Gardening Tip

 Today I would like to share a gardening tip. ✨🌱✨
I was at the hardware store earlier and I will admit when I walk by an entire wall of products that poison the earth, like roundup, I sometimes for a moment feel powerless. There is so much of it and so many people putting it in their carts. But then I shake myself out of it because it’s not helpful. What helps me feel better is to remember that I do have power. We have the power to make our own choices every single day. And additionally by making my choices hopefully it may inspire someone else to claim their power too. I choose to share our harvest with wildlife including insects, and I choose to not use products like roundup for weeds. I also choose to see the value and beauty in many “weeds” such as for example dandelions, which are medicinal and edible for us and for wildlife.
❤️
Even though we do share our harvest, we also do want to be able to enjoy fruit and veggies. So my tip for today is use garlic. For years we have planted one clove of garlic on each side of our tomatoes and veggies and the garlic greens that sprout up discourage deer and other animals from eating the plant. They don’t love the scent. 

It’s super easy.
1.) take a clove (make sure it’s organic because much of the non organic garlic is treated with something that inhibits growth) 
2.) place it on each side of your new planting (my middle photo is a baby zucchini plant) and simply push it into the ground pointy side up. (I love doing this with my bare hands and feeling the earth, but gloves are fine or if your soil is hard use a small spade.) Cover it with a tiny bit of dirt.
3.) in a few weeks garlic greens will sprout. Photo 3 shows one of the ones from last year -we regularly harvest and cook with these garlic greens -they are delicious. Similar to green onions but garlic taste.
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We have so much of it that we don’t bother to plant in advance, but if you are graced with a lot of deer visitors you can plant the garlic cloves a few weeks before the seedlings will go in. 
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This is mostly to protect the actual plants-so that they don’t get topped and we can all enjoy the fruit/veggies!