We tried a community garden in my town, but people kept stealing the vegetables. How sad.

With Mother’s Day right around the corner, my sister and I are “plotting” to build our mom a pallet garden.  She always loved gardening, but as she has gotten older it’s been difficult for her.  With a pallet garden, our mom will be able to easily keep the weeds at bay while growing the vegetables she loves.

From The Micro Gardener, here are 20 Creative Ways to Upcycle Pallets in Your Garden,

An amazing quantity of food can be grown in a one square metre pallet garden. This one is intensively planted with luscious veggies!

This will be a fun project!

It drives me crazy when my tomatoes crack. It does not detract from their taste, but mentally they do seem more delicious without the big cracks.  So what causes this? What can a gardener do to fix this?

Stop watering them so much!  According to Tomato Dirt, the key to a nice, plump, crack-free tomato is less water,

How do you prevent cracks?
1. Plant crack-resistant tomato varieties that have elastic skin, including Daybreak, Early Girl, Earl of Edgecombe, Heinz 1350, Jet Star, Juliet, Mountain Delight, Mountain Pride, and Valley Girl.
2. Mulch plants (wait until they’re established – about 3-5 weeks after planting) to help retain moisture in the soil.

There are all kinds of great tomato tips here!

Photo by The Stars The Moon on Tumblr.

Empty orange bags and onion bags don’t have to help fill up the local landfill. Instead, they can be recycled and used in your garden this spring to protect seedlings.  From Garden Gate eNotes,

With this easy netting system, you’ll stop critters from devouring or digging up your seedlings. And it only takes a few supplies: small stakes, mesh onion bags and landscape pins. Here’s how to put it all together:

Step 1: Push a stake into the ground, next to the plant that needs protection — we used bamboo.

Click over to read the rest of the steps!

Wow! If only all yard work went this quickly!

Photo by Artscapes.

I have a friend who is deathly freaked at the sight and touch of wooden spoons. I suppose the following idea would keep her out of my garden and from stealing my vegetables!

From Little Green Fingers,

This year I’m becoming obsessed with plant labels.

I’ve seen some beautiful carved wooden labels and even slate and metal name tags, but almost all of these would require me to take out a second mortgage.  Then I went to Wilkinsons.

For those not au fait with this store, its the kind of place where you can buy 200 clothes pegs for 50p or 10 sticks of glue for under a pound.  Obviously we’re not talking heirloom quality goods here, but if you ever get stuck in the hell of putting together 25 party bags for less than a tenner, this is the place for you.

I love this idea!