I’m a suburban gardener. I garden in spurts because I’m busy, and, sometimes, just lazy. Thanks to a few good gardening habits I picked up from my mom, I have cucumbers to pickle, more peppers than I have time to eat and put up, herbs, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, okra, tomatoes, onions, and . . . well, there are lots of peppers.

My mom is the antithesis of rushed and lazy and, when it comes to gardening, she’s the real deal. She pushes a hand plow through straight, fertile rows. As her plants grow and produce, she weeds, waters, and hoes on a predictable and reasonable schedule. My rows are crooked, and my schedule is irregular, but I managed to take on few good gardening habits that I learned from her, mostly the ones that involve reusing and repurposing things you have on hand.

Six Good Gardening Habits

  1. Newspapers: Unfold and stack newspaper pages, pulling out the ones with waxy finishes (those aren’t so great for the garden). Arrange newspapers (at least 6 layers thick) around the seedlings or plants. The newspaper serves as weed block. When it’s time to pull up old plants and turn the soil, till in whatever papers hasn’t already composted itself.
  2. Mulch: Leaves, grass clippings, pine needles. They can all be your garden friend. I prefer leaves in my vegetable garden because they are less likely to introduce weed spawn and they break down more quickly than pine needles. For Wow! weedblocker, after covering your garden rows/beds with layers of newspaper, add a layer of leaves. Once your plants peter out, you can till the leaves and the newspaper into the soil, and you’ll have an even richer soil for the next round.
  3. Cardboard: To create a raised bed above a grassy or weedy area, don’t buy weed block or dig up the grassy patch. Use cardboard. Remove any tape or stickers from the cardboard and place on top of the grass. Make sure it’s a solid layer by overlapping pieces of cardboard so no grass sticks through. Once your bed walls are up (I use cinder blocks), fill your raised bed with soil, peat moss, compost, etc.
  4. Eggshells: Save and grind eggshells. I have a little compost bucket in the kitchen, dedicated to eggshells. When it’s full, I grind the shells in my food processor. NOTE: Eggshells will scratch plastic blenders and food processors. If you want to avoid this, place the eggshells in a Ziploc back, smashing them as you do. Remove as much air as possible before zipping, and roll over the bag with a rolling pin.
  5. Vegetable waste: Compost! There are many dos and don’ts about composting correctly, but I don’t have time for all of that. I just toss my vegetable scraps into my compost pile, a 3-sided area (the fence and two sides of cinder blocks) just over the back fence in the right of way. My compost is unkempt, but when I need good dirt, it has never disappointed.
  6. Plastics: Don’t recycle those plastic containers. Let the other R take over and Reuse the plastic jugs and jars. I use vinegar for nearly everything: cleaning, canning, cooking, even washing my hair. The empty vinegar jugs become scoops and funnels that I use for distributing soil and fertilizer. In June, the jug becomes a fruit picking bucket that hangs like a holster on a belt while I pick blueberries and figs with two hands. Wide-mouthed plastic containers are great for storing seeds, ground up egg shells, and fertilizer.
©Copyright Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved, 2017.