- 1 week ago
Most gardeners make the work harder and more expensive than it needs to be. These simple garden hacks share 10 old-fashioned tricks that save time, reduce waste, and help plants grow better, from keeping soil in pots to watering deep at the roots and protecting seedlings from slugs.
You’ll hear practical tips like using a coffee filter or screen over drainage holes, spraying milk for powdery mildew, burying a bottle for slow root watering, letting weeds and trimmings break down on garden paths, and using rain barrels with a watering can when hose pressure is low. The video also covers starting seedlings safely, building a cold frame with a salvaged window and straw bales, washing vegetables in the garden, guarding sharp tools with foam pipe insulation, storing seed in a reused box, and scattering crushed eggshells around tender plants.
It’s a thrifty, beginner-friendly gardening guide with old garden tricks, vegetable garden tips, composting ideas, seed starting advice, and easy ways to reuse everyday items in the home garden. If you enjoy practical homestead gardening, low-cost garden solutions, and simple ways to grow your own food, this is packed with useful ideas.
SEO: gardening tips, garden hacks, beginner gardening, vegetable garden ideas, composting tips, seed starting, rain barrel watering, cold frame gardening, organic gardening, and thrifty homestead gardening. Great for anyone searching for simple gardening tricks, time-saving garden advice, and practical ways to save money while growing healthier plants.
You’ll hear practical tips like using a coffee filter or screen over drainage holes, spraying milk for powdery mildew, burying a bottle for slow root watering, letting weeds and trimmings break down on garden paths, and using rain barrels with a watering can when hose pressure is low. The video also covers starting seedlings safely, building a cold frame with a salvaged window and straw bales, washing vegetables in the garden, guarding sharp tools with foam pipe insulation, storing seed in a reused box, and scattering crushed eggshells around tender plants.
It’s a thrifty, beginner-friendly gardening guide with old garden tricks, vegetable garden tips, composting ideas, seed starting advice, and easy ways to reuse everyday items in the home garden. If you enjoy practical homestead gardening, low-cost garden solutions, and simple ways to grow your own food, this is packed with useful ideas.
SEO: gardening tips, garden hacks, beginner gardening, vegetable garden ideas, composting tips, seed starting, rain barrel watering, cold frame gardening, organic gardening, and thrifty homestead gardening. Great for anyone searching for simple gardening tricks, time-saving garden advice, and practical ways to save money while growing healthier plants.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Most folks make their gardening far harder than it needs to be, and spend far more money on it than
00:05they ever should, and never know it.
00:08For there are little tricks, old plain tricks, that save you time and work and money at every turn, and
00:15turn what you would throw away into the very things a garden needs.
00:20I have gathered ten of the best of them for you today, ten clever old garden tricks that will save
00:26you time and money, and most of them cost you nothing but the knowing.
00:31Do these, and you will work less, spend less, and grow more.
00:36I am Elias, and I have gardened this Lancaster County ground my whole life, the plain way, wasting nothing and
00:44buying little, for that is how we do things here.
00:47These are the sort of tricks handed down among gardening folk, the small, clever shortcuts that the old people knew,
00:55and once you have them, you will wonder how you ever gardened without them.
01:00So let me give them to you, one by one.
01:04Quick word before I go further.
01:06The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
01:12I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:17The book is the long version.
01:19If you want it, it is there.
01:21I will not mention it again.
01:23My grandmother had a hundred of these little tricks, and she never once thought of them as anything clever.
01:30They were just how a body gardened.
01:32I remember watching her drop a coffee filter in a pot, tuck a bottle in beside her squash,
01:38crush her eggshells into a bowl to save, and thinking nothing of it as a boy,
01:43till I grew up and saw how few folks knew these things anymore, and how much money and work they
01:50cost themselves for the not knowing.
01:53So these are hers as much as mine, and now they are yours.
01:58The first trick is for anyone who grows in pots, and it cures that little mess you know well,
02:04where the soil washes out the drainage holes in the bottom every time you water,
02:09muddying your porch and losing you good soil.
02:13The cure is simple.
02:14Before you fill a pot, you lay something over the holes in the bottom that lets water through, but holds
02:21the soil back.
02:22A coffee filter is just the thing, or a scrap of screen, or a few leaves laid over the holes.
02:30Then fill your pot as usual.
02:32The water drains away clean and free, but your soil stays put where it belongs.
02:38A small thing, but it saves you a mess, and saves your good soil besides.
02:44The second trick turns a kitchen leftover into medicine for your plants, and that is milk against the powdery mildew.
02:52You know that white, dusty coating that creeps over the leaves of squash and cucumbers and the like?
02:58Powdery mildew, it is called, and it can spoil a plant.
03:02Well, plain milk fights it, and this is a real old remedy, not a fancy.
03:08You mix one part milk to about ten parts water, and you spray it over the leaves,
03:14and it checks the mildew and helps keep it from spreading.
03:18A little sour milk past its drinking is perfect for it.
03:22So do not pour out that last bit of milk.
03:25Take it to the garden and put it to work against the mildew.
03:29The third trick waters your thirsty plants right down at the roots where they need it
03:34and wastes not a drop, and it is the buried jug or bottle.
03:39Some plants, the squash and the melons and the like, drink a great deal,
03:44and water poured on top runs off or dries away before it soaks down.
03:50So here is the old way.
03:52You take a bottle or a jug, and you poke small holes in its lower sides,
03:58and you bury it in the ground right next to your plant, up to its neck,
04:02with the holes down near the roots.
04:05Then you fill it through the neck with water, and it seeps out slow and low,
04:10right to the roots, deep where it does the most good, none lost to the sun or the runoff.
04:16Fill it and walk away, and it waters slow while you tend to other things.
04:21It is the thriftiest watering there is, and your thirsty plants will love you for it.
04:27And if you set the bottle in with the holes facing your plant,
04:31the roots learn to grow toward the water, reaching right to their drink,
04:36so the plant grows stronger and deeper rooted for it.
04:39Cap the neck with the bottle top or a stone so nothing falls in,
04:43and it is safe for the creatures about the garden too.
04:47The fourth trick is the laziest composting there is,
04:51and I mean that as high praise, for the best way is often the easiest.
04:56If you have not the room or the notion for a proper compost pile,
05:00then simply lay your weeds and trimmings and spent plants down on your garden paths,
05:06right there between the beds, and let them lie.
05:09They rot down where they lie, walked on and weathered, the same as anything rots,
05:15and in time they turn to good, black, crumbly compost right there on the path.
05:21Then you scrape it up with a spade and toss it onto your beds,
05:25and there is your free soil food, made with no pile, no turning, no work at all,
05:31but the laying down and the scraping up.
05:34Lazy, and it works.
05:36And the paths grow no weeds and stay soft and clean to walk on into the bargain,
05:41so the one trick does you three good turns at once.
05:46The fifth trick saves you standing about with a slow hose,
05:50and it is watering from the barrel with a can.
05:53Now the hose in summer, when everyone is watering and the pressure drops,
05:57can dribble so slow you stand there half the morning.
06:01So instead you keep barrels of water, rain barrels best of all,
06:05caught free from your roof, and you dip your watering can right into the barrel
06:10and water with that.
06:12A can pours faster than a weak hose, and with two cans, one in each hand, faster still.
06:18And while you water, the barrel fills itself again from the roof or the hose,
06:24so it is always ready.
06:25You water quicker, and if it is rainwater you catch,
06:29you water for free, beholden to no tap at all.
06:33The sixth trick protects your tenderest little plants
06:36through the most dangerous days of their lives,
06:39and it is starting your seedlings safe away from the garden.
06:43A little seedling just up is a tender morsel,
06:46and the slugs and the cutworms and the birds will have it in a night.
06:50So you do not start them out in the open garden where the pests wait.
06:55You start them in trays and little pots,
06:57in a safe sheltered spot, a porch or a frame,
07:01up off the ground and out of harm's way.
07:04You nurse them there through their weak early days,
07:07and only when they are grown up big and sturdy and tough
07:11do you set them out in the garden,
07:12where now they are strong enough to shrug off the pests
07:15that would have killed them as babes.
07:18Protect them young, and you lose far fewer.
07:21The seventh trick gives you a greenhouse for near nothing,
07:24and it ties to a thing I have shown you before,
07:27and that is the cold frame made of a salvaged window and straw bales.
07:32You take an old window, a pane in its frame,
07:35saved from a house or a barn,
07:38and you set it atop a little low wall of straw bales,
07:41and there is your cold frame.
07:43The straw bales are the beauty of it,
07:46for straw is a fine, warm insulation,
07:48and it makes a cozy, sheltered box inside,
07:52warmed by the sun through the glass
07:54and held warm by the straw,
07:56perfect for starting plants early
07:58or carrying them through the cold.
08:01And when the season warms and you are done,
08:03the bales are not wasted either,
08:05for you can stand them about your tender transplants
08:08as a windbreak,
08:09and after that break them open into the beds
08:11as mulch and matter.
08:13A greenhouse, a windbreak, and mulch,
08:16all from a few bales and an old window.
08:19The eighth trick keeps the kitchen clean
08:21and puts the wash water to use,
08:24and it is a simple vegetable washing station
08:26out in the garden.
08:28When you pull your carrots and potatoes and greens,
08:31they come up caked in soil,
08:33and carrying that muck into the kitchen makes a mess.
08:36So you make yourself a little washing station
08:39right in the garden,
08:40and it is nothing but a wooden frame
08:42with a screen of wire mesh stretched across it.
08:45You lay your dug vegetables on the mesh
08:47and rinse them there,
08:49the soil and the water falling right through
08:51onto the ground.
08:53And here is the thrift of it.
08:54If water is dear where you are,
08:57you set it over a growing bed,
08:58and the wash water waters your plants as it falls,
09:02or you catch it and pour it on the garden.
09:04Clean vegetables, a clean kitchen,
09:06and not a drop of water wasted.
09:08The ninth trick is a clever safeguard
09:11for the sharp edges of your tools,
09:14and it is foam pipe insulation.
09:16A scythe, a sickle, a pruning saw, an axe,
09:20any tool with a keen edge is a danger left bare,
09:24above all with children about the place.
09:26So you take a length of that foam pipe insulation,
09:30the soft foam tube,
09:32and you cut it to fit,
09:33and slip it right over the blade or the edge,
09:36and there is a soft, snug guard
09:38to cover that sharpness.
09:39A bit of cord or a band holds it on.
09:42It is cheap, it is quick,
09:44and it keeps a keen edge
09:46from catching a hand or a child,
09:48and keeps the edge itself from nicks besides.
09:51A small, safe thing worth doing
09:53for every sharp tool you own.
09:56The tenth trick stores your saved seeds
09:59safe and dry for next year,
10:01and it is the little reused box.
10:03When you save your own seed,
10:05or have seed left in a packet,
10:07it must be kept cool and dry,
10:09or it spoils,
10:10and you need not buy anything fancy to do it.
10:14Any small, clean, tight-lidded box
10:16does the job,
10:17a little tin or plastic box,
10:19and into it goes your seed.
10:22You write the name and the date right on it,
10:24so you know what it is and how old,
10:27and you pop it in a cool, dry place.
10:29And a fine trick to keep it dry,
10:32drop in one of those little packets
10:34that come to keep things dry,
10:35or a spoonful of dry rice in a bit of cloth,
10:39and it draws off any damp
10:41and keeps your seed keeping longer.
10:43Little boxes like that stack neat on a shelf,
10:46and your seed keeps good year to year,
10:49saving you the buying of new.
10:51And here is that tenth's near cousin
10:53thrown in for good measure,
10:55an old guard for your seedlings
10:57against the slugs,
10:58and it is crushed eggshells.
11:01Do not throw your eggshells out.
11:03You dry them and crush them coarse,
11:06and you scatter that sharp, crushed shell
11:08in a ring around your tender seedlings.
11:11The slugs and the snails
11:12do not like to cross the sharp, gritty shell,
11:15and it turns many of them aside
11:17from your young plants,
11:18and as a bonus,
11:20the shell breaks down in time
11:22and feeds a little lime and calcium
11:24to your soil.
11:25Free protection and free feeding
11:27from a thing you were throwing away.
11:30Renew the ring after a hard rain,
11:32for the shells settle
11:34and lose their edge in time.
11:35But a fresh scatter costs you nothing
11:38and keeps the slugs at bay
11:40through the tender weeks
11:41when your seedlings need it most.
11:43Let me say a small plain word here,
11:46not a who-profits sermon,
11:48for there is no scheme in this,
11:50only a bit of thrift the world has forgotten.
11:53Notice that near every one of these tricks
11:55costs you nothing,
11:56or turns a thing you would throw away,
11:59the old milk,
12:00the weeds,
12:01the eggshells,
12:02the salvaged window,
12:04the empty box,
12:05into a thing of use.
12:07There is a whole trade
12:08built on selling gardeners
12:10costly gadgets and products
12:12for jobs that an old bottle
12:14or a bit of screen would do as well.
12:16And folks come to think
12:17good gardening must be bought.
12:19But the old gardeners
12:21bought almost nothing.
12:22They made do,
12:24they saved,
12:25they reused,
12:26and they grew fine gardens
12:28by their wits and their thrift.
12:30That old cleverness
12:31is worth more than any bagful
12:33of store-bought gadgets,
12:35and it is free.
12:36So there are ten clever old tricks,
12:38and their cousin,
12:39to save you time and money
12:41in the garden.
12:42The filter in the pot,
12:44the milk on the mildew,
12:45the buried bottle at the roots,
12:47the lazy compost on the path,
12:49the barrel and the can,
12:51the seedlings started safe,
12:53the window and straw cold frame,
12:55the garden washing station,
12:57the foam guard on your tools,
12:59the reused box for your seed,
13:01and the eggshells
13:02round your seedlings.
13:04Not a one of them, dear,
13:06and every one of them
13:07a small saving of work
13:08or money or waste,
13:10the way the old
13:11thrifty gardeners did it.
13:12Now I want to hear from you.
13:14Tell me down below
13:15your own best garden trick,
13:17the clever, cheap thing you do
13:19that saves you time or money,
13:21for I know the gardeners among you
13:23have a hundred I have not named,
13:24and I dearly love
13:26to learn a new one.
13:27And tell me your county
13:29and how long you have gardened,
13:30for the old hands
13:31always have the best tricks.
13:33I read every one.
13:35Next time,
13:36I want to show you
13:37the saving of your own seed,
13:39the old way to gather
13:41and keep the seed
13:42from your own best plants,
13:44so you need never buy
13:45a seed packet again,
13:47but grow your garden
13:48year to year
13:49from seed of your own,
13:51free and yours.
13:53The old gardeners
13:55saved and reused
13:57and made do,
13:58wasting nothing
13:59and buying little,
14:00and grew fine,
14:01abundant gardens
14:02by cleverness and thrift
14:04rather than by money,
14:06and counted that knowing
14:07among their quiet riches.
14:10There is a deep satisfaction
14:11in it,
14:12in the little,
14:13clever thrift
14:14that turns your leavings
14:16into your garden's gain.
14:18The people who built
14:19this country with their hands
14:21knew that,
14:22and we are only just starting
14:24to remember it.
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