Instead of throwing out the cardboard center roll from your paper towel or toilet paper roll, put it to good use in the garden. Cut it into segments, and press it into the soil around your newly planted seedlings to give them a little extra protection from slugs and other ground dwelling pests that won't appreciate a tall barrier between them and your plants.

Granted, the most enterprising pests will just climb up and over the paper roll, but the added protection may be all it takes to help your seedlings grow a bit and get hardy enough to not mind a little slug-munching. Plus, if you're looking for a plant starter, you can pack some soil and seedlings into multiple rolls and keep them inside until the weather is right to plant them in your garden. That way you can give your plants a pest-free headstart to the growing season.

Apartment Therapy has a number of other great gardening re-uses for common kitchen waste items at the link below, like using crushed eggshells in your compost or hollowed citrus shells to lure slugs and snails away from your plants, so check it out for more tips. Do you have any favorite gardening tricks to share? Let's hear them in the comments below.

7 Kitchen Waste Items to Use In the Garden | Apartment Therapy

Before you toss out that orange juice container or that huge plastic tub your yogurt or margarine came home from the grocery store in, why not use them to mass produce some concrete planters to decorate your yard, garden, or home with? It takes much less effort than you might think, and you end up with solid, sturdy planters you can use and reuse for years.

Concrete planters are surprisingly easy to make once you have a mold for them, and blogger radmegan figured that if she had to recycle all of these plastic bottles and containers, she may as well put them to good use first as molds for her planters. All you really need are some spare containers that you want to make molds of, like a water bottle, orange juice bottle, or any other large piece of plastic, a bag of concrete that you can pick up at any home improvement store, some sand (also available at the home improvement store), and some perlite to make the concrete a little lighter once it's set. That's all—just cut the plastic containers to the shape and size you want, and fill em up.

Megan used some large water jugs, and then put smaller containers inside to hollow out the mold, and then poured in the concrete. After letting them completely cure, and a little work with a screwdriver to add drainage holes, she was all finished. It was a bit of trial and error on her part (you can read the entire saga at the link below), but the end results look pretty good, even if they're not perfectly smooth and rounded like the type you'd spend way more money on at a nursery or gardening store. Plus, they cost a fraction of the price and were made with castoff items she was planning to throw out anyway.

The pots here are some of her first attempts, and you can see how she's refined the process with time. If you do the same, you could easily use a spare piece of plastic to smooth over the top, or spend more time chiseling down the sides or bottom if you like. Either way, it's a cheap and easy way to make something that's normally expensive.

Moled Concreate Planters | In Words and Pictures via Apartment Therapy

If you're trying to plant a cutting, you can give your plants a headstart with a little rooting hormone, or a medicinal dip you add to the root to prevent disease and infection while your cutting is taking root. If you don't have any rooting hormone handy, a quick dip in a little cinnamon will do the trick just as nicely, according to the folks at All Things Plants.

Whether or not the antibacterial properties pertain specifically to real cinnamon or cassia (what's usually in the bottle when you buy cinnamon at most grocery stores) is up in the air, but the community at All Things Plants seems to vouch for the tip. Just a quick dip in the powder will serve to protect your cutting while it begins to take root. Horseshoe, the tipster who posted the suggestion, is careful to note that it doesn't actually stimulate the rooting process, it just protects the cutting from fungal infection while it's growing.

So when you're prepping your garden or planting a cutting here or there, keep a little cinnamon on hand to dip the cutting in before planting—your plants will thank you. Is this old hat to you pro gardeners? Any additional tips to share for those of us getting back into the garden? Let us know in the comments.

Great tip! | All Things Plants

If you're getting started with your backyard or container garden and want to be ready for when the inevitable unwanted guests move in, you don't have to run out and grab a couple of bottles of commercial pesticide from your local hardware store—there are safer, more natural options that won't leave your fledgling produce covered in chemicals. Best of all, you probably have the ingredients for them in your pantry already.

We don't mean to bemoan the use of all garden pesticides—not all of them are bad, and you should use whatever makes you comfortable and keeps the pests away on your personal garden. However, the folks at Apartment Therapy have some great bug-repelling concoctions that you can load into a few spray bottles to keep your plants happy and the pests away. Just raid your spice drawer for some garlic, chili powder, baking soda, and cooking oil. Head to the bathroom and pick up some lemon or essential oil, and come back to the kitchen for a little dish soap, your spray bottles, and some water. That's all you'll need to make three different repellants.

The dish soap repellant will make your plants inhospitable to common pests like aphids, white flies, and the like, while the garlic chili spray is supposed to keep away beetles, slugs, and even larger animals. The baking soda spray on the other hand is great for treating plants suffering from fungal diseases. Of course, depending on what you're planting and your local climate, your mileage may vary with these tricks, but we've heard good things about the dish soap spray and the baking soda formula. Have you tried any of these yourself? Any other natural pest control methods you employ in your garden? Share them in the comments below.

How to Make Natural Garden Pesticides | Apartment Therapy