The DIY Water Conserving Garden Sprinkler

Watering your garden with a garden hose wastes a lot of water and the pressure of the water can damage your baby leaves and buds. Sprinklers, on the other hand, work wonders in a garden. On high pressure, they spurt water out for your leaves; while on a low pressure, you can use them for soil wetting too. This DIY garden sprinkler is easy to make and it helps conserve water.

Things You Will Need:

• A strong used Plastic/glass bottle 
• Water-proof tape
• Black & Decker 10mm Keyed VSR Hammer Drill
• A simple garden hose
  

Here’s What You Need To Do:

• The first thing you need to do is connect your bottle with the hose using the water proof tape.
• Tape the hose to the bottle multiple times and make sure there is no gap, thereby avoiding leaks. 
• Be sure to test it against pressure as you do not want it to disconnect later. 
  

• Drill holes in the bottle, placing the holes wherever you want water to spurt. Be sure to use protective gear while drilling to prevent any injuries. Safe DIY is good DIY!

• Test-run your sprinkler and check for any leaks, especially where the tape connects the hose and bottle. If there are, identify the leaky spots and reinforce with the tape.

                            

• Finally, turn the tap on and reap rewards for your labour. Keep your gardens looking its best while saving water! Also, don’t forget to use kitchen waste and kitchen water for your garden to keep it nourished and healthy. 

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Do-It-Yourself projects are perfect activities to beat the summer boredom, follow us on Facebook for more DIY projects. Also, don’t forget to share pictures of your own projects with us; we’d love to see what you’ve done.

Keep Garden Pests at Bay in a Healthy Way

Summer is a great time in your garden; growth accelerates as new leaves and shoots grow out and slowly make their way to flowering. At this time, remember that it’s best to water your garden in the morning so that the scorching sun doesn’t dry up your soil too much. A healthy looking plant in your garden can be highly infected and it takes a close view to see these pests. Mealybugs tend to hide inside new leaves and shoots and spread faster than lice in a playground. Of course, there is the common powdery mildew that contaminates your plants due to low ventilation and takes refuge under big leaves. Also, spider mites infect your plants visibly and suck the life out of it, as leaves turn yellow and your plants droops down in sorrow.

A common solution to these problems is pressure washing. We recommend the Black & Decker 100 Bar Pressure Washer on low pressure for this process. Tip your plant over, as you don’t want to wash away the soil, before pressure washing the leaves and shoots. Parasites like scale insects tend to cling on to your plant for dear life, and need to be scraped off with fingernails as you wash it off.

In some cases, pests tend to over populate on plants and if they are not spotted early enough can infect a plant completely. At this point, accompany daily pressure washing with neem oil or neem spraying to safely eradicate these pests. By using pressure washing and neem, you can refrain from using chemicals; as they not only smell like rotten eggs but are also poisonous to your plant, your pets and your family.

Here are some tips to keep your garden looking its best:

· Grind eggshells into a powder and sprinkle it over the soil, this gives your plant calcium and isn’t an eyesore like crushed eggshells.

· While cooking, save vegetable cooking water instead of throwing it and water your plants (only the soil) with this water. A great vegetable soup is a nutritious treat for your plants.

· Tea leaves are excellent for increasing the acidity of your soil. As this is beneficial to your plants, don’t always throw strained tea leaves, occasionally sprinkle some on the soil.

· Plants love company! So, go ahead, layer your plants in a couple of rows. Be careful not to overcrowd, poor ventilation attracts trouble.

· Spend time caring for your plants. Individually inspect them for pests and don’t be shy, they just might enjoy light petting.

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Follow us on Facebook for more gardening tips and summer activities; send in pictures of your lovely garden as we’d love to see what you’ve done.

Top 5 Garden Care tips for summer - Black and Decker, India

Those of us who have gardens at home might have already started seeing the effects of the increase in temperatures. This is all the more important in case of container gardening, where the plants are completely dependent on the water and nutrition we supply to them. Here are a few tips to help care for your gardens in summer:

Mulch, mulch, mulch: The main issue with the heat is that plants seem to need more water, but this is always tough to balance with the worrying water situation. The best way to resolve this situation is to use good mulch, whether your garden is on the ground, or in containers. Straw or dry leaves can make very good mulching material, and you can get most of this from your garden waste itself.

Watering: Once mulching is done, it is easier to assess watering needs. The mulch will conserve the surface water from drying up too soon, and in some cases even watering once in two days might be sufficient. Do check your plants twice a day though, because some plants might need extra care due to the high heat.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kriztofor/3724503239/

Weeding: This is always an ongoing activity in any garden, but in summer you may find quite a few weeds coming up and crowding out the space. In some cases, you might be pleasantly surprised to find many edible weeds like clover and purslane that seem to grow out of nowhere and you can just pluck regularly and put them into your dal. Some weeds though have extensive roots that drink up all the water, and these need to be pulled up along with the root as soon as you notice them.

Pruning: In a season where plants find it difficult to get water and nutrition, pruning dead or dying leaves and branches is a good way to help the plants thrive. By doing this, the plant does not need to waste energy on the older branches and leaves, and will look fresher and flower or fruit much better.

Nutrition: This is something that’s important in every season, and especially in the case of kitchen gardens, some additional inputs during flowering and fruiting will give good results.

On the subject of gardens, we cannot help but mention our great range of gardening tools from Black & Decker that can be of use in home as well as landscape gardens. Please see our webpage for more details: http://www.blackanddeckerindia.in