cheap Ways To Make Soil More Acidic

Rural Sprout also notes that it’s easier to choose the right plants for your soil than to change your soil. In other words, if you have alkaline soil, then choose plants that love that. However, you don’t have to settle for this if you don’t want to. You can, instead, find cheap ways to make soil more acidic.

Use Diluted White Vinegar to Acidify Soil

YardKidz notes that vinegar is one of the fastest cheap ways to make soil more acidic. You use distilled white vinegar to increase the acid in your garden soil. You can add it to the water that you use to water your garden, whether that’s through an irrigation system or a watering jug. In addition to acidifying the soil, adding vinegar has other benefits. For example, it is a great form of natural pest control.

Add Coffee Grounds to Soil

YardKidz adds that coffee grounds are another cheap and quick way to acidify your garden soil. Note, though, that you have to use fresh coffee grounds. Ones you’ve already used to make coffee don’t have an extreme enough pH level to acidify your garden. So, yes, this is a cheap option, but it’s not the same as recycling your used coffee grounds for free.

Add Compost to Garden Soil

Rural Sprout points out, however, that adding compost to your soil can help acidify it over time. Therefore, if you add your used coffee grounds to your compost, then they do work in this way. This method is slower and less effective than the vinegar or fresh coffee grounds. Often, it’s used to make an alkaline soil more neutral rather than specifically acidic.

However, you can increase the acidity of your compost by being selective about what you add to it. Choose acidic ingredients including citrus rinds, oak leaves, or pine needles.

Pine Needle Mulch

Speaking of pine needles, Rural Sprout also notes that you can use these, oak leaves, and other acidic leaves to create your own mulch. Add this over your soil to acidify it.

Citrus Watering Your Soil

And speaking of citrus rinds, use them liberally in your garden to acidify the soil. You can also add citrus to your watering process. For example, add lemon juice to your watering can to improve soil acidity.

More Ways to Acidify Soil

Happy DIY Home explores some of the pros and cons of some of the above methods as well as other ways to acidify soil including:

• Sphagnum Peat Moss
• Elemental Sulfur
• Acidifying Fertilizers
• Iron Sulfate
• Aluminum Sulfate
• Natural Liquid Plant Feeds

Read More:

• 5 Reasons to Use Fish Amino Acid on Your Plants
• 8 Uses of Baking Soda in Garden
• What Is The Best Growing Medium for Basil?

Several years ago my sister sent me a wonderful gift. She’s one of those people who is so great at picking out the perfect gifts for people. The gift was a book called “A Garden to Dye For.” She also sent me a set of Japanese Indigo seeds grown locally to her area. Somehow, all of this time has passed, and I haven’t used this, yet. However, I’m determined to finally enjoy it this spring.

Garden to Dye For

“A Garden to Dye For” by Chris McLaughlin has a book subtitle that tells you exactly what this book is all about:

“How to Use Plants from the Garden to Create Natural Colors for Fabrics and Fibers”

In the introduction, the author explains that “the plan for this book is to bridge the gap between mainstream gardeners and the world of hand crafters.” The author explains that there are plenty of other great books that tell you about how to use plant dyes in fiber arts. However, most of them don’t address the home gardener. This book does.

Plants for Fabric Dyes = Slow Crafting

I am a huge fan of the slow crafting movement. Crafting itself, of course, contributes to a slower way of life. When you sit down and make your own clothes, blankets, or home decor, you slow down. You stop contributing to the world of fast fashion.

As time goes on, you get more and more interested in ways to further slow down the craft. In other words, you want to get your hands dirty every step of the way. So, for example, I crochet. I started off buying various synthetic yarns from the store. From there, I moved on to buying organic, natural, sustainable yarn from local farms and independent dyers. From there, you can slow things down further by learning to spin and dye your own yarn. You might move on to get a small farm for raising your own fiber. And / or you might plant a garden to create your own natural dyes for your yarn.

The more you get involved in each process, the more you embrace and enjoy the benefits of the slow craft movement. It’s one thing, and an amazing thing, of course, to knit or crochet your own sweater. It’s another level entirely to grow the plants and dye the yarn before you even get to knitting.

7 Chapters In A Garden to Dye For

There are seven chapters in the book. These further indicate all that there is to learn about this unique niche of gardening for the fiber arts:

1. An Excuse To Plant More Plants

This is a more in-depth introduction to the concept of planting a garden specifically to use for fabric yarn dyeing.

2. All About Color

This chapter explores the different ways that you can dye fiber. In doing so, it also provides great information for how well different plants are going to work for different methods.

3. 12 Flowering Plants for Fiber Dyeing

In this chapter, we get a more in-depth look at working with twelve different flowering plants. Learn how to grow marigolds, hollyhocks, zinnia and more for this purpose.

4. Edible Plants for Fiber Dyeing

Do you prefer to grow fruits and vegetables? Wonderful. Many of these are great for dyeing as well. This chapter covers 15 options.

5. And Herbs Can Dye As Well

Herbs are another option for a beautiful garden that also produces amazing fiber dye options. There are 16 different herbs discussed in this section. One of those is Japanese Indigo. As I mentioned, when my sister gifted me this book, she also gifted me a set of these seeds!

6. Your Landscape Already Grows Dyes

This chapter is all about looking at the native plants around you to find dyes in nature. Eucalyptus, lichen, juniper and willow offer a few examples.

7. Planning & Planting a Dye Garden

Before I read through this book, I would have assumed that this chapter was the longest. However, it’s actually the shortest. It expands upon what the rest of the book already discussed. There are some general tips. Moreover, there are specific suggested layouts for different gardens. This chapter may come at the end but it’s really just the beginning!

Read More:

• 5 Fun Ways to Use Yarn in the Garden
• DIY Squash Trellis Under $10
• Frugal Container Gardening

Every week, I receive food from Hungryroot. It’s a great service through which you can get meal prep or just general groceries. Much of the food needs to stay cold. Therefore, they put cold packs inside the box. They use an option called Enviro Ice. You can dispose of it in many ways, including apparently by using it as plant food. Should I do that?

What Is Enviro Ice?

Here’s what the Enviro Ice package looks like:

When it arrives, it’s frozen. It works just like any other cold pack for food. Apparently, you can simply reuse it if you want to do that. However, I don’t have a lot of use for cold packs. And I get one of these (which is probably about 9″ x 12″ every week. I certainly don’t need that many. So I need to figure out other ways to use them.

Options for Reusing / Recycling Enviro Ice

Here’s what the back of the package says:

All of this time, I’ve been doing the latter option. I leave the bag inside my sink until it’s no longer frozen. Then I cut it open and let it drain into the sink. The first time that I tried it, I was worried that it would clog the sink. But true to what the brand advertises, it does no such thing. It’s designed specifically to go down the drain. So I drain it, rinse the bag, and recycle the bag.

However, as I was doing this habitually last week, I re-read the package. I noticed that the first option is actually to use it as plant food. So, I got curious about that. Should I feed Enviro Ice to plants instead of to the drain?

Enviro Ice For Plants

According to their website, Enviro Ice is the only product of its kind. It’s a nitrogen-based product. This means that it’s good for plants. They say that you can pour the gel directly onto the soil. Alternatively, you can dilute it with water. There’s no particular benefit to the latter other than that it flows more easily.

They report that you get all of the benefits of nitrogen for your plants when you use this gel. It adds nutrients and improves growth. It’s food for your plants. They say that you can use it for both indoor and outdoor plants.

What’s My Hesitation?

All signs indicate that I should go ahead and try this in my own gardening efforts. So why am I hesitating at all? The truth is that I trust the product just fine, but I don’t trust my own instincts when it comes to planting. As I’ve confessed to you in the past, I don’t have a natural green thumb. I never really know what my plants want or need. I over-water and under-sun and all of the things that are bad for them.

So, what I’m worried about is that I won’t use Enviro Ice properly. Will I give the plant too much of it and not realize what’s happening until it’s too late? Will it change the balance of other things I give the plant (water, light, etc.)? If so, will it be able to correct that?

The great thing about gardening, though, is that the stakes are low. I already have the product. I can try it and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Have you used Enviro Ice in gardening? What’s your experience been?

Read More:

• 5 Reasons To Use Fish Amino Acid On Your Plants
• 4 Cost-Effective Organic Garden Fertilizers
• Does My Brown Thumb Make Gardening a Waste of Money?