Ruth Stout figured it out and has been teaching her gardening method since 1955. She grew ALL of her own vegetables well into her 90’s without digging, weeding, watering, or any hard work at all.

the Secret… Hay!
Spoiled hay in fact. And lots of it.

Ya see Ruth’s answer was very very simple. She mulched. But her method met a bit of resistance. She’s talked exhaustively on this subject – teaching workshops, writing numerous books and articles, showing a plethora of visitors through her garden over the years. It seems that some people were not inclined to listen.

Imagine agriculture in the 1950s. Before no-till, before ‘organic’, before conservation and restoration. You wouldn’t consider growing without nitrogen fertilizer. Airplanes swept the fields with poison insect killers (crop dusting is still in practice to this day). The plow was the farmer’s best friend. This was when things were done a certain way, and that was that.

But Ruth had always been on the radical side. She questioned things, thought for herself, and did what she wanted. Some stubborn farmers with beliefs of steel wouldn’t even come close to stopping her. Her method worked and the world needed to know about it. Ruth passed in 1980 at the ripe old age of 96. Considering that we’re still talking about her to this day, she must have done something right.

What is the Ruth Stout Method?

In short, the Ruth Stout Method uses spoiled hay as a mulch. A generous application of hay smothers weeds, retains moisture, fertilizes the soil, and grows healthy plants, leaving no work in the garden aside from sowing seeds and harvesting vegetables.

Does it work?

So many people have succeeded with this method throughout the years. I’ve also seen some YouTubers that have failed, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

In my personal experience, this method works very well. In our heavy clay soil and heavy weed pressure, only two methods grow great plants. Raised beds OR a heavy load of compost.

It cuts down on weeding and watering and grows beautiful, healthy plants that need no fertilizer or insect sprays. The only drawback is that you need quite a lot of material to get started.

Did Ruth Stout use Hay or Straw?

Ruth Stout used Hay. She was particular to ‘spoiled’ hay that had been exposed to the elements and began to rot. There’s a very specific reason that hay was Ruth’s mulch of choice. It makes for excellent fertilizer. Moreso, not only does it smother weeds, it retains water while also feeding plants effectively. Experiments show that spoiled hay grows more sizeable plants than fresh hay.

There’s an important distinction between hay and straw that might be making the difference between success and failure. Knowing the basics of the material itself.

Hay is grown for animal feed. It’s cut while young, still green, and before it has gone to seed. Hay is ‘green’ material. If you’ve composted you know that green materials are a source of nitrogen. Nitrogen helps grow strong, healthy plants.

Straw is grown for seed grain. It’s harvested when the plant is no longer green. After the grain has been harvested, straw is what’s leftover. Straw is ‘brown’ material. Brown materials are a good source of carbon. Carbon is needed for a healthy soil structure.

ANY organic material helps plants grow strong and healthy but the extra boost of nitrogen obtained from Hay might prove to be more beneficial.

What other mulch or compost can I use?

Can’t get your hands on hay? There are so many materials you can use. The gardener’s motto is ‘use whatever you can get’. Mulching with ANY organic material works, it doesn’t even have to be broken down.

I’ve used every single material I can get my hands on. Woodchips, grass clippings, leaves, and leaf mulch, used coffee grounds, kitchen scraps, newspaper, straw, pine needles… and every ounce of plant debris went into my homemade compost. (BUT remember, you don’t need to make compost if you mulch heavily.)

I’ve had the local landscaper deliver massive truckloads of debris they pulled out of other people’s yards. I’ve had the tree service deliver dump trucks full of woodchips. I’ve had my neighbors dump their grass clippings in my compost pile.

Grass clippings added to the soil grew excellent plants. My belief is that the high nitrogen content in grass clippings (just like hay) helped the plants grow faster, bigger, and stronger.

[safety tip]
When collecting large amounts of green materials such as grass clippings and hay, don’t let it sit in a pile for months. A large mounded pile becomes anaerobic (without oxygen) and emits ammonia, which smells strikingly close to cat pee.

Also, as the material dries out, yellow jackets find it an optimal habitat to build a home. These determined buggers are very eager to defend their home when someone tries to use it in their garden. They will chase you 100 feet and sting you even when you’re far away.

Here are some options to keep things smell and sting-free. (You only need to pick one)
Spread the pile flat.
Turn it often.
Mix in woodchips, leaves or other brown material.
Keep it watered.

In order to get mulch on the ground fast, I’ve utilized the ‘chop and drop’ method. While you’re trimming, pruning, or cleaning up your plants, place the cut vegetation right on the ground, next to the plant as a green mulch.

I’ve used grass clippings collected after mowing the lawn to mulch around my tomatoes. This worked fantastically. Maybe 5 weeds grew the whole summer and the tomatoes flourished. The same exact bed untreated, one year later, is jam-packed with weeds.

[personal story]
2 years ago, I dismantled my raised beds to make them larger. When I put them back together, they were empty. With all I learned about building, restoring, and preparing the soil, it was the perfect opportunity to do something a little crazy… and I was pretty sure it would work. I stuffed the empty raised beds full of yard debris from spring cleanup. All the dead growth from last year was collected and squished down into the bed. Sticks, dead ornamental grass, tall perennial flowers from last year. All of it went in. Then, I covered it with a layer of compost – whatever I had left in the pile I’d made from years past. It only stacked up to 3″ of compost… but it worked! I planted flowers and some vining veggies in those beds and they all grew fabulously. (see below)

How Much Mulch?

When asked how much mulch, Ruth Stout always responded “more”. Add 6 to 8 inches of mulch at the very minimum for the first application. Then, it must be replenished every single year. Preferably all summer, every summer. Whenever you see areas that are thinning or if weeds start to emerge their ugly heads, throw a pile of hay on top of them.

The hardest part about mulch and compost is collecting enough of the stuff. But it’s really worth it. The biology in the soil is hungry. It eats all of the organic material you can feed it faster than you can imagine.

SO, the Ruth Stout method is not 100% no work gardening. Spreading mulch is very hard work. But once you spread it, the only work left is to replenish. But remember to replenish often, multiple times, every year.

Where do you get this much Mulch?

Collecting mulch is a matter of resourcefulness. Visit your landscaping material yards. They might have a cheaper source of mulch or compost. Call your local tree specialists. They might deliver woodchips for free. Chip Drop connects you with local tree people who will deliver woodchips.

In my area, one of our tree services sells leaf mulch for $9 a yard. This gives me a little thrill inside whenever I think about how much leaf mulch I can buy whenever I want.

I don’t feel comfortable unless I have a massive pile of mulch as a resource. Considering the sheer amount of mulch your gardens are hungry for, you will quickly learn that a little is not enough. The more the better and you’ll be happy with no less than piles of the stuff.

If you live in the city, try looking for a compost program. California has a massive compost program.

If you live in the suburbs, try asking neighbors to donate their grass clippings. They might even save money on disposing of yard debris.

If you’re lucky enough to live near farmland, hay should be an easy material to resource.

Why is the Ruth Stout method superior?

Not only does Ruth’s method save time, energy, and your back! it’s very good for the soil and the environment. If you’ve heard of no-till farming, or even tried it once, I promise, you’ll never dig in your soil again. Conventional plowing destroys soil biology, causes degraded fertility, causes runoff, erosion, and the inability to hold rainwater.

Healthy soil is teeming with life, earthworms abound, it holds moisture, and grows healthy plants that are resistant to disease and pests. See Soil Conservation.

I am 100% convinced that if every gardener and farmer refrained from disturbing the soil, we’d no longer be threatened by climate change. Plants sequester carbon from the air. That means it’s no longer in the atmosphere, the carbon goes in the ground, where it belongs.

Have you seen a farm plot of brown soil with not a plant as far as the eye can see? Though it seems natural, mainly because were accustomed to seeing it, the land is supposed to be green. This practice of leaving land fallow is an example of how humans mess things up.

The more acreage there is with a live plant growing, the more carbon the plants suck out of the atmosphere and put back into the ground. I’m not the only one that believes this can reverse the damages of climate change.

Kristin Ohlson wrote an entire book about it, called The Soil Will Save Us. I love listening to Audible while gardening. Woody Harrelson hosted a documentary all about it on Netflix, called Kiss the Ground. And, most importantly, the US Department of Agriculture is promoting no-till farming as the new better way to farm.

How do I start a Ruth Stout Garden?

Shouldn’t I till the land start things off? Actually, you don’t have to. Not even kill the grass? No, really, it’s absolutely not necessary. It’s as easy as spreading the mulch. Hay will suffocate grass and weeds. That’s why she uses it. Plan out an area and dump 6-8 inches of mulch on it. Wait for it to break down a little… That’s it. Ruth promised it would be easy, and it really is.

Over the years, I’ve mulched and composted with just about every material you can think of.

When do I start a Ruth Stout Garden?

Start your Ruth Stout garden as early as possible. As soon as you can get your hands on materials – hay, or your chosen mulch – put it down on the ground. The longer your materials have to break down into the soil, the more your soil will be prepared with organic material and nutrients.

What can you grow with the Ruth Stout Method?

Everything you grow in a normal garden can be grown with the Ruth Stout method. Follow the directions on the seed packets. Timing and spacing are exactly the same.

How do I plant seeds in Hay or Mulch?

You don’t really plant your seeds directly IN the hay. Sowing seeds is just as easy as you’ve always done it. When it’s time to plant, rake the hay back from your seed rows and plant the seeds according to the package. Seeds need to make contact with the soil in order to germinate. So don’t plant them in the hay, plant them in the ground. When the seeds sprout, spread the mulch back around the plants.

If you grow your seeds in flats or buy your plants from the store, transplant your seedlings in the dirt and mulch around them with a lot of hay.

Ruth Stout Potatoes.

Potatoes are probably the most notable vegetable in the Ruth Stout method. Throw a seed potato on the grass. Cover it with hay. Come back a few months later and harvest. That’s IT! No hilling, no digging, no watering, and when you harvest, all you have to do is move the hay. You don’t even have to dig up the new potato crop. That’s amazing to me.

I love this video where Derrick and Paula practice the Ruth Stout method to grow potatoes and grew 10 times what they put in.

It’s a wonderful world of gardening when you follow Ruth. The list of things you DON’T have to do is much much longer than the things you do have to do. Imagine no more digging, tilling, plowing, hoeing, weeding, watering, fertilizing, applying insecticides, or even making compost! Spread your mulch. Sow your seeds. Wait. Harvest your vegetables. Oh, and add mulch where it’s getting thin.

Ruth Stout was a true pioneer and teacher. She wrote 9 books about her method. Her book “Gardening Without Work” outlines her experience with each of the vegetables she grows and is full of great stories through her many years of gardening, of teaching, and converting the die-hards that her way is the better way, or at least the easier way. If you want to have an easier time in your garden, give the Ruth Stout method a try.

The post Ruth Stout Method of No Work Gardening appeared first on Roots Nursery.

Picture yourself in the most serene setting, rich with nature… deep green foliage, wildly blooming flowers, and the sound of birds stopping by for a visit. One that consistently takes your breath away with each passing season. Now imagine that it’s your yard. It only takes a little primer to create a BEAUTIFUL garden… and with this little guide, we’re gonna show you how.

The Planning Phase

Know Your Yard
To create a beautiful garden, you need to know what you’re working with. If you’re a gardener, you know your yard, but before you grab that shovel, spend some time in your yard, just looking. Owen Dell, author of Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies mentions that Zen designers in Japan spend an entire year ‘looking’, before they even think about touching anything. Good choices in the landscape are best made by careful observation.

Take a step back and really know all the areas of your yard by answering some questions.

• How much sun does it get?
• Where is the sun at different times of the day? year?
• Does the ground get enough water and where? Are there wet spots? Dry spots?
• What are your problem areas – and can any of them be corrected by adding or removing elements in the landscape?
• Are there any complications does your yard have you up against?

I’ll give you an example. I know that our heavy clay soil will cause problems any time I dig down. It’s going to flood, even if I only dig 6″. If I’m going to alter the natural soil level, I must carefully consider drainage. I’m equally as careful when I build UP, to watch where the rain will flow.

Know What You Want

• Getting what you want from your yard is a big deal when designing a plan. Knowing who will use the yard, for what purpose, and how much time you’ll spend there – all good questions to ask.
• Are you looking for privacy – and would a natural hedge fit in your design?
• Do you have leisure areas that are too hot to be comfortable – and are there natural ways to create shade… is there room to grow a tree?
• Do you want an area to entertain guests – and is there room to add a patio, tables
• barbeque pit? Will you need electricity and how far from the house are you willing to go?
• Do you have children or grandchildren – will you need a play area or a path for foot traffic that can take a beating?
• Do you want to grow vegetables – will you plant them right in with your flowers or create a separate area, and will it be wide open to wild animals or pets?
• How much work will it take to maintain? Are you willing to spend that much time in your yard weeding, watering, mulching, and mowing?

Landscape Design Basics

After all that watching and learning,I bet you’re ready to get started. You’ve dedicated the time, let’s formulate a plan and bring it to life.

Though you’re not limited in your design, two of the simplest design principles to start with are Sets of Three and Tall to Short.

Sets of Three Odd-numbered or asymmetrical plantings provide an organic feel, more like what you’d find in nature. Sets of three (five, seven) in staggered groups will mix things up and look more natural.

Tall to Short In order to see all of your plants, plant them tall to short, your tallest plants in the middle or back of a bed, working outwards or forwards with shorter plants, the shortest around your borders.

You may not want to be TOO rigid with this idea, it should still look natural. Sometimes, even with these two principles, you can create a beautiful garden. Other times it may not be that simple. Some landscapes offer more of a challenge. So let’s dig deeper into design.

Color, Line, Form, Texture, Proportion.

1. Color – when it comes to color, we think of flowers first. Unlike annuals, most perennials will not flower all summer, so it is possible to plan different color schemes at different times of the year. Foliage also varies in color. Green, Blue-green / Gray, Lime Green / Gold, Purple. Many plants change showing their beautiful fall colors adding yellow, orange, and reds. You can plan for seasonal interest and have a totally different colored landscape in the spring as you have in the fall. Along with trees, some shrubs such as Burning Bush, Forsythia, Viburnum, Spirea change color in the fall.

2. Line – A line is created by the edge between two materials, such as where the soil of a flower bed meets the grass. This is where you can get creative with your layout. Many landscapers create curved lines for a garden bed to replicate a treeline you might see in nature. A retaining wall or a rock path can also form a line. Use lines to segment your yard or create shapes in your landscape. Use it to direct the eye or even tell people where to go. A good example is to create a path up to a featured object in the yard, a patio, a favorite shrub, or even a birdbath.

3. Form – Forms are the geometric shape of plants or elements of your hardscape. Plant forms are usually upright, oval, columnar, spreading, arching / fountain-shaped, and weeping. Every object in your landscape will create a form. Hardscaping like patios will create squares and rectangles. You can control the form of your yard by choosing plants according to their shape and deciding their placement. You can repeat forms to create interesting patterns.

4. Texture – Texture is defined by how coarse or fine the surface of the plant or hardscape material is. Foliage, flowers, bark, mulch, sod, rocks, wood, and concrete all have different textures. Use texture to add variety and contrast to your design.

5. Proportion – You’ll need to know how big plants grow so they fit in scale with the surrounding elements. If you have a large house with a large yard, you’ll probably fill it with large plants. If you have a small yard, 12-foot plants might seem out of sorts and hog up the place. Keep this balance in mind when choosing plants.

Right Plant Right Place
Is it a sun lover, or better in shade? Will it tolerate flooding/drought. Will it provide privacy all year long (evergreen)? How big does this plant get? Remember, your plants are going to GROW. It’s common to plant them too close together, I’ve done it so often in the nursery. The result? An overcrowded space with plants competing for resources and survival.

With all the plant choices out there, getting the right plant in the right place might make you sink in your chair, so we’ve created a list of our top choice plants. We’d like to help you find plants that you will love for years… plants that will love you back for putting them in the right spot.

This we hope will help you create a luxurious environment and will excite you year after year. Let’s not forget… WOW your friends, and shame your neighbors 😀

Plant Choices

List of Best Landscape Plants for Your Garden
The list of plants is endless. To make it easy, here’s our list of top 5 plants that we grow at our nursery, for each category. The list is based on their beauty, hardiness, and ease of maintenance. Most plants are rated zones 4 to 9, so they’ll work for most of the United States.

Perennial plants come back year after year. When choosing perennials for your landscape, be aware that they do not flower all summer. Before you invest in any plant, research a two things. Will it live happily in your zone? When does it flower (and for how long)? Many perennials only flower for a few weeks. Landscape designers overcome this by choosing multiple plants so something is always in bloom throughout the summer. For all summer-long blooms, we turn to annuals.

Large Shrubs – Top 5
When you need to fill large spaces, add interest to the farthest parts of the yard or create a focal point, start your landscape design skeleton with larger growing shrubs.

Perennials – Top 5
To fill in around larger shrubs or create a smaller garden, we use flowering perennials.

Border Perennials – Top 5
For the front of the border or wherever you need short plants or groundcover

Shade Gardens – Top 5
There are some very clear winners for the shady areas of the yard.

Annuals – Top 5 (for containers or borders)

Garden Plans

To put it all together, we’ve designed some gardens to get you started. Take the brainwork out of designing a beautiful garden and go for it!

The Butterfly and Bird Garden
Keep the butterflies and birds coming back all summer with this beautiful, easy-to-install garden. It incorporates all the best flowers for attracting butterflies, small birds, and hummingbirds, plus a wide range of flower and foliage colors to delight us humans. Requiring only 12 x 14 feet, it’s easy to prepare, and with only 9 plants, it’s simple to establish. An overall winner for the beginning gardener.
Download the Butterfly and Bird Garden here.

The Winter Interest Garden
Love your yard all year long with this beautiful winter interest garden. Requiring approximately a 16’x14′ space, it features an impressive golden evergreen tree as a focal point, surrounded by lovely flowers all summer. Color combination, plant selection, shape, and placement are all top-notch in this garden, AND after the summer beauty fades, the winter interest kicks in.
Download the Winter Interest Garden here

Garden and Soil Preparation

Weed Removal to Prepare Garden Beds
It’s Time! It’s finally time, but you gotta take care of those weeds. Somehow. It’s probably the most important prep step you can take. First, I must say, you’re ALWAYS going to have some weeds.

If you snuff them out (from the choices below) weed seeds will blow to the top of your soil and start right back up again. You could vow to take exhaustive measures to prepare your beds, then stay diligently on top of weeding from there on out. Does this always happen? not exactly. We’re human. And gardens should be fun. Here are some methods I’ve used to prepare garden beds for planting.

1. Chemical All Vegetation Kill Sprays. Some of you are cringing at the mere suggestion, I know, but zapping it with chemicals IS an effective way to kill all of the weeds quickly. If you’re more hardcore organic, just say – ‘next’…

2. Layering Technique. This method is being used by no-till gardeners everywhere. It’s a great way to prepare a garden bed and keeps the soil structure intact. Measure out your garden bed and cover it with layers of newspaper or cardboard, then a layer of compost or garden soil, then a layer of mulch.

How much of each layer? It’s entirely your choice how ‘raised’ your bed is. I’d say, lean toward the ‘a lot’ side. The thicker your layers, the better to keep the soil healthy and your weeds at bay.

A note about newspaper. I’ve used this all over my yard, it really does help keep the weeds down. Lay it on THICK and cover it well with dirt or mulch. On a few occasions, I’ve received a shipment of plants that NEEDED to get in the ground, but there were no beds prepared. I dug a hole straight into an open area, planted my plants, covered the surrounding grass with newspaper, then filled back the dirt from the hole. Crude, but it worked in a pinch. Did it last? Not very long, I needed to treat that bed again later that
season, but it was extremely easy to do.

3. The ‘Hot Summer’ Clear Plastic Kill. The nursery has been in a state of ‘under construction for the last 3 years. Weed barriers under the pots is a must and plastic does the job well. I discovered how effective clear plastic is at killing grass when I ran out of black plastic. After three or four 90 degree days of the hot sun shining through clear plastic, the grass and weeds were toast. So yes, this works best in summer. I haven’t tried it in spring, but I imagine you might be waiting a while for the grass to die. I use a tiller for this method unless I’m preparing a small area. I till as deep as my little Mantis will go since our soil is terrible clay, I add as much light weight compost as possible. I will only till once.

A Word About Good Soil
You probably know that most plants thrive in good soil. Get your soil right and you’ve already won half the battle. But how do you know what you have? There are three simple tests you can do without having to run out and buy anything. The Jar Test, pH test and the earthworm test.

You can see how to do all three here. In most cases your soil will need to be amended by adding organic matter which creates great garden soil. Home builders strip much of the topsoil when building a new home and don’t put it back. Adding rich homemade or store bought compost can help in almost every garden situation. Every year you can add another layer of compost to the top of your gardens, without having to dig up your plants. It will break down and add nutrients to the soil. You can use mulch as well. Adding mulch not only looks pretty, but it helps absorb water so you water less, and also breaks down adding nutrients to the soil. Each fall we gather leaves and cover our plants for the winter. Every spring we add wood chips as a mulch. Keep adding good stuff to your soil and your plants will love you for it.

A Word About Wood Chips
We use wood chips in our nursery wherever we don’t want weeds to grow (thats everywhere isn’t it?) A thick layer goes on top of every garden bed and every pathway here. We use wood chips as a mulch because it creates a natural organic weed barrier and adds organic matter to the soil, but the best reason of all… its free.

Installation

Measure Your Space
You’ll need to measure your area correctly and place plants at the spacing suggested. If a shrub grows 8 to 12 feet with an 8-foot spread, mark your center and measure 4 feet out on both sides, plus desired spacing in between plants. It might look bare with small young plants, but in the early growing years, you can always fill in space with perennials or annual flowers, until it starts to get crowded.

I mention this twice in this guide because of the sheer fact of how many times I’ve messed it up over the years. Overplanting is a very bad habit of mine. Now that I’ve discovered the joy of annuals, I can go crazy with it. Winter will kill all of my overplanting before it gets too crowded.

Dig Your Holes
The rule of thumb for digging the correct size hole is: twice as deep and three times as wide as the rootball. Add some good compost to the dirt you’ll fill the hole with. Mushroom compost is some of the best compost out there, but it can get expensive. Just make sure your compost is light and fluffy with a lot of organic material to feed your plants and worms!

Planting
When you plant your plant, make sure to look at where the stem meets the soil in the pot. This is the depth you want to plant, keeping that same soil level it’s used to. Plant too deep and the stem will rot and the roots wont get air. Plant too high and the stem will dry out. Pack the soil in tightly around the plant. This will prevent ‘heaving’ (see below). Add 2-3” of mulch, making sure that its 3” away from the stem. Mulch retains water so you wont have to water as much, but it will also rot the stem if its too close.

Heaving happens in the winter when the freeze-thaw cycle contracts and expands the soil and pushes the plant up out of the ground. Make sure to check your plants throughout the winter to make sure this is not happening. If so, pack it back in the ground again tightly, or gently lift and replant, adding more soil.

Maintenance

Watering
Keep your plants well-watered until they’re ‘established’ or well enough rooted into the ground to draw enough water to live on their own. You want the soil moist, not dry or waterlogged. Water well immediately after you plant, then wait until the top of the soil dry and water again. I like to water until it pools a little, let it soak in, and do this two more times. Avoid wetting the foliage. The point is to water the root ball and the soil around it so that the roots want to grow outwards, into your soil. This helps your plant establish itself faster. Make sure to keep an eye on your new plants and water more in drought conditions. Usually, after the 2nd year, your plants will be fully established and should be able to live on their own. Of course, wilting is a sure sign that a plant needs more water, and even fully established plants sometimes need water.

Weeding
Keeping the weeds in your lawn taken care of will also help cut down on weeding in the garden. With all of these efforts, you WILL have weeds. Its natures way of protecting the soil. Some people find it easier to keep a daily or weekly weeding schedule. Walk your property and gardens every day and pull each weed you see. Or, Split your property into sections and weed one section each day of the week. Take it from someone who has learned the hard way, its best to keep up with weeds then to take care of it later. It only gets harder

Mulching
If you mulch every year you won’t have much weeding to do. Mulching means covering the soil to protect it, and you can use just about any material to do it. Compost, wood chips, leaves, even newspaper. Mulching is so beneficial to your garden soil and the plants that live in it, you’ll be happy to make it a yearly practice. As stated before, the more the better. Most people recommend 2-3 inches, but if you can do more, definitely do more.

Wrapping Up
Well, there it is, a BEAUTIFUL new garden that YOU created. It’s always a wonderful feeling to sit back and look at a job well done. We hope that it brings you years of enjoyment and luxury to your home. If you found this guide useful, please, share it with a friend!

More About Us
Trish is a licensed nurseryman certified by the state of Illinois. She is the owner of Roots Nursery, a backyard nursery that sits on a one-acre lot in the western suburbs of Chicago.

“Hardy, beautiful, easy to grow plants shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. Because were a ‘homegrown’ nursery without the expense other nurseries have, we can offer great prices. Not only are the plants affordable, we always get compliments on how beautiful and healthy they are.

The post Landscape Design for Beginners appeared first on Roots Nursery.

Spider plants are one of the most popular house plants for good reason. They’re beautiful and super easy to care for. They’re practically maintenance free besides a quick watering once a week or so, and cleaning up dead leaves once in a while. This makes it the perfect starter plant for any beginner indoor grower. Whether you’re looking for the company of just one or two plants or want to live in an indoor jungle, Spider Plants can help you get there.

Spider Plant Benefits:
This plant is great at cleaning the air. Chosen as one of Nasa’s clean air plants in their 1989 study, they’re shown to clean formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene from the air. And you only need a mere 1 plant per 100 square feet. So go ahead and place 1, 2, or 3 in any room you’d like cleaner air.

You can buy your spider plant at home depot. I usually see them there inside, in the houseplant section, but if you cannot find one there, you can usually find them easily on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy.

Potting & Repotting

Many times, you would keep the plant in the pot it came in, especially if it was purchased in a hanging planter. But you may want to repot your spider plant right away, or in the future, after it put on some solid growth.

As with most houseplants, make sure to use a pot with good drainage.

Give this plant 2″ of room to grow. Spider plants grow quickly, but don’t mind being cramped inside their pot. They actually prefer to be a little root bound, so you don’t have to be overly diligent about repotting. Use regular potting soil from the hardware store, Spider plants don’t need anything fancy. Remove the plant from the original pot. Break up the roots a little bit. Fill the new pot 2″ with soil. Plant in the new pot.

Location & Lighting

Never put your spider plant in the sun. Spider plants like vibrant indirect light. It’s best at 6 feet away from a south-facing window or door. Make sure the sun doesn’t wander onto the plant for too long during any part of the day.

You would usually always keep your spider plant indoors year-round in 62 to 75-degree temperatures. Many plant owners are accustomed to bringing their indoor plants outside for the summer. Since Spider plants can’t handle too much direct sunlight, you probably would never bring your plant outdoors, unless you have a shady deck or covered porch.

Watering

Spider plant likes humidity. That’s why many people like to hang them in their bathroom. Some people mist their spider plants, but this only gives the plant humidity for maybe 15 minutes. But it can live in a dry home environment if you water correctly.

I like to bring the entire plant to the kitchen sink and place it under running water straight from the faucet. Water will run all the way through the pot, drenching the roots, then out, into the sink. I let it sit in the sink for a while to drain and put it back up on the shelf. This way, the plat is never sitting in too much water, prone to rot.

You can water directly into the pot as well. Make sure you have a saucer under the dish to catch water. When a plant becomes root bound or the soil drys out too much, water will go straight through the pot and your plant wont get any water. If this happens, use the saucer to water from below.

If you have highly chlorinated or hard water, watering from the faucet might not be an option. Your water might need to be run through a filter before watering your plants.

Add an inch of water to a saucer or dish under the pot, watering from the bottom. The soil will soak up the water and feed the plants at the root.

Establishing a watering schedule.

Spider Plant roots (below) are thick and of a tuberous nature. Because of this, their capacity to hold water is excellent. You want the soil to dry before watering again. This most likely will be once a week. Check to see when the top 1 inch of soil is dry and mark it on a calendar. Measure how much water you use each time.

Follow these troubleshooting tips below as well. In time, you will learn how much water your plant likes.

Troubleshooting Table

Fertilization

Add half strength of an indoor fertilizer solution while watering. Do this once a month, maybe twice for the best Spider plant growth. Remember to only fertilize during the growing season. During winter, plants slow their growth or go dormant totally. Stop fertilizing in the fall and winter. Start again in the spring.

Pruning

Most of the time it’s not necessary to prune your spider plant. But sometimes, it might need a little help.

Cut off any leaves that are brown, broken, or flopping. Cut it back all the way to the soil. When you’re cleaning up a spider plant, you can cut a lot off before damaging the plant. This guy is pretty tough. It will grow back.

Propagation

The plant sends out shoots with a ‘pup’ at the end. These will become new baby plants. They have the capability to grow roots on their own while hanging in the air, without the help of soil or water. When you see thick, white roots developing on the pup, you can cut it from the shoot and place it in a glass of water, to watch the roots grow out.

When the roots are about an inch long it’s time to plant it in a pot of soil. More light increases these offshoots, so if your plant isn’t producing well, you can try moving it closer to the window.

Are Spider Plants Toxic?

CATS love spider plants. Thankfully, the Spider plant is not toxic to cats or other household pets. So if they ingest some or even a lot, it won’t hurt them. However, you don’t want your cat to destroy your plant. So if your curious tabby takes an interest in your spider plant, you may want to move it to a higher shelf or hang it from a hook.

The post Spider Plant Care appeared first on Roots Nursery.

The fastest soil preparation method is to build a raised bed and fill it with a nice fluffy soil mix. It’s perfect to plant in right away. But filling beds can get expensive.

The special planting mix recommended for a raised bed is 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 vermiculite.

2 cubic feet of vermiculite costs $20 alone. It takes 8 cubic feet of mix to fill a 4×4 bed to 6 inches. It might cost $40 to $50.

This is totally worth the cost if you have one or two raised beds. But what if you want large gardens and lots of them? It might exceed your budget, and fast.

Follow my journey through a year of discovery of what makes the best garden soil that won’t break the bank.

I’ll start with the tomatoes.

Did you know that tomatoes will grow like weeds under the right conditions? I didn’t. Tomatoes were always hard for me. And I’m supposed to have a ‘green thumb’. 

As my neighbors would glory over their ‘bumper crop’, I would despair, asking what they did to get results like that? I didn’t consider the most important aspect of gardening… soil preparation.

Don’t you just throw some plants in the ground and watch them grow? uh, nooooo. Our midwest dirt is all clay. Of course, it doesn’t work. It’s the same if you have sandy soil, compact soil, depleted soil, or any soil that won’t drain.

Spring: Surprise Tomatoes

I had an old compost bin that I disassembled last year. When volunteer tomato seeds sprouted in the leftover compost, I was delighted. And they kept growing… and growing!

What surprised me more is that these plants didn’t need any help at all. I didn’t even water them. All that rich compost retains water really well.

Nature has taught me that soil preparation was they key to amazing plants. And you can do this for free.

Back to the tomatoes.

Unlike the tomatoes in the veggie garden that I baby… Pick the perfect plants, harden them off, water and weed daily… the surprise plants are at least double the size.

Check it out…

Tomato starts I planted. bah! puny. The weeds in the background are bigger.

My surprise tomato plants growing in old compost. How’s that for wow factor?

How did this happen? How did these tomato plants grow like THAT? They didn’t get much of a head start. Really. it’s all about the soil.

How I Learned How Effective Soil Preparation Can Be

As I mentioned, this space was a humongous compost bin. It was smelly and ugly, right at the street where people walk by every day.

It had to go.

I wasn’t even sure what to do with the area until those volunteer seeds germinated and exploded into huge plants. By golly, put away the grass seed… this is a garden!

It quickly became clear that I’d been unwittingly preparing the perfect garden soil right there in that spot. 

With the compost bin, I knew I was building soil for other gardens. My vegetable garden, my flower gardens, my nursery gardens. ALL THAT MOVING DIRT AROUND. And I’m reaaaally tired of wheelbarrows. When all I really have to do is start a compost bin, or pile, where I want to prepare the soil for a new garden. Talk about a lightbulb.

Why is common sense not so common? Especially for gardeners.

The stuff from the bin is fully decomposed and has made amazingly good soil. Light and fluffy, well-draining AND retains moisture, and it’s full of nutrients. The PERFECT soil.

There’s a good foot of compost here.

I have discovered what I’m sure other people have done. My new soil preparation method for new gardens. No digging, tilling, weeding. No hauling 15 loads of compost across the entire yard. And no killing my back.

My Soil Preparation Method:

Start compost in the location you want your new garden.

Making compost is easy. And pretty fun in my opinion. Grab whatever organic material you can get your hands on. Throw it on the ground. Walk away.

Do not dig up the grass… or till… or mow. Don’t even weed wack. I know, I know you think you have to. You really don’t.

Pile up grass clippings, yard debris, fall leaves, fresh leaves, wood chips, shredded paperwork, torn up newspaper, used coffee grounds (another good reason to go to Starbucks). The more ingredients you can find, the better.

Clean your neighbor’s yard, or ask them if you can have the bags they pile at the end of the street. They might be thrilled they don’t have to pay for trash stickers. I even asked my local landscaper to bring me his yard waste.

It doesn’t have to be smelly or ugly either.

Spread your new material on top of the pile in thin layers. When you get the right mix of greens and browns, it won’t smell. If there’s enough air and moisture, it breaks down quickly. You can spread it in a low pile and cover it with woodchips and it will even look nice. But keep building! You’ll need a lot.

How long do you have to wait for compost to break down and be garden soil? Heres a tip, every time you turn or mix compost, it takes half the time to decompose. I’ve had compost ready in as little as 3 weeks.

Is it ready yet? Dig a hole to the bottom of the pile. If you have at least 6-8″ of broken down material in the middle, you can plant in it.

If you start with great garden soil you’ll have amazing plants (I’ll show you in a few minutes)

What if you already have an established garden?

You already have a garden you say? And the plants grow ok…

If your garden is already established, keep spreading as much organic matter around the plants as you can get your hands on every year. 2 to 3 inches is recommended. Honestly, I’d add more. It doesn’t even have to be broken down. 

Add a thick cover of mulch or woodchips to snuff out the weeds and hold moisture. Make sure to clear the crown of the plants so they get air, a good 2 inches.

And you can keep piling it on in layers. Organic matter, then cover with mulch or woodchips. Keep doing that all summer. In no specific order or any measured way. Again… leaves, grass clippings, yard debris, shredded paper, coffee grounds, wood chips, store-bought mulch. Whatever you can get your hands on because massive quantities is key. It breaks down faster than you can imagine.

All this organic matter feeds the network of microbial activity going on beneath the soil. Those microbes feed your plants and they all grow unbelievably.

Imagine a garden that you don’t have to dig, till, weed, or fertilize. AND grows vegetables and flowers like crazy. You only really need to know how to prepare a garden in the spring or maintain an established garden throughout the summer.

July

The tomatoes grew so great, I was psyched to see how well other plants would do here. Let’s try some perennial flowers, shrubs, and a few annuals.

I ran around the nursery on a mission to “save my babies”. I snatched up handfuls of pipsqueaks and the poor, sick plants, crying for help.

Sitting in black 1-gallon plastic containers in the bright hot sun – some plants were nearing their demise. Quickly, with very little thought, I filled in the rest of the garden.

Fastest garden I’ve ever planted.

In under 2 months, every single plant is thriving, some have quadrupled in size!

I hope I’m expressing how truly amazing this is. (maybe the photos will convince you)… July is very late to start a garden. No spring rain to boost growth, just sun, sun, and more sun. Even still, I watered this garden exactly twice. Once when the plants went in, and once a week later.

Though we didn’t have much rain, it probably didn’t need a second watering. I think I did it out of habit. All of this organic matter was the answer to dragging that heavy hose back and forth.

Soil Preparation Results by August:

I mean, wow. I’ve never seen perennial plants grow that fast. AND… See how the hose is just sitting there, unused, in late August. 😀

My butterfly bush exploded. This shrub was just a few twigs when I put it in.

Ajuga groundcover. When I planted it, it wasn’t any bigger than my hand. Now I can’t even tell where the original plant started. It spread so far.

October… WORM INVASION!

I honestly have never seen anything like it in real life. Click the photo to enlarge.

I HAVE seen this many worms in my research on vermicomposting (worm bins).

Digging this up was every bit as gross as the photos online. But if worms mean good soil, this soil is beyond amazing.

Here’s how THAT happened…

I never did stake those surprise tomatoes.  I wanted to see how they’d grow without my ‘help’. The plant flopped and tomatoes rotted underneath all summer. Good for me for being lazy, ahem, brave enough to let things get messy.

When I cleared the last tomato and sunk the shovel to plant some grasses, I found this clump.

I learned another thing. Worms love rotten tomatoes.

I am not complaining! I’m very tempted to go get those rotten tomatoes put them right back in this garden. 😀

Have I told you yet? I like the idea of not moving a bunch of heavy compost around.

I also like that it’s better for the plants, to not disturb the activity going on in the soil.

I really like the idea of layering organic matter straight on top of an existing garden, the way nature does it. It’s hard work to keep moving stuff back and forth. And for what reason? I am sighing in relief at this very moment.

Geoff Lawton, the permaculture king, calls this “chop and drop”.

Prune your plants and drop the debris right under the plant. Yes, that gets messy. I have wood chips standing by to cover up the mess. And this mix of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ helps things break down even faster.

If you’ve seen the film ‘Back to Eden‘, they attribute amazing growth to wood chips as the magic ingredient. I use wood chips all the time and it’s fantastic for compost and an awesome weed-suppressing mulch.

Compost in Place

I like that you can literally throw what most people trash, into a pile on the ground, and have the best garden. Sure, you have to wait a while, but have you ever tried moving compost? Or digging an entire garden? It’s worth the wait.

For the original compost bin, I was a garbage collector for a year. My neighbors dumped their grass clippings in. We also hauled in a load of wood chips. They were in separate bins, don’t ask me why. As the grass clippings would begin to smell, I’d throw on a layer of wood chips. That’s how I experienced the most rapid composting breakdown. By mixing ingredients and turning the pile. 

Next July… 1 Year Later

After 1 year, this garden has grown like nothing I’ve experienced in my 7 years of gardening. And it’s the talk of the town!

These plants are bigger, healthier and flower more profusely than anywhere else in the yard.

There is only one explanation. Great soil!

If you want these kinds of results, the easy way, use my soil preparation method for starting a new garden. Start a compost pile first. Your plants will thank you for it.

Remember, after a few years, all of that organic matter will be gone. So it’s important to keep adding compost and mulch around the plants every year. Use the ‘chop and drop’ method if you’re tired of lugging heavy material around.

The post Soil Preparation. No-Cost Method for Great Garden Soil. appeared first on Roots Nursery.

Categorized by its botanical name, Chlorophytum comosum, the spider plant is native to South Africa, zone 9 through 11. This puts it into houseplant territory in most of the rest of the world. For outdoor use, it’s suggested as an annual. Plant it in a place with well-draining soil under light or heavy shade.

It’s a gorgeous plant. Mature plants have a full, beautifully cascading habit perfect for hanging pots in the home

It’s a useful plant too. They do a fantastic job of cleaning and purifying the air in your home or office.

Solid Green Spider Plant Care.

Taking care of a solid green spider plant is easy peasy. Light requirements are very low, making it an optimal choice for the home. Indirect sunlight is best. Direct sun can scorch the leaves.

Watch your water. Overwatering can cause root rot. Spider plant is very drought tolerant, so it can go a while without watering. Another way it’s the perfect performer as a house plant.

Low fertilizer is suggested. Food is stored in its tubers and the plant will feed itself over time.

It’s a fast grower, so divide your plants often. Spider Plants have been known to break out of their container when they outgrow their habitat.

When it experiences winter conditions for at least three weeks, shorter days and longer nights, the plant will form plantlets and you will have spider plant babies.

Learn More about Spider Plant Care

The post Solid Green Spider Plant. A Non Variegated Beauty. appeared first on Roots Nursery.

Some of us plant obsessed people may not get it. BUT, there’s a ton of reasons this little project can come in handy!

Maybe you know that perfect someone to give an enchanting gift, but they don’t have such a green thumb. Maybe you need light-weight, mess-free centerpieces that last. Maybe you just don’t have room in your windowsill for a single plant.

I’m in love with fairy gardens.

So, fairy gardens, even without plants are still so charming and magical. I’ll show you how to make a fairy garden that requires absolutely no care…

Here’s the simple concept. I don’t know why i must sketch everything first.

How to Make A Fairy Garden Without Plants

Project Time: 12 minutes

#1 Gather Supplies

For this fairy garden you will need:

• A Bonsai Dish
• Floral foam
• Decorative moss. There’s some really cute stuff out there.
• and a Fairy Garden Kit or Oven Bake Sculpey Clay to make your own.

#2 Find a Container

This bonsai dish has been just waiting for me to think of something to do with it.

#3 Cut and Size the Foam

Fill the dish with foam. Here’s a piece of floral foam that I bought at the dollar store. It didn’t cover the dish so I cut pieces to size. If you plan to add plants later, you CAN use potting soil. If you do, remember to water it every couple of weeks because soil drys airy, after a while it won’t hold the wire supports.

#4 Flatten and Place Decorative Moss

Cover the foam with decorative moss. I grabbed this bag from Menards for 3 bucks. I really wish it were GREEN, like the bag says. Never fear, Dollar Tree has green moss. It looks pretty real too. If you need to glue the moss down to keep it put, use styrofoam instead of floral foam. Hot glue won’t stick to floral foam.

You can alternatively wet the moss before you place it, so that it shapes nicely to the foam.

Some other ideas for the ‘green carpet’ could be a fuzzy blanket. A green crochet winter scarf. Shredded coconut dyed with green food coloring. Fake grass from a hobby shop (by the train modeling section).

#5 Add Fairy Magic

Final step, this is the fun part. Add your fairy garden magic! Arrange your pieces however you’d like to create your magical fairy world. I made this out of oven bake Sculpy Clay.

Final Product

There you go! Now you know how to make a fairy garden without plants. If you know someone that would love to know how to make a fairy garden with no plants, share this post!  If you have made fairy gardens, Id love to see photos of your work! Add them to the comments below!

The post How to Make a Fairy Garden… Without Plants? appeared first on Roots Nursery.

My Fairy Houses

If you’ve been following, you’ve probably realized I am fanatically obsessed with fairy gardens. I’ve built so many fairy houses, I have them coming out the wazoo! If you love crafts, it’s pretty easy to build your own DIY fairy houses. They’re such a fantastic, and EASY addition to a fairy garden. Little landscapes where tiny people live. Even entire fairy, gnome, and sprite villages. I mean, come on. How cute is that?

Clay Fairy Houses

Clay fairy houses are easily my favorite because they’re so tiny and quick. The quicker the project, the better! I’m all about instant gratification. Oven bake clay is easy to work with, especially if you have a toaster oven! You can get super creative with shapes, and they only take a few minutes each once you get the hang of it.

Shape your clay in the form of a tiny house. Insert a support wire in the bottom. Bake. And paint. Its that easy, but I’ve described the process below.

I used the original Sculpey oven bake clay. I created my little masterpieces, then carefully drove a piece of 16 gauge wire (from the hardware store) into the bottom so they would stick in the soil. I pushed the wire as far as it would go without ruining the piece. The instructions for baking is 275 for 10 to 15 minutes. It’s a very quick process in a toaster oven because you don’t have to preheat. You can cover your toaster oven pan with tinfoil if you don’t want to be eating clay later.

Some tips. Be careful to smooth your work before baking. Fingerprints in the clay look pretty bad in finished pieces. Try different tools for making different style doors and windows. Pencils, exacto knives, curled wire. I looked on pinterest for never-ending ideas.

After the pieces are baked, you can go nuts with acrylic paint.  My favorite method was to water down brown acrylic paint to a watercolor consistency. Wash it on very messily with a paintbrush. Then blot sections of it off with a paper towel. It creates an awesome aged look.  

After the brown paint drys, Go over it with a wash of white paint, and blot again. Paint your windows and doors different colors. Glue on some moss, raffia, bark, whatever you have!  Then start building your little fairy world. Signs and stepping stones with cute little sayings are just as fun.

In the photos below, I carved a word into the clay with a pencil before baking. After baking, I retraced the word with a fine point Sharpie permanent marker.

I was thrilled with my fairy house results. The more I worked on them, the better they got. Since they only took a few minutes to shape, it went fast.

Clay fairy houses are so easy and quick, with just the right amount of creative touch. I know you can make these yourself. They are also quite inexpensive to make. All you need is clay, some wire and whatever tools you have laying around.

Concrete Fairy Houses

I go through project after project here at the nursery. The creative force is STRONG! I had already been making concrete pots, so I had some experience and lots of concrete. When the fairy obsession hit, there was no way around trying a few concrete fairy houses. Foam won first prize for making forms. It was more crafty than constructive, so that was a major plus. (hint, pull out your hot glue gun)

First I cut 3″ wide strips of foam. I eyeballed the length. I bought high density black foam at least 6mm thick.   If you’re building larger houses, you might also glue your strips double thick to get the rigidity you need to keep the walls straight. Foam is important because it holds concrete nicely, and it bends without tearing so you can get your house OUT of the form after it sets.

You’ll be thrilled at how easy creating a concrete form turns out to be. I found an old board as a base. I grabbed my 3″ foam strips and hot glued them, on their side, to the shape and size that I wanted my house to be. It was SO easy. You’ll have dozens of them before you know it.

For door and windows, I cut the foam into squares and glued them to the board, inside the form. I wanted deeper windows and doors, so I stacked and glued two pieces together to get the thickness I wanted. I poured a thin layer of pea gravel into the bottom of my form for a stone wall. Then, I mixed and poured the concrete into my form. Let it set up completely before taking it out. The concrete will usually pull the door and window foam out with it. Simply peel them out and stick them back in the form.

Since my foam form (say that 3 times fast, foam form, foam form, foam form) is buried somewhere in the garage, I drew a diagram of what it looks like. You can build any shape or style with foam. Because it’s flexible you can let your creativity go wild! Create round hobbit houses. Design whimsically angled walls, doors and windows.

When they’re done you can finish them off with more crafty ideas… paint them, glue on gorgeous moss, add fake flowers, glue on wooden roofs or doors. So many possibilities.

Wooden Fairy Houses

Wooden fairy houses are so strikingly beautiful, but the most time consuming. It’s definitely a construction project. For my outdoor fairy garden above, I wanted something large to fill that space nicely. I had a bunch of salvaged wooden shelves from an old shoe store. They were aged from being outside which was great, but I still did a lot to the finish.

I designed and marked the boards for the cuts. I needed 2 sides with angles for a roof. One front. One back. Then, roof shingles. It was really easy to eyeball the measurements. Angles aren’t super important. I just made sure each opposite side matched. This is easy as cutting one board, tracing precisely and cutting a matching board.

To get a nicer aged look, I painted all of the boards black (except for the roof). After the black paint dried, I sloppily painted over with white. I wanted some of the black show through. The side boards were left black.

When all the paint dried, construction began.  The sides were screwed onto the front and the back. I inserted the front and back boards (white), between the sides, so that nice black side edge shows from the front. Then the shingles were secured on top with a nail gun.

The windows and doors were the most meticulous part. I cut tiny pieces of the same board with a small hand saw. Then painted them black, let them dry, and sanded the edges to age them.

I glued them on the front of the house with Gorilla Wood glue. It’s important to use this glue and not cheap out if you want this baby to weather the outdoors. UPDATE (2018): I’ve tried a lot of glues and I have to say, I’m so impressed with this glue. We’re going on our third year and it’s held up beautifully. I’ve left it outside, right where it is for 2 winters!

After I glued the windows, I painted inside of the windows black. The little cross sections in the windows that replicate window panes are popsicle sticks of all things!  I’m also impressed with how the Gorilla wood glue held these thin little thing in place for all this time.

To top it off with a roof, I scraped some paint off the shingles, and had Jon nailgun it all together. It turned out to be a half day project but it was really fun, and totally worth the effort. For years, our fairy house has been outside and holding together nicely.

The sky’s the limit and you’re only bound by your creativity. I hope you try some of these fairy garden houses and share photos of your work in the comment section below! Have fun!!!

The post How to Make Fairy Houses. Clay Concrete & wood (with Photos) appeared first on Roots Nursery.

Succulent Pallet Garden Ideas

This gorgeous pallet garden is filled with drought-tolerant, easy to care for plants that look amazing all year, no matter what you put them through. The stained finish just puts it over the top. I could stare at this gorgeous thing all day. (found on Pinterest, source unknown)

I’m a sucker for succulents. I use them anywhere, anytime for any reason. They live indoors through the winter. They overwinter outdoors in pots. They go especially well in fairy gardens. If I’m at a nursery and there are succulents, you can’t stop me from buying 5.

Mainly because succulents pass the brown thumb test.

Yes, I run a nursery, but I’m terrible at growing plants indoors. I started with LOTS of houseplants. If it died, I never bought it again. This approach whittled down my winter lovelies to something manageable. Ficus. Geranium. Begonia. And lots and lots of succulents.

Here’s another gorgeous succulent pallet garden from The Urchin Collective.

Herb Pallet Garden Ideas

The greatest thing about herbs, besides making your food yummy, is that they don’t need a ton of space to grow. Of course, they’d rather be in the ground. I mean, what plant doesn’t? Fortunately, herbs can endure some crowding.

The smallest sized pot recommended for growing herbs is 6″. That’s pretty small.

These pallet herb gardens aren’t even utilizing all the space for soil. They’ve only added bottoms to each ‘shelf’ to hold everything in. All they need now is some rich organic potting soil and some sunlight. (afternoon shade preferred)

This vertical herb garden beautiful and creatively clever! Using chalkboard paint adds such a nice touch. I use this paint to label SO many things. Craft boxes, jars and so much more. Using chalk to label your plants is so fun. Change your herbs and labels as much as you want!  The chalk will probably wash off with every rain if not protected, but it’s so cute, I think it’s worth rewriting!

Another gorgeous herb garden, built by Zina’s husband (slave). The labels on this one won’t wash off in the rain. And it’s just breathtaking. I mean, what craft CANT you pull off with beautiful penmanship? 😀

Jen and her mom (from JenAroundTheWorld) did such a beautiful job building this herb pallet garden, and an excellent job explaining how they did it. I love this rendition of the herb pallet garden because it holds so much more soil for the herbs to grow in. Herbs don’t need a ton of soil, but this design gives it much more space to spread. They laid the pallet flat to plant the garden and let it sit flat for about 2 weeks to allow the soil to settle. When the roots start to put on some growth, they place the new beautiful pallet garden upright into a vertical garden.

If you’re worried about chemical leaching, or the idea of filling the whole pallet with soil turns you off, here’s a clever little twist! Just use the pallet as shelves for your pots to organize your herb garden! This idea was featured by Jen from PinkWhen. I love how compact, organized and adorable it is as a display.
(More about chemically treated pallets below).

On the other end of the spectrum, if you’re very handy, you can create this beautiful standing herb planter, shown here by BonniePlants. This particular planter was not created with a pallet, but if you’re short on wood, you can pull one apart and put it back together like so. If you’re not handy but love this design, you can buy one like it.

Vegetable Pallet Garden Ideas

Everyone loves a vegetable garden. But most people think you need a huge garden to grow them.

Not the case.

I’m actually pretty surprised at how little space can grow so much produce. I’ve seen this in square foot gardening.

I’ve also seen volunteer tomato seeds sprout in the most unimaginable places. The corner of a wood chip pile on a driveway? And it grew like crazy. Who knew?

You can create some breathtaking vegetable gardens with pallets. Take a look at this beauty featured at Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival. I absolutely love the use of multiple pallets to create height and I’m amazed at how well those babies are growing.

What about fruit?

Just LOOK at this gorgeous strawberry pallet planter by LovelyGreens Who wouldn’t LOVE to look at that every day, and have yummy strawberries to boot! Berry Smoothies anyone? I’m down for that.  You can view the instructions on Tanya’s website. Or you can watch her build it on youtube.

if you’re worried about treated wood, or leeching chemicals, here’s some advice:

Most wood  pallets will have an IPPC logo, since they oversee internationally-shipped pallets. Pallets that ship overseas are the ones usually treated or fumigated to prevent the spread of invasive pests. Here are the marks to look out for (they should be near the IPPC logo):

• HT – This means the pallet was heat treated, possibly with harmful chemicals.
• MB – This indicates that the pallet was fumigated with methyl bromide, a toxic pesticide. Pallet makers are phasing out methyl bromide, but you may still see this mark on some older pallets.

You can also educate yourself to recognize what pressure treated wood looks like. Head to your local home improvement store and poke around the lumber section. Pressure treated wood looks different from untreated wood, and once you see the difference in color, it should be pretty easy to spot.

Flower Pallet Garden Ideas

Flowers are the prize of everyone’s garden. And anyone can grow them.

Annual flowers, again, don’t need immense root systems to grow well. Just good potting soil, sunshine and keep an eye on the water.

Have you ever seen how many wax begonias they shove in one hanging pot at the nursery? And they do well all summer. Have you ever uprooted a large annual geranium and taken a look at the size of the root system? It’s pretty minimal for the size of the plant.

A petunia seed fell in the crack of my block patio to the soil below. The blocks are 6″ deep! The next year, I had a plant a foot tall and a foot wide growing through that crack.

Some plants just want to survive and work hard to do so. To quote Jurassic Park ‘life finds a way’. There’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t do wonderfully growing a flower pallet garden. As with any garden, start with great soil.

Holy Petunias, Amy!!! This unbelievable planter box was built from pallets by Amy over at HerToolBelt. I am SO impressed with how well they grew! Amy has instructions on her blog, how to build the box and keep the plants moist so they actually grow this well. I would follow them exactly 😀

For all you apartment-dwelling flower lovers, there’s hope! Vertical gardens are awesome for apartments. Space-saving, full of plants, and just lovely. My all-time favorite vertical pallet garden was created by Fern over at Life On The Balcony (sadly her site is gone)  Her use of color in this stunning little garden is fabulous. She really has an eye.

Above is a great example of all of the beautiful plants that go well in a pallet garden. I see lots of nasturtium and many different types of succulents. The pale green trailing plant in the middle looks like a licorice plant. (source unknown)

How to Make a Pallet Garden

Here’s a super quick video tutorial below on how to build a vertical pallet garden for herbs. Make sure to pack and water your plants in WELL before standing it up.

Below is another simple way to put together a vertical pallet garden. This time, you take slats from an extra pallet and screw it to the bottom of each ‘level’

Below are full instructions on how annual vertical pallet gardens are constructed at the nursery.

One last video. If you LOVE vertical gardening, this man is brilliant at it.

Alex from Flower Street Urban Gardens has devised a wonderful gardening system that you install right on walls, fences, windowsills, your balcony. If you have a sturdy structure to hold a wire frame, this space saver can grow some plants! It’s perfect for individuals that would rather not bend to work a garden.

Best Plants for a Pallet Garden

Pallet gardens are such great space savers, but they don’t provide much growing space. Shallow rooted plants grow best, so we’ll stick with the following.

• All succulents
• Most herbs like thyme, parsley, oregano, cilantro, chives, dill, mint, tarragon
• Salad greens like leaf lettuce, spinach, kale and arugula

Annual flowers are my absolute favorite for any garden so we won’t forget them here. Special consideration is to be made to find short-growing flowers that will fit in a vertical garden. The best annual flowers for a pallet garden are as follows:

• Alyssum
• Nasturtium
• Wave petunias (regular petunias grow strangely)
• Marigolds (look for dwarf varieties)
• Lobelia
• Verbena
• Ivy
• Begonias
• Impatiens (for shade)

Last but not least, have FUN with your plants. They provide endless possibilities to get creative and surround yourself with beauty. Hopefully, this post inspires a pallet design of your own!

The post 12 Beautiful Pallet Garden Ideas appeared first on Roots Nursery.

This summer we converted an old compost bin into a new garden. It was kind of a smelly eyesore and placed right along the path where customers walk to get to the nursery. It had to go. But something kind of amazing happened before I decided what that area should be… The seeds from last years tomatoes sprouted and grew 10 times better than in the vegetable garden. So I let em GO, I didnt even stake them, just let nature do its thing.

This was my most exciting experience learning about good soil. Because everything I put in that garden grew faster than ribbon grass (Jon will get the joke). And the worms, oh the worms. you gotta see them.

Recently, we learned about Geoff Lawton. Sustainable permaculture? food forest? I dont have much experience with either, but these words give me a little jolt every time I hear them. And the information is just as exciting. In one of his permaculture videos, Geoff and his students practice what they call ‘chop and drop’. Its kinda like permission to be a lazy slob. Ive been freed! After you’ve pruned or harvested the plant, you chop up the debris, then drop it right below the plant you pruned it from. I am so DOWN for that.

But freedom is harder than you think!

We have this human NEED to CLEAN UP after ourselves. We like things neat and tidy, compartmentalized, fit in its right category. But nature doesn’t do it that way, and frankly, nature doesn’t appreciate it either. Nature litters all day long! Leaves and branches fall, animals poop, and the wind blows all that garbage around. You’d think nature would be a terrible neighbor. Yet it comes out BEAUTIFULLY! All that stuff we’re tidying up, packing neatly in yard bags and paying for removal? It all makes incredibly rich organic soil. So keep your leaves, grass clippings, yard debris… and dump them back into your garden.

And dont stop there!

Kitchen waste can go straight in your garden too! Oh, you’re shaking your head now… ‘No way am I throwing garbage in my garden’. uhhm, did you see the worms??? ok, i’ll show you!

This happened because I couldn’t get under my tomato plant to clean out all the tomatoes that rotted on the ground. What I would have never guessed in a thousand years was, what a drastic improvement rotten tomatoes could make!

So here’s the experiment Im working on.

THE ZERO GARBAGE Project.
The goal of this project is to reduce the volume sent to the landfill while creating the richest soil my garden has ever seen. Why should they get the good stuff, right? 😉

Every sliver of compostable kitchen scrap now goes straight into the garden. Ideally what’s left, should be mostly recyclable. I’ll tell ya, I feel a little naughty, standing at my doorway in the middle of December, tossing a banana peel into the garden. But its for a CAUSE! And since no ones out there looking at the gardens, winter is the perfect time to start composting. Even though it wont do much decomposing in the winter, I believe it should have enough time to break down in early spring, before the summer planting months arrive.

ok! so what goes in?
Vegetable scraps. Fruit. Herbs. Popcorn. Coffee and coffee filters. Tea bags. Napkins and Paper towels. Shredded paper, newspaper and cardboard. Stale bread and burnt toast. Dead flower arrangements. Pencil shavings and sawdust. Basically anything organic that breaks down. heres more of what goes in

now, what stays out?

• Kitty litter, dog business. I read that feces of carnivores might contain disease organisms. ewww. i dont want that anywere near my tomatoes.
• Lime, coal, charcoal. May be toxic to plants or change the pH in a way that stops decomposition.
• Meat, fat, grease, oil, bones. This is a little controversial. Some people say yes, go for it. Other say that fat and grease dont break down. Not only do they not break down, they coat everything else so that wont break down either.
• Dairy products like milk, butter, cheese, ice cream or yogurt. This one is iffy. Its said the pungent odor attracts pests, but can be hidden in the middle of a compost pile to mask it. For our purposes, milk would just be gross, so lets skip it.
• Heres more of what stays out

COOL COMPOSTING TIP! When the Mess Becomes Unbearable.
It really does look bad when garbage piles up, so I have been covering it. We have a pile of finished compost and a pile of woodchips here at the nursery. Good materials to have on hand. I’ll sprinkle light layers on top. This not only covers the mess, but it helps it break down faster! I’ve read of people digging a hole or a trench, throwing scraps in, then covering lightly with the dirt from the hole.

I implore you, I EMPOWER you to throw your garbage straight into the garden. It doesn’t feel terribly right at first, but I imagine the rebellious attitude I’ll boast, knowing that what I’m doing is the best thing for my garden.

UPDATE: Summer 2015
Ok, well, everything decomposed well before planting time, so that was a plus. BUT I did not really see much improvement in plant growth. Because my garden area is large, I believe that I needed MUCH MORE compost to create great garden soil. More than I could consume in a winter. Now. If I were to have added a thick layer of grass clippings, and then another thick layer of woodchips to this soil, we might see an improvement. It takes quite a bit of compost to change the biology of soil enough to see vast increases in plant growth. Since grass clippings aren’t available in the spring, I can add them in the fall when the garden is spent. Add kitchen scraps all winter. Then early spring cover everything with woodchips. Mel Bartholemew, the square foot gardening genius, recommends that compost contain at least 4 different materials. The experiment was worth doing, and I enjoyed sending less waste the the garbage dump. Plus, I’ve learned what to do next year!

The post How to Compost Without a Bin appeared first on Roots Nursery.

And you can GROW good garden soil. Thousands of tiny organisms are eating away at your soil every day… and pooping it out! You know the best organic fertilizer is, you got it…POOP. Cow poop, chicken poop, worm poop. Its in all the stores. Mico organism poop is just as good and its already IN your soil… but you can grow your microbe count and improve your garden soil by ridiculous amounts.

Plants have an immune system, just like people do. Good soil grows healthy plants with a strong immunity able to absorb nutrients and fend off disease and insects. Healthy plants thrive without chemical dependency. Chemicals are in fact detrimental to the long term health of your soil because they kill off the microbes.

Lets let a pro explain the soil biology (If youre interested in growing super healthy plants watch this! then watch it again in 6 months)

So, you got it? Bacteria and fungus. thousands of different types, all helping you grow bigger better plants. Aint nature grand?

How to Make Good Garden Soil. Starting from Scratch

How do I get beneficial microbes into my soil? That’s the best part, they’re already IN there. You just have to keep them happy and feed them well so they can multiply.

Fungus loves roots. roots love fungus (fungi to be correct). They feed each other and help one another grow. It’s the greatest love affair of all time. Let’s figure out how to fan the flames.

Humus + Bacteria and Fungi + Plants

Humus
It’s the perfect environment. Soil humus is created by the decomposition of organic matter. It’s light and fluffy and contains nutrients that feed both microbe and plant. Its the perfect environment for both to thrive.  Microbes will eat nutrients that are unavailable to the plant, break it down and actually feed it to the plant.

Adding organic matter to the soil each year helps the symbiosis GO. If you have space and materials to make your own compost, its so much fun and an ultra effective way to create soil your plants will love. I’d never leave my garden without it!

Wood Chips are also an excellent source of organic matter. I’ve added them as an ingredient in my compost. You’d be surprised how fast they break down when they’re mixed in. And always, every year, we lay on a super thick, 6″ layer of woodchips as mulch to help control weeds. It’s insanely effective. Where we live, wood chips are plentiful and FREE! If your town doesn’t deliver free wood chips, try out AboutTrees.com to help you find them. If they can’t help you, you can also call local tree services. I’ve even flagged down tree trimmers while they’re working in the neighborhood so they can deliver the chips immediately when they’re done with their job. You’d get a kick out of our reaction to the sound of a nearby chipper. Seriously, its like kids running for the ice cream truck.

Some people don’t like wood chips in the garden. Can you imagine? The woman working at the hardware store actually told me that ‘when the roots hit the woodchips or an air pocket in between, they die’. I nodded my head politely and went about my business. I’d rather pay attention to what’s working for people… Check out Garden Seeks blog post about using woodchips in the garden soil. The winner in this experiment was a 50% woodchip/garden soil mix.

This is already happening in my yard. Some of my soil is really compacted and it really helps to loosen it up. I’ll let you know about the results.

Bacteria and Fungi
They already live your the soil. Keep feeding them with organic matter. You can leave plant roots in the soil after every season to provide food and organic matter.

You can also ‘inoculate’ your soil, adding even more bacteria and fungi. I purchased a form of inoculant, the Jobes/Proven Winners brand just yesterday. It’s filled with bacteria and fungi (oh my). But if you’re really motivated you can make your own!

How to Make Your Own Inoculant
A lot of rave about the benefits of compost tea. Drenching the soil and sprinkling the leaves of their plants had brought them massive results. I always thought making compost tea seemed hard. Of course, I can’t judge because I’ve never tried it.

The Master Gardeners in Gwinnett County Georgia came up with this method. (the procedure is at the bottom of the page. It takes a whole summer, but seems easy and like a lot of fun. In short, you’ll grow an annual plant that is known to form mycorrhizae, in sand. The roots will entirely fill the pot of sand by the end of the summer. Cut off the plant and save the root filled sand in a cool dry place until next season. Now you have a homemade organic fertilizer to sprinkle on your plants or mix in with your garden or potting soil!

Plant Roots
Mychorriza (my-kor-eye-za) is the mutual relationship between roots and fungus. The ‘Rhizosphere’ is the 1-inch area immediately surrounding the plant’s roots where bacteria and fungus congregate and cycle nutrients. They feed off of the carbon content of plant roots then poop them out, at the root making these nutrients more available to the plant.

Farmers have begun to realize that no part of their land should be ever without some kind of plant. They grow cover crops in between rows or in rotation. Crops like vetch, ryegrass and soybeans are turned back into the soil. This adds organic matter (food for fungi) back to the soil, prevents compaction, helps retain moisture and grows great plants!

SO, there you have it. Nutrient-rich garden soil, able to grow healthy, disease resistant plants without tilling or chemicals and much much less prone to weeds.

The post Killer Garden Soil that Grows Plants Like Crazy appeared first on Roots Nursery.