March 2023

Avoiding Gardening Sticker Shock
By: Howard Galin / Happy Gardening
As the new growing season begins, we will
be visiting the plant nurseries and home
improvement centers to purchase supplies needed
for our gardens. Seeing the high prices for these products can give
you “gardening sticker shock” and you may want to look for less
expensive ways to enhance your gardens while saving money!
There are a number of ways to utilize inexpensive and/or discarded
items found around the house that can be useful in your gardens. Here
are a few suggestions that can reduce your costs:
Don’t buy bags of organic mulch. Instead, take old newspapers or
any discarded non-glossy, non-color paper and shred them.
Move away any existing mulch and place a layer of shredded
paper around the plants. Carefully replace the old mulch and water
thoroughly.
The new paper mulch will biodegrade putting organic material
into the soil while maintaining soil moisture and lowering the soil
temperatures.
Many desert plants require calcium and phosphorous. Instead
of purchasing costly bags of bone meal or phosphorous, grind up
discarded eggshells and place around desert plants. This blend will
add these needed nutrients as well as sulfur to the soil.
This will enrich the soil and reduce high pH levels.
If your landscaping includes “acid-loving” plants, or you want
to lower pH levels, mix 1 cup of vinegar with 1 gallon of water in a
watering can and pour around plants each growing season.
Used coffee grounds (regular or decaf) raked into the soil will lower
alkali levels, add needed nitrogen to the soil, and repel insects.
Do not, however, use around tomatoes since they don’t like coffee!
An effective, inexpensive protection against rodents and rabbits
eating your plants can be found right in your kitchen. Make a mixture
of red pepper flakes, raw eggs, and powdered cloves and pour around
plants.
Instead of using expensive insecticides, mix 2 teaspoons of
dishwashing liquid (preferably Dawn) with one pint of water in a spray
bottle and apply to the leaves and flowers infested with aphids, thrips
or other “sucking” insects.
These suggestions will benefit your garden while saving you money.
Have a gardening question? Contact me at:
Theplantwhisperer28@gmail.com
Howard Galin is a University of Nevada certified Master
Gardener who lectures on, and writes about native plants and
desert landscaping
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March 2023