Spring is finally arriving, and we are slowly starting to see a few more hours of sunshine here and there. This means that it is time to take a look at your garden and assess how the winter period has taken its toll on your lawn and flowerbeds. Things may well be looking a little overgrown, but that’s nothing that a little bit of TLC can’t put right!
With that in mind, we’ve put together a few gardening hacks you need to have up your sleeve for the springtime to get things back on track! Grab those gardening gloves and read on.
1. Perk up your lawn
It’s likely that after the harsh winter months your lawn will be looking rather worse for wear. To get it back in tip-top condition, you’ll want to start by giving it a good feed with a mixture that contains everything it needs to grow back nice and thick.
Be gentle when you first cut the grass, and adjust your mower blades to their highest setting. If you’ve got any areas of longer grass or weeds use a grass trimmer first.
For any bare patches, you’ll want to reseed. A clever hack to stop birds from eating the seeds is to cover the areas you’ve seeded with prickly branches to protect them.
2. Remove rust from your tools with vegetables
If your tools are looking a little rusty after the winter time, there’s a much simpler and cheaper option when it comes to removing the rust than shelling out for expensive cleaning products. Just cut a raw potato or cucumber in half and use it to scrub the areas that have rusted.
3. Use egg cartons to plant seedlings
You may have done this as a kid, but it is a great and practical way of starting seeds no matter what your age is. It can be difficult to sprout seeds directly in the soil, so to help them survive you can plant them in seed starters.
The plastic ones cost money and aren’t that great for the environment, but egg boxes are a fantastic alternative. They do the same job, they’re free and something you probably already have lying around, and what’s even better is that you can plant them directly into the ground once your seedlings are ready and they’ll decompose!
4. Add bedding plants for color
While you’re waiting for your bulbs and seeds to come to life, why not pick up a few bedding plants to add some color right away.
5. Keep your nails clean
We all know that gardening is bound to be slightly messy, and one of the most common things we have to do when cleaning up afterwards is cleaning soil from underneath our nails.
But there’s a clever hack you can try next time you’re heading out into the garden this spring! If you scratch a bar of soap before you start gardening, the soap will help to stop dirt from getting under your nails, and it’ll even help once you come to washing your hands afterwards!
We hope this has given you a few tips on how to up your gardening game this springtime now that you’ll find yourself tending to your own garden a little more again!
