Some gardening and food storage tips:

• Before broccoli and cabbages form heads, sprinkle the leaves with cayenne pepper powder. This will deter pests from attacking them.
• If birds are a problem in your garden (eating the veggies and not just the bugs), string some fishing wire over your plants. This will deter the birds, but won’t harm them. You can also take mirrors ( I use the little ones out of old make up compacts), glue them to sticks and place around the garden. Another thing that I’ve always done (learned it from my mamaw) was to hang bird feeders around my yard..but to place them as far from my garden as possible. This draws the birds to the feeders for their meals and 90% of the time, they ignore my garden veggies : )
• Another way to deter birds from your garden is to run string with aluminum foil attached to it throughout your garden area or around the perimeter of it. Cut strips of foil and tie them at regular intervals to the string. Drive a stake in the ground and stretch the string with the foil attached, between two stakes. The string should be about 12 inches off the ground. The reflective foil will move slightly in the breeze and since birds are startled by movement, they will tend to stay away from that part of the garden.
• Statues or figurines of owls, snakes, hawks, cats are just a few examples of products that will help to scare off birds from your garden. The figurine must look life-like, birds aren’t stupid. Moving it from time to time will also make it appear more realistic. You can usually find pretty inexpensive and realistic looking owl figurines during Halloween. Make a hole in the bottom of it and firmly attach it to a pole. Drive the pole into the ground and secure it. Loosen the wings of the owl …this way when the wind blows, its feathers will move..giving it a more realistic look and keeping the birds and mice wondering.
• Noise makers: Birds are skittish. A little noise goes a long way in scaring them off. Common noisemakers include aluminum pans (an increasingly rare commodity in a microwave society), wind chimes. Tie an aluminum pie pan to a string and hang it near your garden area. The reflective properties in itself will deter birds and when the wind blows the pie pan banging against the pole, porch, tree, etc., will also send the birds rapidly in a different direction. Of course, the banging of the pie pans could also annoy any neighbors..so use with caution..LOL.
• Slugs? An old-fashioned method that works well is the beer trap. In this method a small container has beer put into it and then the container is placed on the ground where you know the slugs to be. They will climb in and drown and can be removed every few days. Try to ensure that the lip of the container is approximately 1” above the ground as, otherwise, the beetles that eat slugs will also get in and die.
• If you don’t have the space for your own compost heap, freeze your veggie peelings. When you have a bunch of them, put them in a blender with some warm water. Pour the ‘compost soup’ on your garden. Your plants will LOVE it!
• If you get sticky sap on your hands from pruning trees, rub some veggie oil on them and then wash with soap and warm water. The sap will come right off instead of smearing all over your hands.
• Between growing seasons, sow a crop of clover, alfalfa or lucerne and turn it back into the garden bed the next season.
• Water your plants with cool water from boiling eggs, potatoes or veggies. This will deliver extra minerals to them.
• When harvesting beet root, leave some of the stem intact. This will prolong its freshness while being stored and stop it ‘bleeding’ into the water while being cooked.
• Put a few sprigs of mint in your birdbath water to prevent algae from forming. Birds will enjoy the nice minty fresh water.
• Plant your parsley near your tomatoes and asparagus plants. Aphids hate it!
• Pansy flowers planted around your onions will increase their yield and prevent weeds from coming up. To keep them flowering, be sure to pinch off the dead heads of the old flowers. I like to pinch them off before they start to show signs of dying. Pansies are edible and have a slight minty taste to them. Add them to salads or sugar them and use as decorations on cakes, cookies…or drop a few of them into a jug of iced tea : )
• You can protect your fruit bearing trees from nasty little destructive pests by applying a coat of vaseline on a FULL section of the trunk. It won’t harm the tree at all and the pests won’t walk across it.
• For your potted plants, recycle your old kitchen or bath sponges by cutting them into small pieces and mixing them in with your potting soil mix. The sponges will absorb excess water, but keep the soil moist for a longer period of time. It’s a great alternative to peat moss or soil moisture aids.
• When harvesting your crops, don’t store apples near root crops like carrots or potatoes. It affects their flavor and not in a good way!
• Apples and carrots should be stored in a paper bag before being placed in the refrigerator crisper. This will help to slow the ripening process and keep them from getting mushy (apples) and going limp (carrots). Make sure you cut off the green tops of your carrots BEFORE you store them.
• The best way to store unhusked corn is to keep it wrapped in a damp cloth and try to use it within a day or two, not longer than 3-4 days if you want maximum flavor and nutrients. Unhusked corn is best stored on the refrigerator shelf, not in the crisper.
• Most berries should be kept on the refrigerator shelf, not in the crisper. Place them either in a paper bag or cover them with plastic. Keep the stems on them until you are ready to eat them.
• Make sure you put your cucumbers in the highest place you can, steering clear of the crisper. You want to make sure that ice crystals get as little a chance as possible to form around the seeds…which will deplete the flavor, nutrients of your cukes and also leave you with a mushy cucumber glob.
• Mushrooms should be wiped with a damp cloth, although cleaning them with water is not necessarily as devastatingly bad an idea as you may have heard, and then stored in a paper bag, the darker the color of the bag the better.
• Never ever ever refrigerate tomatoes unless you enjoy eating a flavorless piece of mush. Rather, store them with the stem-side down away from any direct sunlight.
• The best place to store your garlic is in a dark, dry, ventilated area. This will help keep garlic fresh for approximately 3 months.
• For herbs, remove band or tie and wash and dry. Snip off the ends and submerge them in a glass of water. Cover with a plastic bag and leave in the refrigerator.
• Celery wrapped in aluminum foil before refrigerating will remain fresh for weeks.
• Wrap green leafy veggies in a newspaper (some newspapers will bleed ink onto the veggies, I wrap mine in a paper towel first, then the newspaper) before putting in the crisper. This will help to keep them fresh much longer.
• Potatoes rot quickly if stored near onions. To prevent potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with them.
• Refrigerate fruits and vegetables separately. Fruits give off ethylene gas, which causes vegetables to spoil, so keeping them separate will help extend the life of your veggies.
• Ripen peaches, kiwi fruit, mangoes, pears and avocados on the counter and then store them in the refrigerator. To help fruits ripen on the counter, place them in a loosely closed paper bag. The ethylene gas produced by the fruit helps it ripen. Adding a ripe apple or banana to the bag speeds the process.
• Dryer softener sheets, tied around stakes at each corner of you garden (or around the base of targeted plants) will totally repulse munching critters.Haven’t seen them in years!
• Willows have a natural rooting hormone. Cut up trimmings (about pencil thickness) into 1″ lengths, smash with a hammer or mallet (in a bag, of course) then dump them into a pot of boiling water. Let cool. Use water for rooting cutting or for transplants.
• As an insect destroyer the juice of the potato plant is said to be of great value; the leaves and stems are well boiled in water, and when the liquid is cold it is sprinkled over plants attacked with insects, when it at once destroys caterpillars, black and green flies, gnats, and other enemies to vegetables, and in no way impairs the growth of the plants. A peculiar odor remains, and prevents insects from coming again for a long time.
• Deter flies and mosquitoes from coming into the house by placing a dish of chopped garlic cloves on the windowsill.
• Peppermint grown in containers will help to control the white cabbage butterfly. The peppermint needs to be grown in containers, otherwise it will take over your entire space, and by container growing it, you can move it around your garden.
• Pennyroyal mint is an excellent mosquito repellent and can be rubbed directly onto the skin.

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