I've been gardening since I was eight years
old and over the years I've learned a few tricks of the trade that you don't often see. Hi
I'm Ben and I'm going to share 10 of my favorite tips that will help you to get the most from
your gardening. All of the ideas I'm about to share will help you save valuable time,
effort and money so let's dig straight in. Paths help us to move about the garden of
course but they can also serve as valuable spillovers from your growing areas. So I'm using
wood chips here and that's purposeful because it means that plants like cucumbers and zucchini
or courgettes that lollop over can potentially make better use of this space here and even root
into it and give you a better crop, making you achieve more in the same space. And then there's
arches like these here that go over my paths. These two arches replace my homemade vegetable
arch that I had last growing season. Just like then I'll be growing climbing crops up them
starting with these climbing beans here. They will grow up and over and then cover the
top of the path like this and dangle down for easy harvesting. Not only will it make a stunning
feature but it will also mean that the crops that are growing up it will grow away from the rest
of the beds so they're not overcrowding them. I took these soft fruit cuttings back
in the autumn. To help them root, to speed them along I used a hormone rooting gel
but you could use honey as a natural alternative. Honey you see is a natural antiseptic. Just
dip the ends of your cutting into the honey and it'll help to keep them clean
and thereby help with their rooting, then push them down into your potting mix. Better
still, wet the end of the cutting just in water and then dip into cinnamon powder before dipping
the end into your honey. What the cinnamon powder does is it acts as an anti-fungal agent while
also stimulating those much sought after roots. I store my seeds in my trusty seed box with them
separated according to month with a piece of card but I'm loving this idea I've recently seen
and that's to use an old photo album or cd wallet to store your seeds instead. Just
pop them into their sleeves and you can review what seeds you've got at the flip of
the page like this. And to see when the sow by date is, simply copy the sow by date from the
back of the packet onto the front of the packet. And because this can just fold shut like that
you can store this in a bookshelf out of the way and bookshelves often tend to be cooler and
dry places, perfect for storing your seeds. We all know that beneficial insects such as
aphid-munching hoverflies and lacewings as well as pollinators like bees and butterflies are
part and parcel of a thriving garden, so it makes sense to grow flowers that are nectar and pollen
rich to attract them. And that includes flowering herbs such as chives, parsley and basil. But
one of the very easiest ways to put your garden on the bug-eyed map is to let biennial vegetables
flower. Now that's vegetables like onions, leeks as well as many brassicas like this
beautiful kale here. This is just as beautiful in my opinion as any ornamental flowers and earlier
on in the summer it's a real attraction for all sorts of pollinators. The delicate, lacy blooms
of carrots are loved by just about every insect, while pom pom like onion and leek
flowers are swarmed by industrious bees. Hey and look, if the potential buggy bonanza
wasn't enough, remember that they will eventually set seed and then you can save some of your own
seed to trim your seed bill. If you're looking for some emergency protection because say a late
frost threatens, then you can just use a pot. And I prefer a terracotta pot simply because it's nice
and heavy and there's no risk of it being toppled or blowing away. Keep it in place overnight but of
course once the risk of frost is gone be sure to lift it up. Use old plastic bottles to protect
vulnerable or recently planted seedlings against the cold. If it's going to be windy just make
sure to anchor them into place so they don't blow away. Here in the raised bed garden I like
to plant my crops in a block formation, it just works better with these smaller raised beds. Now
a clever idea is to use a muffin tin, yes a muffin tin. I've sneaked these out the kitchen so I'm
hoping no one notices! Now they obviously come in different shapes and sizes and the idea is you
simply press it down onto the ground like that, lift it up and then you've got a series
of depressions and you can use those to space out your seeds or plants as appropriate.
Something like this larger muffin tin here, they're about 6 inches or 15 centimeters apart
which is great for planting something like say spinach. I've got these smaller ones here
and I'm going to use them to plant some dwarf beans. So I've made my little depressions. I know
that these ones here are about eight inches apart and they're about three to four centimeters apart
so I'm going to miss out this middle row here and then I can just plant one dwarf bean
in every hole like that along the row. Then another option is to mark up a tool handle
or just a bamboo cane. So put the measuring tape against it and then mark out key integers along
the tape and then you've got an always-at-hand way of measuring out your seeds. I'm going
every inch here or two and a half centimeters and that's about right for so many seeds. There it is complete and I've made every fourth
one slightly longer because that's four inches or ten centimetres. Much of the water we use
around the home can be used to water our plants too. So for example, water used to clean, boil
or steam vegetables can be left to cool down and then happily watered around your crops. Water
that you've used to wash the dishes is fine too so long as you have used an ecologically friendly
plant-based dish soap. Use it around ornamentals, on lawns or at the base of fruit bushes, canes
and trees, but don't put it into contact with any part of the plant you're likely to eat just
in case there are any fatty residues in it. Of course we should be doing all we can to save
as much rain water as possible; it's better for our plants and it's free. Now you'll need
to keep your collected rain water covered to stop it getting full of bugs or turning green
with algae, but make sure the cover is quite loose fitting because that way you can dip your watering
can into the water and fill it up a lot quicker than waiting for it to drain out at the
bottom. Look at that! Quick and ready to go. Use plastic bottles as reservoirs as well. Cut the
bottom off and then keep the cap on and then just push holes into the cap at regular intervals.
This will slow the water down and now when you come to water you can simply fill the reservoir up
with water and then move on. The cap will have the water drain out really really slowly, delivering
the water to exactly where it's needed down at the roots. And also because you're putting that water
further down, you're keeping the surface dry so there's less water lost due to evaporation. And
you can find more ideas for reusing old plastic bottles in our video on just that and I'll pop
a link to it down below. A little bonus tip on the subject of watering: use old sponges to
stuff into the bottom of pots before adding your potting mix. Now this serves two purposes:
first of all it covers the drainage holes so less of the potting mix comes out of the bottom,
but more importantly it sucks up excess moisture and then makes it available to the plant roots
as and when it needs it. You can then water your plants and the plant will need watering much less
often, saving you valuable time. When it comes to labeling your plants you've of course got lots of
options: plastic labels are fantastic and I often use pencil rather than pen because it means I can
simply rub them clear like that with my eraser. If you prefer to use pen you can just leave
them out in the sun to bleach or use a bit of sandpaper just to rough off the written text. I
think splashing out on plant labels is a bit of a waste of money when you can just make your
own. Use any white material like a yogurt pot or this ice cream pot here and then just
trim them down to size to make your own. You could also try saving popsicle or ice
cream sticks. Fragments of broken terracotta pot and small rocks make for an attractive way of
labeling permanently planted specimens like herbs. If you're writing onto a pebble or shard of
terracotta then a white chalk pen works really well. Make your own biodegradable pots from
newspaper or cardboard tubes. Now we covered this in a recent video but here's a quick recap:
to make a paper pot, fold and then unfold a strip along a piece of newspaper to leave a crease. Roll
the newspaper tightly around a jar or cup like this. Then fold in the ends to create the pot
base, pinching along the edges to firm it up. Remove the jar, then fold in along the crease you
made earlier to firm up the rim of the pot. To make a cardboard pot, simply snip one end at 12,
3, 6 and 9 o'clock like this, then fold the flaps in on each other to form the base. These pots
will of course decompose in the soil which means there's no need to remove them before planting,
which should help avoid root disturbance. Furthermore as they rot down they will also add
valuable organic matter to the soil. These are a few of my favorite tips but of course gardening
is fertile ground for all manner of ideas, hacks and wow-inducing wisdom! Perhaps you have
a tip of your own that you'd like to share. If you do, drop us a comment below and
tell everyone! Next week we'll be exploring the sometimes insane world of red hot chili
peppers. Do you want to know the secret behind super spicy peppers? Well, tune in next
week or subscribe and turn on notifications so we can let you know as soon as that video is
out. In the meantime do check out these videos for more horticultural hacks to help you get the most
from your gardening. I'll catch you next time.
