5 Tips for Easy Natural Gardening

Are coffee grounds a good fertilizer for your garden?

The idea of using spent grounds in your garden has been around for a long time. Starbucks even branded the idea as Grounds for Your Garden. But many gardeners were concerned that the acidic nature of coffee could have a negative effect on certain plants. We decided to dig into the issue a bit deeper and provide more insight into the issue.

What are the Benefits of Coffee Grounds?

1.Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, which is an essential element for plant growth. 

By adding coffee grounds to your composter or soil, it will boost the nitrogen content in your soil and potentially promote plant growth.

Key signs that your plants are not getting enough nitrogen are yellowing leaves and poor plant growth. Keep in mind that other problems can cause yellowing of leaves, such as disease, too much sunlight or improper watering. However, if you have accounted for those factors, poor nitrogen absorption may be the culprit.

If you are unsure whether your soil is low in nitrogen, consider getting a soil test at an agricultural testing lab or university. They will give you a full report on the elemental quality of the soil. If the report shows optimal nitrogen or high nitrogen levels, in may not be a good idea to add coffee grounds to your soil. A lab soil test can range from $25 to $50 at most labs.

2. Coffee grounds add organic material to the soil.

Organic material improves drainage, water retention and aeration in the soil. As coffee grounds add this organic material to the soil, it will improve these factors in your garden. This is especially beneficial in sandier soil areas, such as in Florida. Aeration is especially important, as microorganisms that convert minerals in the soil into useful materials for the plants. Many of these organisms require aeration to thrive.

Another benefit of aeration is strong root growth. Roots do not grow well in soil that has excess CO2. Aeration relieves excess CO2 and helps the roots grow strong and healthy.

3. Coffee grounds attract earthworms

Earthworms are highly beneficial to gardens. As they burrow through the soil, they eat organic and decaying plant matter. As they deficate, the fertilize the soil, giving plants many of the nutrients they need to grow healthy and strong. By having or introducing earthworms into your garden, you will provide your plants with what they need to grow. Coffee grounds contain the organic matter worms eat, thus attracting them to your garden.

4. Coffee Grounds act as a mulch

Spreading coffee grounds on or in your soil acts as a mulch for your garden. This helps with water retention, reduces weed infestation and provides some protection from cold weather conditions. Be careful not to overdo it though, as too much can create root rot in some varieties.

5. It's eco-friendly

Using coffee grounds in your garden reduces waste in our landfills and puts the materials to good use. If you have a composter, you can add the coffee filters as well, and let the composter break down the grounds and waste and turn it into a beneficial fertilizer. Every bit helps our ecosystem!

6. It can help deter slugs and other pests

Using dry coffee grounds around the periphery of your garden can deter slugs, rabbits and other critters from entering your garden and eating your plants. This is due to the caffeine in the coffee. Beware of using too much unbrewed coffee too close to your plants, however. Used coffee grounds are relatively pH-neutral; however, unbrewed coffee grounds can be fairly acidic. Depending on the variety of plants you have and the initial acidity of the soil you have, this may damage your plants if you use too much. The acid will seep into the soil when it gets wet.

Where to Get Coffee Grounds for Your Garden

Most coffee shops will give you their used coffee grounds if you ask them. You can also use your own grounds (though you would have to drink a lot of coffee to cover a large garden). We recommend spreading enough grounds to cover the soil in your pots or around the plants or seeds. 

Depending on your soil condition, you may need to do this once a month or several times throughout the year. Consult your local nursery or master gardener for advice on your area if you're not sure.

Happy Gardening!

4 Gift ideas for your Gardening Valentines

As Valentine's Day looms closer, most people consider the usual gifts: chocolate, flowers or maybe a nice dinner or date night.

However, while these are sweet demonstrations of affection, they are often temporary. Flowers last about a week till they start to wither and die. Chocolate is gone even faster, unless you count the lingering effects around the waist and hips.

If your significant other enjoys gardening or plants in general, consider giving them something that will last a lot longer. Not only will they appreciate the added thought behind your gift, but they will also last a lot longer and remind them over and over of your love for them.

Here are a few ideas:

Plant a Tree

Flowering Trees

Trees live for many years. Planting a tree shows your commitment to a long, lasting future together. They tend to represent strength, longevity and permanence. As an added benefit, trees tend to be relatively low maintenance compared to other plants. If your loved one has a garden, a tree on the outskirts of the garden or in another area of the yard can be a lovely addition. Some things to take into consideration are how much room the roots need (so they don't uproot sidewalks, plumbing or the house), whether they are prone to disease and how they grow.

Give a Perennial Flowering Plant

Perennials last all year around and will flower when in season. Consult a local nursery for the best varieties for your climate. If your partner likes fragrant flowers, consider gardenias and other fragrant flowers. They are fairly hardy and will add a nice scent to your garden. The flowers can also be used for potpourri or car fresheners.

Give a Gadget or Tool

This requires a bit more knowledge of your garden and gardener. The key here is knowing what aspects of gardening the person dislikes most and finding a gadget that makes it easier. Do they hate tilling the soil?  Get a tiller. Do they hate watering? Get a sprinkler or drip watering system. Are they into organic and permaculture? Get a composter or build a worm farm for worm castings. As with any gift, the more thoughtful and tailor-made to the person, the better. Drop hints if you're not sure.

Make the Whole Thing Easier

Our company just released a device called Miracle Plants. It uses the latest technology in plant research to charge water with frequencies that help plants grow healthy and strong. This one device will help all the plants thrive. Perfect for avid gardeners. For more information, go to                                                                 gardenersareawesome.com

No matter which option you choose, by helping your gardener improve their garden or make their gardening experience easier, you'll not only score points on Valentine's Day, but also have a beautiful, natural garden to enjoy for years to come.

5 Unusual Methods for Faster Plant Growth

If you're like me, you want to have a natural garden so you can grow your own fruits and vegetables and have tasty, healthy food without chemicals or high cost. However, sometimes it can be frustrating to wait several weeks or even months for those lovely seeds to grow into fully mature plants that are producing food for you and your family.

That's why I've compiled this short list of 5 "outside-the-box" ways to help speed up the process. Note: I haven't tried these methods (except 4 and 5), so try them at your own risk.

1. Give your plants vitamins.

As strange as it sounds, vitamins contain substances that plants need. Simply take a multivitamin tablet (1-2 per pot) or several for a large garden and grind them up using a pestle or knife handle. Then, simply spread the powder in the soil of your plants and water. Repeat every 2 weeks. Source: https://youtu.be/bnE4A6U91ik

I haven't tried this method. My thoughts are that the success of this depends on what is in the vitamin and how it's made. Synthetic vitamins often have chemicals that are not necessarily good for humans, let alone for plants. My second concern is cost. If you have more than a couple of plants, you'd have to crush a lot of vitamins to get enough powder to cover your garden. At that point, you're better off just using fertilizer.

2. Water with Club Soda

My first thought when I saw this was, "what, no vodka?" 

This tip by Melanie Pinola suggests that the phosphate and slightly acidic nature of carbonated water will help plants grow. Phosphorus is one of three commonly recommended elements (along with Nitrogen and Potassium) that plants need to grow healthy. Melanie cites a study at the University of Colorado at Boulder that showed an increase in plant growth of 170% versus 67% with regular water. It's important to note that different plants need different soil pH, so you may want to check out your plants' needs and your existing soil pH before adding more acid (even a relatively weak one) to your soil.

You can check out the full article here: https://lifehacker.com/water-plants-with-club-soda-to-make-them-grow-faster-an-1567061455

3. Waiting for the worms

Worms are nature's composting army. As earthworms burrow through the soil, they eat and digest dead plant and animal material. As they defecate, they leave castings that are extremely dense in minerals and microorganisms that are beneficial to plants. 

There are a few ways to benefit from these critters. First, you can buy several hundred earthworms in a bait or natural gardening store. Then, simply turn them loose in your garden. Second, you can put them in a bed of dirt and add leftover material from your composter. Sometimes, the bacteria that break down the food and other materials in your composter can create substances that are toxic to plants. By allowing the worms to eat through the soil with these materials, they can break down the toxins and leave a nutrient-rich, non-toxic soil for your garden.

The third and easiest way to benefit from worms is to buy pre-packaged worm castings from a reputable store. Call around for prices or look online, but it will save you the trouble of dealing with the worms directly.

4. Talking and Singing to Your Plants

This method was popular in the sixties and seventies. There were a few studies done in this regard by researchers at Penn State and in South Korea. Dr Rick Marini of Penn State suggests, "wind or vibration will induce changes in plant growth. Since sound is essentially vibration, my guess is that vibration is causing a response."

A paper in 2007 from scientists at South Korea's National Institute of Agricultural Biosciences noted that two genes responsible for plant response to light —known as rbcS and Ald— were turned on when exposed to sound at about 70 decibels.

Dr Marini stopped short of endorsing sound as a definitive influence on plant growth, but hey, if you're practicing for your next American Idol audition, do it in your garden. Your plants may grow faster.

Source: http://news.psu.edu/story/141343/2008/08/25/research/probing-question-does-talking-plants-help-them-grow

5. Use Miracle Plants device

Miracle Plants is a device based on similar technology to the sound stimulation in #4 above. Mr Fulvio Balmelli, a medical researcher in Italy, studied the biological processes in plants and discovered specific frequencies of vibration that cause plants to grow healthy and strong. From this research, he created the Kyminasi Plants frequency technology.

Early tests of this technology show improved pest resistance, faster growth times and increases in crop yield by weight of up to 70%.

Miracle Plants is the consumer product of this technology and is suitable for gardeners and small farmers of up to 3/4 of an acre. Final testing of the larger devices for commercial agriculture is ongoing and should be available soon after this writing. For more information about Miracle Plants, go to www.gardenersareawesome.com

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Honorable Mention: Use coffee grounds as a fertilizer

This method has been around for a while, and as many already know about it, it didn't make it on this list. However, used coffee grounds contain a lot of nitrogen and other nutrients that can improve your soil. Spreading used coffee grounds around your garden can provide the added nutrition to help your plants grow stronger and faster. Check out this article on using coffee grounds as a fertilizer: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/ingredients/coffee-grounds-gardening.htm

You can get used coffee grounds from your local Starbucks or other coffee house for free usually. This is a waste product for them.

If you've had trouble growing plants in your garden in the past, check out some of these tricks. They may be able to turn your thumb green!

Strong Plants Resist Pests better than Unhealthy Plants

At first glance, the title of this post may seem obvious. Of course healthy plants resist pests better than unhealthy plants.

Just like healthy humans fend off the cold, flu and other illnesses better than unhealthy people, it makes sense that plants are the same.

If your plants are healthy, it is less likely that they will succumb to root rot, disease, insect attacks or other factors that threaten their survival. However, if this is the case, why has commercial and consumer agriculture focused so heavily on attacking the insects or disease, rather than making the plants stronger?

The are several answers to this question. The first is historical. In the forties and fifties, crop damage due to insects and weeds led many farmers to spray synthetic insecticides (insect killers) and herbicides (weed killers) on their crops. The idea was that plants and crops were getting eaten or choked out by these pests and needed to be eliminated to protect the crops and the farmers' livelihoods.

Another reason is economics. It is estimated that for every dollar spent on pesticides, a farmer gets four dollars in crop yields in return. Having a solution in place that produced a good return on investment preempted the need for other solutions.

Then there is the availability of research at the time. In the forties and fifties, there wasn't nearly as much research available into plant health, natural pest resistance and how plants naturally resist pests in their natural environments. Much of this research didn't get done until the 1980s and continues through today.

The increase in awareness and demand for organic, natural produce over the last decade has led to an increase in research into alternatives to pesticides and other chemical means of crop production. This research is focused on how to take advantage of plants' natural defense mechanisms for dealing with pests, weeds and other threats to survival.

One line of research developed a unique approach to improve plant health: using targeted frequencies to improve the natural processes in plants. This research has led to a technology called Kyminasi, and was developed by Italian medical researcher Fulvio Balmelli. Mr Balmelli studied healthy, vibrant plants in their natural environment and measured the frequency signatures of these plants to discover how they operate when left to their own devices. He mimicked these frequencies using a special technology that he developed over 15 years in his Biomedic facility.

The result of this work is a small device that is programmed with these specific frequencies and available for the first time to the consumer market.



Initial tests show a dramatic improvement in insect resistance in the Kyminasi plants vs. the Control plants in a side-by-side experiment. See the results here:

Pest Resistance Video

Can you imagine have access to this technology in your garden or small farm?

Well you don't have to imagine anymore, because Mr Balmelli's technology is finally available for consumers. Introducing Miracle Plants, a new device that allows gardeners to grow stronger, healthier plants -100% organically- at a fraction of the cost.

Introducing Miracle Plants. This one device reduces or eliminates the need for fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides and other chemicals, and it lasts for an entire year.

For more information, or to order your Miracle Plants device, visit www.gardenersareawesome.com. 

Happy Gardening!