Coffee grounds can help your garden grow ! People go and buy soil amendments and natural fertilizers in an effort to make a more beautiful garden. If you make your coffee at home don't throw the grounds away. Instead, spread the used coffeee grounds around the base of your roses and shrubs. You will be amazed at the results such as more abundant flowers and vibrant colors. Azaleas and roododendrons especially like the grounds! All of your spring -flowering shrubs will benefit.
When pruning your roses or any of your plants for that matter you should clean your cutting tool with denatured ethyl alcohol before and after use. This prevents the spreading of disease from one plant to another. This is especially important if you have borrowed or lent out your tools. If you rent tools it is a good idea to clean them also.
Dogs and cats can ruin your garden. It is disgusting to be weeding your flowers or your garden and find a "deposit" left by a neighborhood cat. This is totally unsanitary for a veggie garden or any where for that matter. Cats are especially hard to deal with because they don't stop at fences and merely go right over them.
Here is a way you can solve this problem:
1. Sprinkle black pepper liberally in the beds and areas that the animals are
doing there business. They cant stand the smell and if they do venture in your
beds they will start sneezing which they do not like and will
not return.
2. Sprinkle this "hot" spray around your yard. You can spray this at the
edges in the lawn, along sidewalks and anywhere you want to deter both
cats and dogs.
Take a few cloves of garlic and a few hot red peppers and
grind them in a blender. Put the mixture is a bucket of water along with a
few drops of dish washing liquid and mix well. Use this mixture to deter the
visitors!
3. For cats an automated sprinkler works well too! It has a sensor that detects
the cat coming in your yard and momentarily sprays water at the cat.
The key to using one of these is to move it around your yard. If you leave it in
one area they will merely go to a safe part of your yard. Surprise is key!
Gophers are always a problem!
First lets get rid of the myth ways of getting rid of gophers. All of us have heard that putting a hose down a hole and turning on the water fully will kill the gopher. It doesn't happen!! In order for this to work you must have a new active hole and the gopher must be near and not able to scurry to an escape tunnel or out of the tunnel completely. If it does come out of the tunnel you can whack him with a shovel...maybe!
Some ranchers use Juicy Fruit gum to get em. They break off small pieces and put them down the hole. The critter eats the gum and can not digest it and they die. Be careful not to touch the gum as this will leave your scent and make the gum yucky to the gopher.
Another way to get em is with a trap. There are many types and many of them work well. The Key to using a trap is in setting it correctly. The method is different for different types and care should be taken to set it correctly.
Gopher purge is a plant that gophers do not like and stay away from. You can purchase this plant at most nurseries . It is not appealing and is not pretty. It looks like a weed. Its affect on gophers is limited to close proximity of the plant so many plants must be planted throughout the garden to be effective.
Baiting can be very effective when applied correctly. Using a probe to find the tunnels and inserting the poison is the preferred way. Gopher probes are inexpensive and easy to use.
