Brambleberries in the Rain

Here you will find little hints, tips, and various bits of information I have found helpful throughout the years. Please if you know of any I should include contact me and let me know and I will post them here.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Tip for Roses

2 comments. Top.

Roses love bananas but aphids don’t!

Place some banana peels around your roses to help rid them of aphids. The banana peels are also helpful for preventing them. What is even better is the potassium in the banana peels stimulates larger blooms.

I found out about this interesting tip several years ago and was a little skeptical about it. After all it just doesn’t sound like it should work. I am sure this tip is no secret to gardeners that grow lots of roses but my friends, neighbors, and family think I must be nuts when they see the banana peels scattered along the base of my roses. They will stare at them for awhile and then ask why I have banana peels under my roses. I explain to them the reason and some think it is pretty interesting while others look at me like I have spending too much time in  the sun.

It really does seem to work. Not overnight mind you but be consistent and it does seem to help. I have placed the peels under roses that were beginning to have a pretty decent infestation of aphids and within a few days they began to disappear. I try to periodically place the peels under the roses as a preventive measure as this seems to work the best. I simply place the peels on the soil, yellow skin facing up, and then let them break down. Eventually I will work them into the soil. I continue placing more peels under the roses throughout the growing season. I also do this with my roses in containers and they are always very healthy.

Mulch for Container Plants

0 comments. Top.

I drink quite a bit of tea, mostly green and herbal teas. I especially make a lot of tea this time of year when it tastes so good iced. Thanks to all the tea I make I have a large amount of free mulch that is just perfect for my container grown plants. I make my herbal teas using bulk dried herbs and once the tea has been made I let the spent tea leaves cool.  I then place them around the soil of my container plants.

It’s an easy and cheap way of mulching my containers. Plus I sometimes wonder if the herbs might be beneficial to the potted plants as they break down!

Harvesting Herbs for Drying

5 comments. Top.

As you can see in the picture above, the peppermint I have growing on my deck is more than ready to be harvested. It is actually in two containers and I have them placed side by side.

Seeing that the peppermint and a few other herbs in my garden are in need of gathering right now, I thought I would post this little tip on what I do when I harvest my herbs. I have been doing it for many years now and it works out really well.

The evening before I plan on harvesting my herbs I go out and wash them with a gentle spray of water. This removes dirt and other little things (like insects) that might be clinging to the leaves. One important thing to remember about harvesting herbs is you want them free of water when you are going to dry them for later use. Washing them off in the garden the night before picking eliminates having to wash them after you gather them. By morning they are nice and dry as well as clean and ready to be picked!