31 Creative Gardening Hacks And Crafts That Will Make Your Plants Extra Happy

Whether you have a garden or not, you’ll really enjoy a lot of these ideas. These gardening hacks show you how to add more greenery to your life in ways that aren’t always conventional or common. These little projects are fun, interesting and quite simple as well and they introduce some really cool ideas. Let’s check them out together.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Did you know you can turn eggshells into tiny little pots? It’s a great idea is you plan on sprouting seedlings and starting your own garden from scratch. So next time you’re cooking with eggs, try to keep the shells as intact as possible and save the carton too. You can use a thumbtack and a small knife to gently poke a hole into the top of each egg and you can find out more about this method on squawkfox.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you’re going to be away for a day or two and you’re worried about your plants, a wine bottle can help. The trick is to take an empty wine bottle, fill it with water, quickly flip it upside down and push into the soil next to your plant. The water will slowly go into the soil depending on how dry it is or how much your plant loves water. You can do this for potted plants or lawn plants and seedlings. Check out thegreenists for more details.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Seed tapes, as you may or may not know, are designed to help you space out your plants evenly and they can usually be found in stores under the gardening section. There is however also a way to make the tape yourself using a few everyday items such as toilet paper, flour, water and a small paintbrush. You can find detailed instructions on finegardening explaining the whole process.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you already have a garden or you’re planning to grow a few plants, perhaps you’d like to try making your own organic fertilizer. You can mix banana peels, egg shells, coffee residue and some water in a blender and then you can pour the mixture into your watering can, add more water and spread it in the garden. This recipe is shared on pakovska.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

You can also make seedling pots out of citrus peels. That’s a great idea because when the seedlings are ready to transplant you can just take the whole thing and put it into your garden and the citrus peel will naturally compost and become fertilizer for the plant. to make the pot all you need to do is poke a hole at the bottom of the peel for drainage and then add soil and seeds. For more details, head over to myromanapartment.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

This is a drip feeder for plants made from a plastic bottle. It’s a great and super simple project and the plants love it. the best thing about it is that the water bottle doesn’t stick out or look ugly and you can easily refill it. The idea is to poke a bunch of holes into the bottle on all sides, insert it into the ground close to where the roots of the plant will be and leave the top exposed so you can easily fill the bottle with water every time it’s needed. Additional details about this project can be found on thegardeningcook.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

There are various different ways to make an automatic watering system for potted plants but if you want something super easy and quick to set up we suggest using paper towels. It’s a nice last-minute idea that you can rely on in case you’re leaving on vacation and there’s nobody left at home to water the plants. Take a paper towel and roll it as tightly as you can, then dip one end in a glass or a bowl of water and lay the rest across the soil a few inches away from the plants. Check out lifehacker for more info.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Another cool idea is to make a gardening tool holder out of a terra-cotta pot. The nice thing about it is that it keeps all your small garden tools nice and safe and it also maintains them in good shape and helps to clean them. The idea is to fill the pot with oily sand and then to stick the tools inside. You can spray paint and decorate the pot first so it also looks nice. The project is described in more detail on onegoodthingbyjillee.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you’re struggling to get rid of all the weeds in your garden, perhaps newspapers can help. We’re not suggesting to read them but instead to lay them on top of the weeds to create a paper blanket all around your plants. Then spray the paper with water and top it with mulch. It will create a barrier for the weeds and over time it will decompose and become fertilizer for your plants. This idea comes from agardenforthehouse.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

These cute things are painted bricks and they’re meant to serve as markers for the rows in the garden. They’re hand-painted and they look adorable plus they’re a lot better than any temporary markers you get in stores. It’s a really cool way of personalizing your vegetable garden and a fun project in general. We found this idea on reddit.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Turn an old pair of jeans into a pouch so you can have a place to keep your small gardening tools while you’re doing some work outside. The back pockets are probably best for that so cut off that section and you’ll have two handy pockets for your tools, gloves and other things. This is another great gardening hack found on reddit.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you have the time for it and if you like gourds, you could make one of these cool tunnels in your garden. It adds a whimsical touch to the garden and it looks really beautiful. Of course, it takes some time for all the greenery to grow and you need to provide proper support for it but then it ends up looking amazing. Check out this post on reddit to see the original source of inspiration.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Another interesting gardening hack that we found on reddit involves using rainwater. The water is redirected from the roof through the gutter and then into a tray at the center of a big planter. As one of the comments suggests, it might be better to have the water drain into a barrel first.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

In preparation for summer, you can go ahead and plant a bunch of seedlings in little trays or cups and start a mini greenhouse indoors just until you can have everything transplanted into the ground outside. You can find out all the details and instructions on how to set up the greenhouse area on prairiecottagerose.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Vertical gardens are a thing and they’re great if you’re short on space or if you want to add some greenery to one of your walls. A particularly cool idea is to plant vegetables or herbs this way. You could have a green garden wall in your kitchen or outside on the patio. It’s easy to set up and you can find all the details on instructables.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Here’s a really cool and practical way to make sure your tomatoes get plenty of water and grow big and healthy. The idea is to have a pot with holes drilled into the bottom placed at the center of your tomato cage between the plants and to add a bit of compost in it then fill it with water every two days or so. More details can be found on hometalk.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Making your own planters can be a lot of fun and there are a lot of interesting ways to do it. One option is to use concrete mix and to craft the planters from scratch and give them any shape and size you want. For the molds you can use various plastic containers, cups or boxes. Check out radmegan to find out more details about this lovely DIY project.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Wouldn’t it be cool to grow your own fresh strawberries out in the garden or even on the porch or in the balcony? You don’t need a lot of space for that. In fact, you can save a lot of space by stacking a bunch of planters vertically and creating a strawberry tower like the one featured on apieceofrainbow. Check out the tutorial to see how to prep all the pieces and to put this whole thing together.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

This right here is a cucumber trellis and for this you actually do need quite a bit of space. The nice thing about it is that it can serve as a shade canopy and you can make it look really nice. We like the look of the trellis featured on pvcplans. It has this house-shaped design with a gable roof and it’s made of PVC pipes.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Another really cute thing you can make is a tower of planters with a bird bath at the top. It’s quite simple really. You need several terra-cotta pots, one of which needs to be larger than the others. Prime and paint them, then measure the height of all combined and add 24” to that number. Cut a piece of rebar to that size, insert it into the ground through the large pot, then add soil and thread all the smaller pots onto the rebar one by one, tilting them slightly. At the top, add a bowl to make a bird bath. More details can be found on homestoriesatoz.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Giant mushrooms look magical and whimsical and we love how they look in gardens among all the plants and flowers or at the bases of trees. If you want to make your own beautiful giant mushrooms all you need is some logs, bowls and spray paint. The logs will become the stems of the mushrooms and the bowls will go on top. Paint them red with white dots or however else you want. Check out bobbiesgirl-carole if you want more details about this little garden project.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Tension rods are super useful for hanging planter in front of windows. That’s a really nice idea if you want to grow some fresh herbs in the kitchen but you don’t want the pots to take up space on the counter. This way you can hang them at any height you want and they’ll get plenty of sunlight without being in the way. We found this idea on brooklynlimestone.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Here’s another lovely herb garden that would fit nicely in the kitchen. This one has a two-tier stand and is meant to sit on the counter or on a table which is not ideal but it does hold 6 pots which is wonderful. If you want to add a bit more character to your herb planters or if you want to make it easy to identify each one you can have the pots painted in various different colors. For more details about this herb garden head over to abeautifulmess.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Succulents are surprisingly resilient and you can do a lot of interesting things with them, including a vertical garden. The one featured on 17apart looks amazing and would make a wonderful wall decoration for a chic living room or a stylish home office. Check out the tutorial to find out how you can make something like this from scratch.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you find yourself in need of some extra space outside for plants, flowers and other such things, there’s usually a way to make it happen. For example, this plant bed featured on instructables was squeezed between the concrete slabs of the walkway and the wall of the house. A few concrete slabs has to be moves a few inches to make enough space for the planter but you might be able to skip this step. Anyway, there’s enough room now to plant some beans and peas.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Instead of planting different herbs in separate planters, you might find it more practical to have them all share a large pot. You could have basil, ill, cilantro, chives and all sorts of other things sharing the same pot and you can add little markers for each type of herb. You little herb garden will look adorable and you can keep it on the balcony, outside or even in the kitchen if there’s enough space. Check out blackeiffel for more details.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Did you know mint and basil are natural repellants for mosquitos and bugs. The same goes for a variety of other plants such as lemongrass, rosemary, lavender and petunias. They’re fragrant and pleasant to be around and they help to keep your patio and garden bug-free which is excellent news if you plant to spend more time outside right about now. Check out realsimple to find out all about these plants and more.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Turn wine corks into garden markers. All you need to do is insert a wooden skewer into each cork and use a Sharpie or a pen to write down the name of each plant on it. You can do this for your herbs or veggies and they look nice in planters as well as outside in the open. In case you need extra detail about this little project, check out athriftymom.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Raised planter boxes are very practical and they make gardening a lot more comfortable. This however is not just any raised planter. It has all these holes on the sides and it’s designed for cascading plants and it looks beautiful with all the flowers inside. Additionally, you can make this planter out of pallet wood which makes this project super cheap. Check out the instructions on hertoolbelt.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

Cute garden markers are a really nice way to spruce up your green areas and a nice way to add some color to your garden or your indoor planters. You can make a bunch of markers out of repurposed paint stirrers. You can paint them each a different color and use a paint pen to personalize them. You can head over to livingwellspendingless to find out a bit more about this simple project.

Super Simple DIY Self Watering Herb Garden

If you’re making a starter garden or you want to plant a bunch of seedlings, a quick and easy way to do that is with plastic bottles and some cotton string, twine or anything similar. Each bottle will become a pot and it needs to be cut approximately in half. The pots will end up looking like the ones shown on ithinkwecouldbefriends. They’ll draw water from below through the string.