Cinnamon is a bark that mostly used in the kitchen to enhance the taste and aroma of dishes. Cinnamon has so many medical properties and it is being used in the beauty industry, health industry, and simple household purposes. With all these medical benefits, cinnamon is also great in the garden.
Cinnamon in the garden can protect, kill, and heal. It can protect your seedlings, heal the wounds of your plants, and kill fungal infections in no time. Any type of cinnamon family can do the tricks when it comes to working in a garden. Here are 10 ways to use cinnamon in your garden.
Cinnamon saves seedlings.
The term dampening off covers a range of diseases that attack a seed/seedling either before or after germination and cause the seedling to die. They can be caused by several different fungus and soil conditions.
A few years back I read that if you dust the soil of seedlings with cinnamon, it will prevent dampening off. I’ve been doing it since with great results! This makes a lot of sense too, since cinnamon has antifungal properties.
This also gets rid of those little fungus gnats that somehow appear around seedling trays. Cinnamon kills the fungus they feed off of.
Prevent wild mushrooms.
Nothing worse then having to waste a beautiful day pulling mushrooms from the mulch in my flower beds. Mushrooms are fungus and luckily cinnamon has antifungal properties.
By dusting cinnamon all over the garden mulch, it helps to control mushroom growth. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt your plants.
Cinnamon as rooting hormone.
Cinnamon is much cheaper than the chemical rooting hormone they sell in the big box store and just as effective! Just allow the cutting to dry slightly then apply cinnamon powder to the stem before you plant the cutting.
Cinnamon as ant deterrent.
Ants do not like cinnamon! Sprinkle cinnamon in your greenhouse or around your garden beds to deter garden pests. It will not kill the ants, but they will stay away from it.
Sprinkle a line of it in front of your doors if ants are coming into your house. They really hate to cross a line of cinnamon!
Cinnamon heals plant wounds.
Overzealous pruning or a slip of the weed whacker and you’ll have a plant with a wound that needs fixed up. Simply dust cinnamon on the wound to encourage healing and prevent fungal infection at the same time.
Deters furry pests.
Dust cinnamon along the outside of the garden to deter rabbits, squirrels and even moles. Small critters are close enough to the ground that as they walk through the cinnamon they will get it on their face and breathe it in.
Cinnamon will irritate the mucous membranes of their nose and mouth without causing permanent harm, but will deter them from visiting again.