Plus garden to do's for June & July
By L.A. JacksonThere are two reasons to drink milk: (1) It’s good for you, and (2) the plastic gallon jug it comes in is good for your garden. For mixing growing solutions in particular, these containers are handy as measuring tools. Many times, plant food and pesticide instructions require a certain amount of chemical to be mixed with a gallon of water, and who has a measuring cup that big? If you drink milk, you do.
A milk jug can also be converted into an efficient irrigator for a plant beyond the reach of the water hose. Simply punch two tiny holes in the bottom, fill it with water (or a weak fertilizer solution) and set it next to a young plant with the holes pointed towards the plant. Leave the top on loosely to create a slight vacuum — it will cause the solution to slowly leak into the ground, assuring the plant a long, thorough soaking.
If you cut a milk jug in half just below the handle, you will have four useful garden items. By poking a small hole in the bottom portion for drainage, the lower half becomes a planter — not a pretty planter, mind you, but a functional one all the same. And if it is filled with a rambler such as creeping Jenny, mint or creeping thyme that readily crawls over and covers the sides, who’s going to see the container anyway?
With the cap off, the top half of the milk jug can be a funnel. The large opening makes it handy for such jobs as pouring grass seed or fertilizer into a hand-held spreader or gasoline into motorized garden equipment. With the cap on, it becomes a scoop with a handle for dirt, fertilizer, lime, water or whatever.
Finally, if you are using an all-purpose herbicide close to some of your favorite plants (especially on a windy day), take the cap back off, invert the funnel over an offending weed, spray into the container top and then move on to the next weed.
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