Hoes and the Housewives - Courtesy Teresa Miller
Get down and dirty in the garden with these tricks and be able to tell anyone, no matter how contrary, exactly how your garden grows. Ya dig?

- The next time you boil or steam vegetables, don't pour the water down the drain, use it to water potted patio plants, and you'll be amazed at how the plants respond to the "vegetable soup."

- Reuse coffee filters by placing in the bottom of flowerpots to keep dirt from seeping through when there is leftover water flow.

- To keep your gardening tools from rusting, keep them in a bucket that has a mixture of sand and oil. You can use either cooking or motor oil in the mixture.

- Sprinkle salt between bricks and stones to keep grass and weeds from growing in unwanted locations.
- Starting plants from seed? Margarine tubs, yogurt containers and egg cartons are fantastic for seed starting. Old gardening boots, wheelbarrows, and toolboxes make whimsical substitutes for expensive outdoor gardening containers.

- Create your own insect killer: A mixture of one-third ammonia and two-thirds water is deadly to slugs. Control aphids with a few drops of dish soap in a squirt bottle full of water.

- Recycle Old Panty Hose: Cut off the legs and use them to tie up plants like tomatoes in your vegetable garden. These are ideal because they stretch so the plants aren't held rigidly to the trellis.

- To prevent accumulating dirt under your fingernails while you work in the garden, draw your fingernails across a bar of soap and you'll effectively seal the undersides of your nails so dirt can't collect beneath them. Then, after you've finished in the garden, use a nailbrush to remove the soap and your nails will be sparkling clean.

- Use leftover tea and coffee grounds to acidify the soil of acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, gardenias and even blueberries. A light sprinkling-- say, a layer of about one-quarter of an inch--applied once a month will keep the pH of the soil on the acidic side.