The 10 Best GARDEN HACKS That Actually Work

There are countless videos and articles across the internet that share money saving “garden hacks” that claim to make your vegetable garden more productive and save you money, but which actually work, and which are just clickbait? Look no further! I use all these gardening tips and tricks in real life with incredible results, and in this video, I share the 10 best garden hacks that actually work.

How I Grafted Fruit Trees: https://youtu.be/YYCudfvFkRM?si=2vML4LAGJPhOm7U1
How To Make A Multi-Grafted Fruit Tree: https://youtu.be/d1yQKly95eA?si=HEfBfE-QV0pvAXHD
How To Install Shade Cloth: https://youtu.be/SbWcCxV7OOE?si=7tLRpoT6Jrr7iZhj
How To Protect Trees From Cold: https://youtu.be/KRLBg7fjpeg?si=gPfxaguls9Iz0M2U

The following products* were featured in this video:
Long White Tarp: https://amzn.to/3TnedIn
Plant Saucers (16-18in+ for large pots): https://amzn.to/4kHHFF9
Grow Bags (Black): https://amzn.to/4a0MHa5
Grow Bags (Tan): https://amzn.to/4dqSsAD
Hard Nursery Containers: https://amzn.to/3HIbxT8
Tomato Hooks & Plant Clips Kit: https://amzn.to/4mCptOE
Plant Support Clips, 300 PCS: https://amzn.to/3Ftp54b
1/8-inch Stainless Steel Wire Rope Cable: https://amzn.to/43AXzda
Turnbuckle Tension Wire Rope Kit: https://amzn.to/3HcpvfM
Grafting Tool Kit: https://amzn.to/4lm3DgN
Hand Vacuum: https://amzn.to/46bx2WD
Weed Barrier: https://amzn.to/4mj7nkl
Shade Cloth: https://amzn.to/49bqveh
Plant Jacket, 120″x120″, 1.5oz/yd (My Avocado Tree Size): https://amzn.to/41jHMj8
C9 Incandescent Outdoor Christmas Lights: https://amzn.to/3Z73mow
Wireless Smart Outlet (Indoor): https://amzn.to/3FNAs7f
Wireless Smart Outlet (Outdoor): https://amzn.to/4dZagmH
True Organic All Purpose Fertilizer [5-4-5] (4lb): https://amzn.to/4mroKji
Alaska Fish Fertilizer [5-1-1] (Gallon): https://amzn.to/4d9c1x7
Espoma Bone Meal (10lb): https://amzn.to/4ieYapY
Full Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Top 10 Best Garden Hacks Intro
0:51 Garden Hack #1
3:39 Garden Hack #2
8:12 Garden Hack #3
12:17 Garden Hack #4
14:40 Garden Hack #5
17:54 Garden Hack #6
19:03 Garden Hack #7
21:27 Garden Hack #8
24:28 Garden Hack #9
28:35 Garden Hack #10
32:40 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about my best gardening hacks featured in this video, want to learn more about growing fruit trees or the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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© The Millennial Gardener

#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden

what’s growing on gardeners there are countless videos and articles across the internet that share garden hacks that claim to make your garden more productive and save you money but how do we know which actually work and which are just internet clickbait over the years I have shared with you countless gardening techniques that I use to actually improve my garden’s yields and save me money but I’ve never consolidated them all into one place until now so on today’s video I am going to share with you my favorite garden hacks that actually work i use all of these techniques in real life and I have proven them to boost production save you time and most importantly save you money if you’re new to the channel please subscribe hit the bell for notifications and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear garden hack number one stops container garden wash out if you’re like me and you grow a container garden you know that container wash out caused by either heavy rainfall or over irrigation can be a nightmare when you grow plants in a container garden the plants don’t have the luxury of being able to search all around the earth for nutrients all of the nutrients the plants have and the roots can access are stored in this container so for that reason it is very important that we keep them chalk full of nutrients at all times with adequate regular fertilizing but what happens if you get persistent heavy rain or you over irrigate and then you wind up flushing out all of those expensive fertilizers that you paid good money for and also you leave your plants starving with no nutrients left so what I’ve done in my container garden is underneath my grow bag I have put this long impermeable white tarp underneath so what this does is every single time it rains too heavily or I accidentally over irrigate all of the wash out from the containers collects in that white tarp right there and it doesn’t drain into the ground we just got through days of heavy rain washing out my containers that’s why you see this greenish brown tint right here that is all high algae content because there are a lot of nutrients in the containers that get washed out every single time it rains too heavily here so instead of losing all of those nutrients and fertilizers to the ground the grow bags actually wind up sitting in that liquid and then when it gets hot and dry again during the day it reabsorbs all of that liquid this white tarp has been extremely effective at reducing the amount of nutrient wash out that happens with heavy rain and over irrigation because fabric grow bags are very porous so when they sit in all of that water they easily reabsorb the nutrients back into the bags but for hard plastic nursery containers like the containers I’m growing all these fig trees in I found better luck with a different approach if you set these hard nursery containers on an impermeable tarp they don’t do as good of a job at reabsorbing all of that water because all they have to work with are drain holes so I’ve had better luck using these large 16 or 18in plant saucers and all you do is you lift up the containers and then you put the plant saucers underneath and that catches any of the runoff and all of the nutrients into the drip container and then the holes in the bottom will reabsorb those nutrients once it warms back up during the day and things dry out and by the way for any of the products that I’m featuring in this video like this long white tarp or these plant saucers I will place direct links in the video description to all of these exact items for your convenience that goes for any other inexpensive products I may feature throughout this video garden hack number two is protected trellising if you’ve been following my channel for a long time you know that my favorite way to grow a lot of your trellising vines like tomatoes cucumbers some squashes and melons is upstrings and it’s a great way to grow but there are some downsides for example you need a fairly wide open space and a pretty decent size in your backyard to accomplish such a large trellis and trellising in a wide open space like this really leaves you vulnerable to the elements you can see my vines whipping around in the wind that’s because it’s pretty exposed if the winds blow from this direction which is the east and pretty aggressively beat up your plants also because these vines are out in the open they are very susceptible to strong sun and rainfall and as a result you are seeing lots of signs of tomato diseases in this open trellis area because these plants are not protected at all so what do you do if you want to grow like this but you have a small backyard with limited space and you have difficult weather conditions well I have come up with protected ways to grow these plants that shield them from the sun and the wind so they are less prone to diseases and they take up a lot less space one of my favorite ways to do this is to staple a cattle panel trellis to the side of my fence because this allows me to grow using very limited space while also offering my plants protection you can see that I’m saving a lot of space because my plants can grow right along that fence instead of having to dedicate that big open area over there to the trellis you’ll also see the trellis out in the open well all those plants are being nuked by the strong June sun but you’re actually seeing the plants over here well the fence is casting some shade on them so they aren’t getting as much sun exposure and the fence itself acts as a windbreak so these plants are dramatically protected versus the plants out in the open and as a result you are seeing better productivity and less disease this is the same Brandy Boy tomato that I showed you covered in disease out in the open yet the the leaves up here don’t have any diseases on them at all there is a little bit of disease on the bottom but it’s nothing compared to the other plants I showed you out on that trellis and that is because these plants are growing in a protected location so they aren’t as stressed by the wind the sun and the heat another protected trellis design I use is to grow up strings connected to my rain gutters and here I have some tomatoes and cucumbers that I am growing up a string trellis they connect to some S hooks that are hooked in to the bottom of my rain gutters i have been doing this for 3 years and I have had tremendously successful results the gutters block rainfall from hitting all of the plants which not only prevent my fruits from cracking but it dramatically cuts down on disease and again we have the same varieties of tomatoes growing here these are all virtually disease-free because they aren’t getting hammered by all of the rain that the plants out in the open are you see there are no diseases on those leaves at all same thing with the cucumbers and because they’re trellused up against the side of my house they get a lot of sun protection as well just look at the massive yields of cucumbers that are on this vine is this not incredible this is so much more production that I get out in the open with my plants being beaten up by the sun because they’re up against the house here this is the southwest wall they only get about 3 to 4 hours of direct sun a day so they are protected from the sun the wind the rain and they are doing fantastic now obviously you can only do this with a handful of plants because you don’t want to put too much stress and strain on your rain gutters i only have one cucumber and two tomato plants right here since it’s a limited amount of weight so don’t be too hard on your gutters you may want to go up there with a ladder and give them a tug to make sure that they’re strong enough to do this but you can do this here and there as long as your gutters are strong enough in key areas all around your house to create a nice little protected microclimate and of course if you don’t want to attach plants to your rain gutters you can use things like stakes or big tomato cages or other kinds of arch trelluses and just install them underneath your rain gutter so you can get the protection of the side of your house and the rain gutters themselves from the wind and the rain but you’re not putting any stress or strain on the gutters themselves so there are a lot of ways you can do this if you’re concerned about the weight on your gutters garden hack number three is replanting old kitchen scraps this is one of the best ways to grow food for free or nearly free around your yard and garden now not all kitchen scraps can be repurposed for replanting but one of my favorite ones are old potatoes for example out of the four grow bags full of potatoes that I have three of them were leftover potatoes from last year’s fall harvest i had a white a purple and a potato and they were in the garage all winter and some of them started sprouting eyes so I specifically kept them in cool storage in my garage and then in the spring I replanted them all so one two three grow bags simply used the leftover remainder of last year’s harvest and they are now overflowing with potatoes the fourth grow bag is full of russet potatoes and I planted old sprouted potatoes that I left behind in my pantry that I missed that were no good and they were all starting to sprout see once a potato starts sprouting eyes like this you can cut them up into little chunks let them dry and cure overnight or for a day or two so the ends harden over and then you can just plant them in grow bags or directly in soil and they will grow into potato plants i also like doing this with my old sweet potatoes now sweet potatoes and potatoes are actually in completely different families potatoes are a night shade whereas sweet potatoes are a morning glory so they are rooted differently whereas your regular potatoes can be planted directly into soil your sweet potatoes have to be partially planted in moist potting mix and then they will sprout and they will send out these vines called slips and then we root and plant the sweet potato vines the slips themselves so all of the sweet potato slips that you see in this container right here are leftover sweet potatoes from last fall’s harvest that started to sprout in my cool garage over the winter and I repurposed them to grow all the vines i have Okanowan sweet potato vines that are sprouting from last year’s old inferior Okanowan sweet potatoes so that is how I got all of my vines to plant for this season then you simply break off the vines at the nodes and you plop them in a cup of water and after only about 3 or 4 days they will start rooting profusely then you can plant them and that is what you see right here these are sweet potato slips that I planted a few weeks ago from that container I just showed you in 25gallon grow bags from last year using last year’s potting mix so effectively all of the sweet potatoes I get out of these three grow bags right here are going to be completely free aside from just a few handfuls of fertilizer I give them every couple of weeks this is also highly effective for plants where we would want to eat the resp sprouted greenery of that plant for example where we would want to plant the roots and then eat the greens that come up from the center of the plant things like celery or spring onions or leaks last year I showed you how you could reroot the bases of leaks and then replant them and harvest fresh leaks basically by regrowing kitchen scraps so right here is the butt end of some romaine lettuce so what you can do is you could take some toothpicks and stick them in the sides of the bottom of the lettuce where the roots would come out or you could use an unraveled paper clip which is what I’m doing right here so I’m going to shove the paper clip through that lettuce right there and then what you could do is you could let the bottom sit in some water like you see right there and then what will happen is in about 1 to two weeks that will sprout roots and then once you get a decent root system on that then you can plant this in your garden and it will rroot and it will regrow the lettuce from the center of that crown as long as the crown is still in good shape you can even do this with pineapple tops so there are lots of examples where you can regrow individual vegetables for a second harvest if this process sounds attractive to you just make sure you do this in a shady protected location indoors like next to your sink if you leave these out in full sunlight they will probably wither away and die garden hack number four is rescuing a dead fruit tree by grafting last winter I showed you something devastating happened to my 4-year-old pawpaw tree my Naomi’s Delicious variety that is very rare and hard to find that has been growing for 4 years in ground well the graft failed i guess the nursery didn’t make the graft correctly and the whole tree died back to the rootstock now I didn’t want to spend nearly $100 on a new tree replant a new tree and then wait another four years for it to actually grow and flower and produce fruit so I decided to take matters into my own hands after the tree died all the way back to the ground suckers started sprouting from the base so I had three nice root suckers come back in late winter that you see right here now while a seedgrown pawpaw roottock like this is virtually useless on its own for highquality fruit I could use the suckers to graft onto so I thought to myself instead of spending $100 on a brand new tree and digging up four years of root growth because under here there’s a nice large wellestablished root system let’s just cut the suckers back and I’ll spend $20 buying some pawpaw scions and I will graft the name variety back onto the rootstock suckers so over the winter I bought two varieties of cutings Maria’s Joy and Naomi’s Delicious which was the original graft and in April I showed you how I chip bud grafted the Naomi’s Delicious and then I cleft grafted the Maria’s Joy variety i also grafted a Naomi’s Delicious onto this third sucker right here and it looks like two out of the three grafts took so I have a new Naomi’s Delicious graft that is growing right here and then I have a Maria’s Joy graft that is growing right here so instead of spending lots of money on a new tree and waiting years for that new tree to establish I now have a twoin-one pawpaw tree that will have one stump as Maria’s joy and one stump as Naomi’s Delicious so this will fruit in only a fraction of the time for a third of the cost and now I have two trees instead of one if you want to see exactly how I did this I’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you how I rescued this tree by grafting this was so much of a better option than buying a new tree garden hack number five builds upon hack number four what happens if we don’t have a yard that’s large enough for tons of fruit trees or what if we want to grow a specific fruit tree that requires cross-pollination two unique varieties at least and we don’t have the space for it or what if we don’t have the money to buy lots and lots of fruit trees to plant all around our yard and garden well we can buy or make ourselves a multi-grafted fruit tree where numerous varieties are all contained on only one tree 3 or 4 years ago I decided that I wanted an Asian pear tree but most varieties of Asian pear are not self-fertile you need at least two trees and I didn’t want to dedicate all that space in my yard to two or three Asian pear trees i only wanted one so what I did was I bought a single churro Asian pear tree which is not self-fertile then I bought very inexpensive cutings for two other varieties hosi and Korean giant i took my Asian pear tree and I took the cho and I chopped it down to one branch basically one single inline stump and then on the bottom I grafted onto each side hoe down here in the middle I grafted on the Korean giant and on top I grafted well I didn’t graft anything i just let the top of the tree grow as the natural cho variety so I then espalade them on different cordons i have steel cable here well along this cordon right here is the hosi along this cordon right here is the Korean giant and along this cordon right here is the natural churro varieties progress has been fantastic because the host variety is the lowest on the tree it has grown the largest the fastest and you can see the varieties are cross-pollinating as they are supposed to and it is starting to load up with hosti fruit then the next one up here is the Korean giant because it’s higher up on the tree it is not quite as far along but it’s still cross-pollinated with the hosui and it is holding fruit on top was chosuro and the churro did set fruit but unfortunately it dropped it probably because it’s at the top so this wood right here is the youngest therefore it’s the least likely to hold fruit but in another year or two all three levels of this tree will be brimming with fruit you can also buy multigrafted fruit trees this is a 4 inone pluatt tree pluats also require cross-pollination and I didn’t want two pluatt trees so I bought one variety where all four down at the bottom are unique varieties and since this is a firstear tree only half of the sides flowered but it is enough for cross-pollination so I have tremendous amounts of pollination on this side and then I have one little fruit that’s hanging on in this side now we will expect all four sides to fruit in another year or two but that is pretty impressive right there that makes the tree effectively self-fertile because all the different varieties will cross-pollinate if you want to see how I grafted this Asian pear tree I’ll link to that video both above and down in the video description it is pretty cool garden hack number six is manually removing insect pests with a rechargeable hand vacuum every single day often twice a day I like to do a 3 to 5 minute walkthrough of my garden and check on things and make sure that everything is okay and when I do that I take my trusty rechargeable hand vacuum with me if I see any insect pests that are slow or are busy doing something I’ll sneak up behind them and I’ll suck them up with this hand vacuum here is a cluster of one of the worst pests in our tomato garden the leafooted bug let’s see if I can get some of them [Music] got a couple of them you can see them crawling around in there these things are just the worst i know it doesn’t seem like much but if you do this every single day it can dramatically reduce the overall insect pest population in your yard and garden over time and the best part is it requires no insect sprays or chemicals and because it’s a rechargeable device once you pay for it it costs a negligible amount of money to operate it’s almost free garden hack number seven that actually works is using shade cloth shade cloth has been probably the greatest discovery in my summer garden over the last 5 years shade cloth works to dramatically reduce irrigation costs while increasing the productivity and disease resistance of plants when it gets really hot out at this time of year it stresses our plants and it balloons our irrigation costs well when you drape something like a 40% shade cloth above the plants that does several things number one it decreases the amount of irrigation that your plants need by reducing the temperature and the incidence of direct sunlight on the soil so you have less evaporation you have a cooling effect therefore you don’t need to water your garden as much or as often the other thing it does is it dramatically reduces the stress of plants you would be surprised how many plants we grow in our garden that are actually native understory shrubs and vines they weren’t made to grow out in the open sunshine and get 8 9 10 or more hours of direct 9 10 and 11 UV index sun beating on them most notorious for having problems in strong direct sun are things like tomatoes peppers cucumbers squashes melons basically all native understory shrubs and vines that evolve to grow in dappled light so I’ve been telling you for many years install something like shade cloth overhead not only will it make it a lot cheaper to irrigate the plants but it reduces their stress level it reduces the onset of diseases because the plants are not stressed and when it gets really hot and these plants struggle to pollinate in the intense heat and humidity the shade cloth actually increases the rate of pollination so not only do you have to water less you have to spray less for diseases it blocks a significant number of insect pests because it is a mesh so you don’t need to use as many insecticides or you don’t have to remove as many insect pests if you prefer not to use insecticides but you’ll get increased production as well no matter where you live I strongly recommend you try shade cloth in your annual vegetable garden or overheat sensitive fruit trees it really makes a difference i have very detailed guides on how to use it i’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you exactly how to install and use shade cloth garden hack number eight that actually works is overwintering and that being said there are some plants that overwinter better than others one of the best plants for you to overwinter is the humble pepper plant generally the smaller fruited pepper plants that aren’t super hot do well so either small fruited sweet peppers or small fruited mildly hot peppers for example this jalapeno pepper plant right here is 3 years old i dug this up from my garden 3 years ago and I have been overwintering it ever since same thing with this Trinidad pimento pepper right here there’s actually a frog taking cover inside the plant right here um but this Trinidad pimento plant right here is also three years old and when you overwinter something like a pepper plant you get a lot of advantages namely you can get really early harvests so all you really need to do is at the end of your growing season well before your first frost probably late September or early October you’re going to want to dig up a really straight growing healthy looking pepper plant of your choice and you’re going to want to put it in something like a three or a five gallallon container with fresh potting mix then after it roots and it grabs hold in the container you are going to prune it back probably remove about half of the pepper plant maybe a little bit more as much as 2/3 then you’re going to bring it inside either by a sunny window or if you’re like me and you have a sun room you can overwinter it in your sun room and as long as it gets a marginal amount of light every single day and it stays well above freezing it will start budding and sprouting for you at some point in late winter and then you are going to get yourself a really early pepper harvest now all of these pepper plants are 3 years old that are in these containers but the first pepper plant I ever overwintered was a cherry pepper and that made it 7 years it is possible that you can grow a pepper plant for seven to 10 years if you take good care of it and you prune it back every single winter and then fertilize it adequately so it regrows in the spring and into the summer they are actually perennials in their native habitat another plant that’s really great to overwinter indoors is basil you can dig up your basil plants you can put them in a pot you can bring it inside in front of a sunny window or if you’re lucky enough to have a sun room like me you can let it grow throughout the winter in your sun room i’ve also done the same thing with sweet potato vines so something like my Okanowan that is notoriously hard to root well what you can do is you can take a rooted slip and you can start it right now in something like a 3 or 5gallon container and let it vine out and grow throughout the summer treat it like a potted vine plant and then in the fall you’ll just prune it back you’ll give it a haircut so it’s only a few inches long and you’ll keep it inside a h inside your home in front of a sunny window or on a cool sun room and it will grow very slowly throughout the winter but it will keep growing that way you’ll have yourself really early sweet potato slips that you can harvest in spring or summer garden hack number nine that really works is taking advantage of microclimates around your yard especially up against your house you are going to find various different microclimates that will give you a protection advantage of some sort for example here in the northern hemisphere the southern side of our house is known as the warm side because it blocks the cold north wind from the Arctic and the sun tracks from east to west throughout the day so the sun constantly warms the southern side of your house for the longest so that side of your house will radiate heat all throughout the night in the southern hemisphere it’s the opposite you want to plant your cold sensitive stuff against the north side of the house because that would be the warm wall so this is how I’m able to grow citrus and avocado trees here in zone 8 i have my oari satsuma i have my Leela avocado and I have a meer lemon and they produce for me like gang busters and one of the secrets for why I’m able to do this is because I chose very dwarfing varieties that I planted along the southern exposure the warm wall of my house that blocks the cold north wind and radiates warmth all throughout the evening and I keep them small throughout the year so I can cover them on those really really rough cold nights but our homes have cooler sides as well for example blueberry plants well they struggle in our zone 8 incredibly hot humid summers they like cooler weather so I decided to plant all of my blueberries up against the east side of my house because the east side of your home gets the early morning sunrise all throughout the morning when the sun is not as intense and then at about 1:00 the sun starts shifting behind the house which casts the blueberry plants into shade so it protects them from the worst of the hot afternoon sun and you’re starting to see this right now because we are past noon the blueberries are starting to get draped into shade so they still get full sun so they fruit profusely but they don’t get that wicked afternoon sun that could do a little bit of harm to them same thing goes with this west facing wall of my house now normally the west facing wall of your house would get the most afternoon sun which is the harshest of the sun but I planted my tomatoes and cucumbers here because they actually get a considerable amount of protection because I have the rain gutters and the overhang from the roof protecting them from the worst of the afternoon sun and I have trees over there that make that kind of block the sun as it begins to set this location only gets about 3 hours of direct sun so while the sun is strong it doesn’t beat up the tomatoes and cucumbers as much as they get beaten up out in the open because they only get it for 3 hours so they can take the harsh sun for just a few hours and because it’s a strong sun it’s more than enough energy for them to fruit and do really well but it doesn’t beat them up and stress them out like the southern sun does this time of year and of course if you have a little backyard canopy section like I do that casts dappled light throughout the day you can experiment with all types of plantings in a shady or dappled light situation for example in the summer it may be way too hot for you to grow things like lettuce and parsley out in the open in your garden they may all bolt on you or turn bitter but here in the dappled light or shade you have a totally different heat situation so those crops may actually grow in these conditions and I’ve also taken advantage of this canopy section right here in my backyard for frost protection i’m growing all sorts of cold sensitive plants right here so I have a pomegranate on the left i have a cold hearty avocado in the rear and I have numerous different varieties of citrus i have six different varieties five or six different varieties of citrus growing here and I have a dwarf peach tree and they are all growing underneath this forest canopy for a little bit of cold protection and the plants love it because all of these species are actually native understory trees and that brings me to garden hack number 10 that really works and that are my cold mitigation methods i’m growing two avocado trees and nine citrus trees here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina where previously people thought you couldn’t grow those trees i’m one of the first gardeners that have actually in earnest really started growing these things and I have been successful growing these things because of three cold protection methods keep in mind these cold protection techniques work in tandem with the microclimates i have saved the warmest microclimates in my yard for planting my cold sensitive trees and the first thing I do is I place a 60gallon pickle barrel full of water next to all of the trees and what happens is these black barrels they attract sunlight and then they warm up during the day and the water acts as a heat battery it has a very high specific heat so it warms up during the day and then when the sun sets the water barrels radiate the heat back out towards the trees at night and I have tested this to consistently give each tree a 5 to 10 degree temperature advantage every single night and what’s great about this technique is it doesn’t depend on any electricity it works anywhere in your yard as long as the barrels get good visibility to sun so they warm back up during the day it’s hard to see but these cold sensitive trees up against my house have a pickle barrel for protection as well but because these trees are very close to my home and they can get electricity out of the outlets I also install strands of C9 incandescent oldstyle Christmas lights that are rated for outdoor use on them because they radiate a tremendous amount of heat they must be incandescent they can’t be LEDs leds do not radiate heat so between the water barrels and the incandescent lights if you then cover them in a breathable plant jacket or an agricultural fabric made to hold in heat and let in sunlight and rainfall and is breathable I easily get 15 to 20° of cold protection on these plants up against my house and the ones in the rear that get no cold uh that get no electricity they get a solid five to 10 degrees of cold protection using the same method but without electricity if you want to know more about how these cold protection methods work because you’re interested in pushing your zone and growing things that are a little bit more cold sensitive I’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that shows you how and also has the different products that you need linked in the description i’ve made a tremendous amount of videos on how to do this in great detail over the years and it’s been 100% successful i’ve been doing this for eight winters now and that right there are my top 10 garden hacks that actually work all of these methods are tried and true i use them all in real life and I’ve been doing so for many years and they have both increased production dramatically in my garden made my life easier and have saved me money and I hope that you employ a lot of these techniques into your garden as well because they really work that being said if you have any questions about any of these techniques in general please ask them down in the comments below i will do my best to address them i also placed links to more detailed videos that go into the specifics about some of them for techniques that need more explanation i’ve also placed direct product links to everything I talked about in this video in the description for your convenience in case you’re interested in any of the items that I featured so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring the notification bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these if you’re curious about any of the products that I featured in this video I place direct links to all of them in the video description for everything else I use in real life in my garden they are linked in my Amazon storefront so expand the video description click on the Amazon storefront link and you’ll see everything I use in real life and while you’re down there please consider checking out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support my channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video hey Dale do you see what I see do you Well I guess not he’s just interested in peeing on stuff but while Dale is doing his typical peeing perusals look at this we have ourselves some wild raspberries right there i didn’t know that they were growing in there buddy isn’t that cool that’s about the only thing that is cool today it’s been so hot every single day we’re in the shade over by the pond so we have a little bit of protection we’ve been having to wait until after 6:00 p.m for our evening walks because it’s just too hot to go when the sun is all the way up that’s the problem with where we live this time of year it’s nice and sunny though so at least we finally don’t have any rain we’ll just enjoy the rest of our walk for the rest of the evening