Whole Egg Planting, Seaweed Slug Repellent, A Bug Snug, and Other Trends to Try
While I definitely don’t consider myself a trendsetter—or even a person who follows trends—my interest is always piqued when I learn of new gardening approaches and tricks. (And if you’re ahead of the game and have already given these a go, let us know how it went in the Comments.) 1. Lay seaweed down to repel snails and slugs. Whole seaweed is purportedly a great soil amendment—and snail and slug repellent. The theory goes like this: Since seaweed holds a lot of salt, it will repel slugs and snails, which detest salt. Photograph by H Matthew Howarth via Flickr, from Seafood for the Garden: Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer. If you’re planning to give this a try, I’d suggest keeping the seaweed away from stems and leaves (as they don’t enjoy the salt either) and collect only the seaweed you need (as seaweed provides shelter and food for various marine life). Photograph by Clive Nichols, courtesy of Harry Holding Studio, from Edimentals Are Trending. Chives, with their purple pompom flowers, are pretty and edible. What I appreciate about edimentals is that harvesting becomes more like foraging as the plants are dispersed around a garden instead of living in a designated patch or bed. 2. Add edimentals to the garden. Photograph by Justine Hand, from Gardening 101: How to Use Eggshells in the Garden. Raw egg is said to be a cure for all sorts of ailments—including nutrient-weak soil. My client found that when she did this in a few pots, she discovered the egg-filled pots looked greener and grew larger than the egg-less pots (her controls). 3. Crack an egg into a planting hole. This habitat pile is larger than a bug snug, but its purpose is the same: to house little critters. Well, it uses leftover garden materials that you might already have after a serious fall pruning session, plus it seems like a great project to do with kids. Photograph by Chris Fehelhaber, from Habitat Piles: Turning Garden Debris Into Shelter and Sculpture. 5. Paint your nature walks. Photograph by Heidi Swanson, from On the Go in an Airstream: Outdoor Living with Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. Effortless trendsetter Heidi Swanson brings Moleskin notebooks and a watercolor set on her Airstream adventures so that she can document the fauna and flora. Next time, we will bring a small, lightweight watercolor set and pad to try and capture them.