Work smarter, not harder, with these gardening life hacks

Your garden is a labor of love, but you can make the work a bit less laborious with tips and tricks from our gardening experts, with a few extra tips provided by some of our garden-loving friends.

Horticulture professor Jeff Iles and ISU Extension horticulture specialist Aaron Steil joined Garden Variety to share their favorite yard and garden life hacks.

Use colorful golf tees to mark plants

Steil prefers brightly colored wooden golf tees to mark his recently planted plants, especially perennials. He says this is more reliable than using a plant tag that can often be lost or broken.

“It helps me spot the plants that I need to water in my landscape when I go out to water the new stuff that I planted this current growing season,” Steil said. “… If I go away for a weekend and I need somebody to water for me, I can just say, hey, water everything that has a little orange golf tee next to it, and that makes it a little easier.”

Make a virtual map of your garden

If you’d rather rely on technology to keep track of your plants, Steil shared another alternative to plastic plant tags.

“Every year when I plant my vegetable garden, I will take a photo of it after planting and then go in and label the plants on the photo. And then it’s on my phone and if I can’t remember which pepper plant is the Anaheim and which one is the Poblano, I can just pull it up on my phone, look at my little map for that year, and it’s right there.”

Upcycle clothing for tree staking

Rather than spending a money on an expensive spool of tree staking material, you can find alternatives right in your closet.

“Instead of buying staking materials, Aaron and I both use old t-shirts as staking materials,” Iles said. “They’re soft, they’re pliable, they give a little bit. They do everything you need in a staking material.”

Another alternative is nylon stockings.

Grow tomatoes in an upside-down cage

According to Steil, there are as many ways to trellis tomatoes as there are tomato types.

“Trellising your tomatoes is of great advantage. It makes it easier to harvest fruit. It gets better sunlight in. It keeps the soil off of everything. It helps reduce disease and all of that.”

However, the simple circular cages made of wire you’ll find in most gardening centers tends to be top heavy, and as tomatoes grow larger, they can topple over. To make the structure a bit more resilient, turn it upside-down.

“Instead of using it with three little narrow legs into the ground and then it widens as it goes up, I flip it upside down and put the circle — the wide circle on the top of it — on the ground, and then I’ll pin it down with like two or three landscape staples.”

Be cautious of the sharp legs of the cage if you use this trick. Steil recommends using needle nose pliers to hook all of the legs together, creating a shape like a teepee. Fold the wires over to round it off and tuck the pointy end away so you don’t hurt yourself while tending to the garden.

BONUS: Audience tips!

A few of our garden-loving audience joined the conversation to share their own successes with tricks in their garden. Here are a few of our favorites:

• “My husband and I grow a lot of cantaloupe and watermelons on our farm. We place tall plastic stakes that are used to mark driveways in the center of each hill as we plant the seeds. Then when the vines grow and sprawl, we know where to water. No tip-toeing around trying to find where the base of the plants are.” – MaryAnn in Melaque, Mexico
• “If you are looking to clear out an area of ground for planting, and you have chickens, fence the area off and let the chickens get rid of every last bit of vegetation for you. They will raze the area to the ground plus add fertilizer AND provide free food to them.” – John in Mount Vernon