The Rewards Of Vegetable Gardening

Many people love vegetable gardening. Besides creating something beatiful in your yard, you also making fresh food for your family.

Think about the juicy red tomatoes, crisply lettuce, the fragrance of your herbs... This is just a handful of examples of your garden's output. That's what I call fast food. Pick, rinse, and serve. It's not like choosing vegetables from the market or grocery store. You don't get into the hassle of hunting through the under-ripe and over-ripe tomatoes to choose which to take. In your garden, you're sure that you are getting healthy stuff. No harmful chemicals or additives... Your veggies have been grown with only water and love(and some compost too).

Working in your garden is good for your health. You're out in fresh air, getting some physical exercise to kick the stress of modern life out of your mind. You can get your family members in the task too. Let them go and pick some vegetables in the garden. Children can be initiated too. Let them sow some seeds and watch the plant grow. For lunch, everyone will be proud to eat something they have grown and cared. Maybe your family bonds will get stronger too. That's something you will never get from your grocer.

Even now, I'm still delighted whenever I see some seeds sprout and grow. It's more than a hobby. Gardening is a way of living. After all, you reap what you sow.

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Save your egg shells.

Keep them for your plants

No, you can't return your egg shells against money at your grocery. At least, let me know if you can...

Once you have used an egg, rinse the shell and let it dry. You'll be able to use it later. If you are a vegetarian or you need more egg shells, just ask your neighbors or try to get some from a nearby restaurant. You may need to wash the shells yourself though, in the latter cases. It doesn't matter much if the egg shells were broken into half or if they are quite crushed. I'll show you how to use them.

Are your egg shells ready? There are three ways to use your egg shells.
1. In your composting pile.
I'll be brief on that one. Crushed shells can be added to the pile to increase calcium content.
2. As a gastropod deterrent.
Snails and slugs won't "walk" onto coarsely crushed egg shells. Its a simple organic way to protect a couple of plants from being devastated by those snails and slugs. With time, the egg shells will decompose adding some calcium into your soil. I doubt that some egg shells will drastically change your soil composition and pH though. One drawback is that you got to have lots of egg shells handy if you have a big garden.
3. As starting pot
Do you start your seeds indoors in peat pots? Save peat(and your money too). Living in a tropical climate, I don't really need to start seeds inside... With some exceptions, especially during the rainy reasons. Else all seeds are sown directly in the garden. But for you, you can use the bigger egg shells(approx half an egg) as a substitute of peat pots. You'll just have to crack the shell a bit before planting.

Let's do a quick recap:
small crumbles of egg shells are for composting and snails
bigger shells are used for starting seeds.

This ends the second article on tips to reduce your gardening cost series. Did you miss the first one?

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Reducing your gardening costs - Part One

Despite being a hobby, gardening usually take away some of your budget - you have to buy the plants, seeds, materials, fertilisers, and perhaps some of you will need herbicides, pesticides, etc...
Do you really have to buy all these?? No. You can decrease your gardening budget. Here are some tips for having many plants for almost nothing:
Your plants
Build your plant network with friends, relatives and neighbors. Get in contact with people and swap plants with them. You'll easily get extra plants for free!! Tip: propagate your plants through cuttings when it's trimming time.
Seeds Harvest your seeds. Seeds let you expand your plant quantity quickly, but some patience is required sometimes(eg. for cactii). If you are inexperienced, try harvesting seeds from flowers like marigolds. Another trick is to swap seeds. When you buy a packet of seeds, you generally get more than you need. Swap the remaining ones with friends!!

Be sure to come back to check other tricks. You can also share your tricks.

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