Story Title: Growing your own plants at home
Episode: Ten
Date: May 8th 2010
Presenter: Brooke Stanway

Brooke gives us a few tips on how to save money by growing your own plants from home.

Brooke's tips:

• Growing your own vegetables, annuals or perennials from seeds or cuttings is really easy and is a fantastic way to save money.
• To grow your own plants from seed, all you need is a tray of seed raising mix and your seeds.
• Place the soil into the tray and level off the media to prevent the seeds from moving around once watered. Spread the seeds evenly over the tray and cover with a light coating of seed raising mix. A general rule of thumb is to cover the same thickness of the seed.
• Don't forget to keep the seeds moist by watering them daily.
• Other plants in the garden such as perennials are just as easy to grow with a little care.
• Using some sharp secateurs cut the stem of the desired plant, about 5 cm down from a nice fresh healthy tip. Remove the bottom leaves and dip the lower 1 cm of the cutting into a hormone powder.
• Place the cuttings into a tray of propagation mix with adequate room around them to ensure they receive enough light, airflow and growing room. Spray the cuttings once to twice daily and make sure you keep them protected from frost, strong sun and wind.
• Until the cuttings have established roots, they need to take in water through their leaves so do not let them dry out. A great way to achieve this is by purchasing a propagation pack with a lid. The starting price is from around $20.00.
• Once all of your new seedlings have taken root, prick them out carefully and pot into a bigger pot or homemade container, like half an empty milk carton with a few drainage holes poked in the bottom.
• When the roots have filled this environmentally friendly container your new garden additions are ready to be transplanted into your garden and have only cost you a little time and tender loving care.
  

A special thankyou to:

• The Garden Vineyard in Moorooduc for their stunning garden location. For more information on this beautiful location, see the website: www.gardenvineyard.com.au
• Tavistock wholesale nursery for supplying most of the plants.