Garden experiments

Dear fellow gardeners -

I've been experimenting with a few methods to make the work part of gardening less work so I can concentrate on the fun part of gardening - you know, the harvesting and eating part.

And what good are experiments if you can't share what you've learned with other people?

So here's a couple things that have and haven't worked over the last two years.  Steal any ideas you think might work for you. :)

Worked: Using earth anchors to put in tomato stakes/poles
Unfortunately, I didn't get around to trying this until after the gardening season had wrapped up.  But I plan to use this stake design for next year because I'm tired of spending ten minutes digging a hole deep enough to keep the tomato stakes from leaning.  My test stake even stood up to a week of heavy winds.  I've decided to call this stake design the Better Stake.  Basically, you cut a groove at the bottom of a 2x2 and drill a few holes for the U-bolts.  Instead of digging a hole for ten minutes, screw the earth anchor in to the ground, bolt the 2x2 to the earth anchor, twist the 2x2 a couple of turns, and move on to the next stake.  Of course, my mind is already jumping to possible improvements for the design (a slot cut in the bottom of the stake maybe?), but overall the experiment was a success.

Worked: Marsh hay for mulch
This is the second year I've used marsh hay for mulch and I'm still impressed.  Cocoa bean mulch is my favorite kind of mulch, but the cost of buying enough cocoa bean mulch to cover by a 15' x 20' plot is high.  Also, cocoa bean mulch tends to fall in and fill holes you dig to plant things - fine for things like small plants that already have stems and leaves but it will cover anything you try to plant from seed.  Marsh hay was about $7 a bale this year and it took three bales to cover the soil in the spring with another two bales to freshen up the garden mid-season.  Once it's been wetted down, you can easily push it out of the way to plant things from seed.  So marsh hay hits the sweet spot between functionality and cost.  My source for marsh hay is Mother Earth Gardens.  They also have a good selection of other gardening stuff, too.

Didn't work: Bubble tea straws for planting from seed
This one should have been obvious from the beginning, but I forgot about one basic lesson in my botany class.  There are two types of seedlings - some seedlings leave the seed in the soil when they sprout, some seedlings form a U-shape and bring the seed out of the soil.  The bubble tea straws work okay for the first kind of seed - a little tricky to pull off without damaging the seedling, but not too bad.  But for the second kind of seed, the straw is too confining.  The stalk of the seedling never gets a chance to straighten out.

Didn't work: Using paint can liners to protect young plants
I thought the clear paint can liners I found at the hardware store would be perfect for protecting young seedlings from bunnies and other predators.  I drilled holes in the bottom for ventilation and turned them upside down over the plants, staking them down using holes drilled at the sides.  As it turns out, even using them in spring was too warm.  All of the plants inside the paint can liner domes died.  One of my garden neighbors pointed out that greenhouses sometimes paint their windows in summer to keep the sun from heating up the greenhouse too much.  The paint can liners might benefit from a similar treatment.  I'm not really sure and I don't intend to try next year, but if you do and it works out, let me know. :)

Worked: Sawhorse Greenhouse
Most of the time, I enjoy living in a smaller house.  Less to clean, less to maintain, less to break.  Mid-winter, when it's time to start my seedlings, I start to wish for a greenhouse room.  Of course, you can buy a nice, expensive indoor greenhouse setup.  Or just buy all your plants from a nursery and be at the mercy of their selection for that year.  What I needed was a reasonably priced greenhouse setup where I could easily adjust the height of the grow lights and easily store the pieces out of the way until the next growing season.  Thus, the Sawhorse greenhouse was born.  Basically, I built a tall sawhorse and attached two hooks to the horizontal 2x4 to hold the chains that suspend the light fixture.  You can easily adjust how tall the the light is by adjusting the length of the chain.  And when you're not using it, the sawhorse setup folds into three pieces that can be stowed in a closet or underneath a table.  Add a fan to toughen up your seedlings before they go out into the garden and you have a reasonable, cheap greenhouse setup.