Deirdre O Meara 
A clever hack to save money on grocery shopping has been revealed by a gardening expert. Leah McBride, known as @leah.mcbride on TikTok, recently shared a video with her followers showing how to grow red pepper plants from the seeds of the peppers themselves. In the clip, she removes the seeds from a red pepper and puts them into a soil-filled plant pot. She then covers the seeds with more soil before pouring water on top. After just two weeks, the seeds have begun to sprout. The average price of a red pepper is just 85 cent or 60 pence, making this a cost-effective way to grow your own produce.
Leah’s video has garnered a lot of attention on social media, with many of her followers commenting on the impressive results of the hack. Some were surprised that the seeds could be planted straight away, without needing to be dried out or sprouted in a wet paper towel first. Others shared their own experiences of successfully growing red pepper plants using this method. Leah advised that if you want to store the seeds, they would need to be dried first.
Another gardening expert, Nikki (@nikkiplantsthings), has also recently shared a quick and easy hack to transform your outdoor space. In the video, she demonstrates how to speed up the process of potting plants by using the pots they originally came in. Nikki fills the bottom of a large planter with soil, then places the pots from her purchased plants on top of the soil. She adds more soil to cover the pots and waters the soil before carefully removing the pots. This creates indents in the soil which are the perfect size for the plants to slot into. The video has gone viral, with 2.4 million views and hundreds of comments from impressed viewers.
These gardening hacks are not only cost-effective but also sustainable, as they reduce waste and encourage people to grow their own produce. With more and more people becoming interested in gardening and sustainability, it’s likely that we’ll see more of these clever hacks in the future.
