Gardening - Souly Rested

Grow chicory for coffee anywhere in the US

Michelle — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 01:47:33 +0000

When I discovered I could grow chicory for coffee, right in my backyard, right here in the US (on our New England farm) I knew I wanted to see if I could grow enough to last me all year, every year.

That was 5 years ago, and as of last year, I reached my goal. My “coffee” garden even made national news! Keep reading for all you need to know to grow chicory for a coffee substitute in the US.

Chicory is an amazing, medicinal coffee substitute that I love just as much as coffee, even more in some ways. In fact, it’s not just me… it turns out many coffee companies cut chicory into their coffee (like this one) for improved taste and lower caffeine levels. Read more about adding chicory to coffee here.

Chicory is a coffee alternative made from the dried, roasted roots of the chicory plant. It has a deliciously woody, nutty, almost caramel-like flavor, with just a touch of natural sweetness. Why wouldn’t coffee companies use this goodness in their blends? And why wouldn’t YOU want to start growing it yourself?

So let’s dive in…

Growing Chicory for Coffee in the US

After learning how to grow the best coffee alternative–chicory–I knew I wanted to write this article to walk others through how easy this is. In fact, it was so simple and rewarding, I expanded my garden to include lots of medicinal ingredients, for making lots of awesome drinks. Read about my Medicinal Drink Garden here.

Read the national news article & watch the video of me harvesting my chicory in my New England garden right here.

What seeds do you use to grow chicory “coffee”?

The most important thing when growing this coffee substitute is to start with the right plants. I grow them from the seeds you can find right here.

I remember really struggling to find the right chicory variety because the pictures never matched what I was looking for. The pictures seem to never show the mature plant or the root that I harvest, but instead marketing pictures who a growth bud that can be forced in the winter indoors. These blanched buds, called chicons, are pretty complicated to grow and I’ve never tried that. So rest assured that these seeds are the ones you need for growing the best “coffee.”

Planting chicory for coffee

I plant my chicory seeds indoors in late February or early March, here in New England, and I transplant them to the garden a few weeks before the last frost, once the ground is defrosted enough to plant in it.

Indoors, I plant the seeds pretty shallow in the cups of dirt, about 1/4-inch-deep. Often multiple seeds wind up growing in each small cup (the seeds are tiny) and that’s totally fine. When it’s time to plant them in the garden, it’s easy enough to gently separate the plants.

I place the small plants and about 1 foot apart, in rows set about 2 feet apart. But honestly I’m not sure you can mess this up… chicory are so hardy and I think they’ll prosper no matter how you choose to place them in your garden.

Chicory does best in full sun in a soil with a pH of 5.5 or greater. (If you want to know more about what I learned–the hard way–about soil pH and why occasional soil testing is important for your garden.)

Sidenote, you definitely can direct sow chicory seeds but I haven’t had good luck at that, no idea why, since it is such a hardy plant, but I’ve decided to stick with the “sure thing” of growing my seedlings indoors instead of taking a chance of not having much chicory one year. When my supplies have run low though, I do have a great source where I stock up on my roasted chicory.

Also, the plants do need a good amount of nitrogen in your soil if they’re going to thrive (and i’m lacking in that) so I like to plant green beans nearby or in subsequent years, since they are nitrogen fixing. I share a lot here about cover crops for a home garden.

Growing chicory

I let my chicory plants grow throughout the summer, but I do harvest leaves often (keep reading for more about that). I will harvest the roots after the first frost in the fall.

If you were growing chicory for the leaves (or to force the chicons I mentioned above), it’s a very different process, but I’m growing it for the roots. I partially harvest the leaves often throughout the summer as food for our pigs. I don’t cut the plant down to the ground but instead hand select many large leaves from each plant every time I harvest them.

And I routinely cut back any flower buds that start to form, because I want all the plant’s energy to go into growing big roots that I can roast for coffee.

Where does chicory grow best?

If you’re growing chicory for the greens, you’ll probably find it grows best in cooler temperatures (between 45 and 75 degrees), in cooler climates. But if you’re growing it for the roots, like I do, I find it’s very hardy in any weather my New England summers have dished out. And we’ve had some hot, dry summers lately, for sure. If you can keep your chicory bed weeded and watered decently, and if you occationally cut back leaves and keep the flowers from blooming, you’ll have very healthy roots.

Harvesting chicory

I like to wait until after the first frost (or two) before I harvest my chicory roots, to get the sweetest and best quality roots. At the very least, make sure your plant has grown for at least 4 months, but closer to 6 is best. Digging after a rain will make it easier to extract the long taproot from the soil. . Okay, “like” is a strong word… Starting in about July I start longing to see the roots. I’ve often wondered if the roots would be generous size already, but I’ve never wanted to “sacrifice” a plant to find out.

Chicory roots

When you go to transplant your baby chicory plants you might be surprised to see all the fine, hair-like rootlets and wonder how they can look so very differently than the giant root you harvest 6 months later. It turns out those hair roots are extensions of the mature taproot, not a precursor to it.

How to dry and roast chicory for coffee

To harvest your chicory roots, dig a wide circle nice and deep around each plant and go slowly to get all the roots that you can. Most of the time I unintentionally break off some chunks of roots, so I always carefully dig around in the ground to “recuse” any broken pieces. Once the root is out of the ground, I first separate the root from the plant, using my shovel. Then I shake the roots well to remove as much dirt as I can before washing them. As I wash them, I remove fine roots and I separate the smaller sections from the main part of the root, setting them aside.

Once all my roots are cleaned and separated into manageable chunks, I cut each piece into slices.

At this stage you need to dry them. You have a few choices:

place them in the sun during the heat of the day (but protect from rodents etc) when possible, keep them open to the air and dry indoors when it’s not sunny outside. This will probably take many weeks.
put your cleaned cut up roots in the dehydrator for 12 hrs at 95 degrees
freeze dry your roots, after pre-freezing them for at least 24 hrs

Once they’re all dry they can be stored away until you’re ready to do the next step (or feel free to do it right away as well).

Roast your chicory slices for about 30 min to 1 hr, in 220 degree oven. (I’ve actually gone as high as 325 to shorten the time.) I spread the dried chicory roots out on a baking sheet in a single layer, and place them in the hot oven. This step is (kinda) optional, but it will give your chicory a deeper flavor. And you will, of course, have varying size slices, so I roast them on trays according to size so I can take the smaller pieces out sooner.

I’ve found the roots turn a pretty impressive shade of brown after 20 minutes in the oven. After that point, I set a timer for 10 minute intervals, and keep poking my head in the oven. The last batch of chicory roots that I roasted took about an hour. But I’ve had them take as little as 40 minutes, and as long as an hour and a half.

I pull them out of the oven at the point where they seem to be releasing the tiniest bit of smoke, although their color never seems to darken much past the color they achieve in the initial roasting period.

After roasting, your chicory is ready to grind. (As with the last step, you can store your roasted chicory in large slices and grind it later as well.) I like to brew a small test batch before turning off the oven. This ensures I’ve roasted them to the darkness I’m looking for.

How to store & use roasted chicory

As I mentioned above, once they are roasted, chicory roots can be stored whole, or ground. I prefer to grind them on an as-needed basis, using either my mortar and pestle (which usually requires that I also run them through a sieve to get out the larger bits) or a regular coffee grinder. Roasted chicory coffee can be brewed in the same method you use for brewing bean coffee, but you’ll want to do some experimenting to determine how strong you like it. I find that I use about 1/2-1 tsp. of ground roasted chicory root per cup of brew.

I like to enjoy my roasted chicory root “coffee” with a few delicious, medicinal additions. I will use my chicory in this herbal tea blend that tastes like coffee. I’ll often enjoy it with no sweeteners (the chicory is very slightly, naturally sweet) but I also love adding maple syrup for sweetness or I also make a batch of the tea blend with stevia leaves for added sweetness.

But you can definitely enjoy your roasted ground chicory by itself too. Keep reading for the recipe for the best cup of chicory.

How to make a cup of chicory coffee

Steep 1 TB chicory grounds in 16 ounces of hot water for 5-10 minutes.

Remove your steeper, and add whole milk and/or any sweetener you would like.

I often stir in 1 TB of maple syrup because it really brings out the chocolatey and caramel-ish undertones in the chicory’s taste profile.

Is chicory coffee?

No, chicory is definitely not coffee, but for a medicinal plant root, wow does it taste a lot like coffee.

Most of the United States doesn’t offer favorable growing conditions for coffee (mild temperatures with high humidity, rich soil, rainy and dry seasons, and altitude—the plants usually prefer a more mountainous terrain). So, while we can’t actually grow coffee in most of the US, we can definitely grow this amazing coffee substitute in all areas of the US.

Start here. It’s a ripple effect.

I love helping folks incorporate more real food into their lives, because it’s life changing. When we simplify our food, get rid of the processed junk… stop drinking the chemical-laden decaf coffee and find 1-ingredient roasted roots that taste even better, we take back control of our food and as a result we take back control of our health.

It’s a ripple effect. Start with one thing. The benefits can reach really far.

And be sure to grab all my resources to help you improve your pantry, one great ingredient at a time and save money while you’re doing it.

A few things I use to roast chicory that tastes like coffee

Tell me about your chicory!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your chicory tea! @souly.rested.

Pin this for later!

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The Ultimate Guide to Herbs for Tea

Michelle — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 04:23:31 +0000

I’ve been growing herbs for tea for years.

SCROLL DOWN to see the 16 medicinal plants I grew this year. And stock up on seeds from my favorite source: True Leaf Market (In fact, here are all the things I stock up on.)

I was even nationally recognized for the fact that I grow a coffee substitute in my New England garden. Read the article & watch the video of me harvesting my chicory in my New England garden right here.

After making a few original tea blends that I love–like my tea that tastes like coffee that the national news outlet wrote about last fall and this Lipton knockoff–I figured out a recipe for making a delicious DIY soda too.

Huge bonus: I even grow some of the herbs and other ingredients I need for making these delicious drinks.

Can you grow your own herbs for tea?

Absolutely! There are so many herbs you can easily grow for making your own delicious, organic tea blends. I grow a large number of mints, lemon balm, tulsi basil, lavender, and rosemary. Herbs are so easy to grow, so easy to dry, and so easy to keep for years.

Mixing herbs, flowers, and other adaptogens in unique combinations to make my own tea blends is a delicious hobby that gets more fun every year as I grow more and more herbs for tea.

I’m writing this on a cold snowy Saturday in January and while summer seems far away, as I sit here in front of the warm fireplace with my seed packets strung out all over the carpet and my wish lists getting longer, out of nowhere the idea hit me…

I grow so much of my own food but why don’t I grow more of my own teas and other drinks?

First, of course, I thought of some more tea ingredients I would love to grow myself. I make a lot of homemade tea blends, and I currently grow a lot of mint, some ingredients for making our favorite flavors of kombucha, and chicory, for making tea that tastes like coffee. (This is the variety of chicory I grow to harvest the roots to make a coffee substitute.)

But sitting there cross-legged in front of the wood stove, with the (spoiled) barn cat and piles of seed packets around me, I realized I’d never once thought about trying to grow the ingredients for my DIY soda.

So I’m planning a garden of herbs for tea and soda.

I’m sure you know the old saying… If you learn how to make your own soda, you’re gonna want a garden to go with it… or, something like that…

So I pulled open my DIY Coke recipe to peruse the ingredient list:

maple syrup
lemon juice
lavender
anise (well, officially anise extract )
ginger
1 TB vanilla extract
vinegar
cinnamon
nutmeg

Those first two ingredients I already grow myself! We’ve been making our own maple syrup for a decade now, and I’ve had my lemon tree that Bill helps me cart outside in the spring and back indoors in the fall (it’s gotten challenging now that it’s grown so much!) for almost as long.

I moved to the bottom of the ingredient list the 4 things that I will never be able to grow myself, here on our New England farm, but I was really excited to realize there are 3 other things, on the middle of my list, that I definitely can grow myself.

What I’m planting to grow ingredients for soda

I immediately started a new list of seeds to order. Here’s my list of seeds and plants I’ve ordered to make my Soda Garden…

lavender,
anise, and
ginger.

I’ve grown lavender many years, so that is a no brainer to me. But the other two are new to me.

Officially I won’t be adding anise seeds directly to my soda, but making an anise extract. Making extracts is something I am familiar with, so I knew that would be easy when the time comes. (See my mint extract recipe here. It’s the same idea.)

A garden of herbs for tea & other drinks

I got pretty excited thinking about this new garden (up until now I’ve grown a lot of my herbs in pots or in random sections of my vegetable gardens) and I realized, as I added more great new-to-me plants to my list, it’s going to be a garden to feed my passion for healthy drinks. But a “Garden for Making Healthy Drinks” doesn’t really have a nice ring to it… so the verdict is still out what I’m going to call this garden.

Reply and tell me your ideas! Every great garden needs a name.

In the end, after I cleaned up all my garden seed packets, put the cat back in the barn, and stocked the fire a few times, I have a finalized list of all the seeds and plants I’ve ordered for this unnamed Garden of Healthy Drinks. All but one are from an amazing seed company. I love this company so much I asked them if they’d give my readers a discount.

Use the exclusive code you’ll find when you click over and save on any seed or plant orders from Territorial Seed Company.

The 16 ingredients in my garden (& their benefits)

Lavender (Lavandula x intermedia) Lavender tea is a soothing and calming drink that gives a nice floral note to a blend that includes other herbs (by itself it tastes kinda soapy if you ask me) and it’s an important ingredient in my DIY Coke recipe. Read about the benefits of lavender tea here and listen to this podcast episode I recorded with a lavender farmer and this episode where the lavender farmer answers all your questions.
Blue hyssop (Agastache rugosa ) Also called “Korean mint,” this gem, is in the mint and basil family. The leaves offer a smooth, sweet licorice taste to your tea blends. Read about the benefits of blue hyssop here.
Ginger… You can plant a piece of plain old ginger from the grocery store and grow lots more, so I plan on trying this. I know it needs warmth, so I’ll plant a big piece of giner in a pot that I can easily bring inside during the winter months. When the root is ready to harvest, I’ll slice it and dehydrate it, dice it into chunks, and use it in my DIY Coke and my Ginger Peach tea blend.
Tulsi basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum) This variety of basil has a very subtle minty flavor, but it’s so subtle that this pairs nicely in almost any and all tea blends, so I am often tossing some tulsi basil in my steeper. And why not? Take a look at the benefits of tulsi basil!
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) In the mint family, lemon balm makes a delicious tea. And all the benefits of lemon balm will blow you away.
Ginger mint (Mentha x gracilis) This variety of mint is not only delicious in teas but it’s so pretty and aromatic in the garden too, with pinkish stems and golden-streaked, tooth-edged leaves. Read more about the benefits of ginger mint tea here.
Mojito mint (Mentha x villosa ) While it’s named for the alcoholic drink that it’s perfect for, I grow this particular variety of mint for flavoring my non-alcoholic kombucha. Strawberry Mojito Kombucha is one of my all-time favorites. And all varieties of mint pack a big punch of benefits–read here.
Orange mint (Mentha citrata) This wonderfully citrus-y mint is my all-time favorite mint to sip as a warm cup of tea. Just steep the leaves in hot water and mmmmm. If I have some dried cherries on hand, I’ll steep a few of those in with the leaves and wow… so good.
Chocolate mint (Mentha × piperita f. citrata) This mint variety is my favorite for making mint chocolate smoothies or mint chocolate chip ice cream.
A yerba mate plant (Ilex paraguariensis) Tea is made from the dried leaves and stems of the plant that offer numerous benefits. But I’m new to growing this and hope it overwinters inside–here in New England–well.
Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) Lemongrass tea has a refreshingly sweet citrus flavor (it’s pretty popular with herbal tea enthusiasts), made from both the leaves and stalks of the lemongrass plant. Read more about the benefits of lemongrass here.
Echinacea (Echinachea purpurea ) These beautiful flowers are not the only part of this medicinal plant that makes a wonderful addition to tea. The stems and leaves do as well. Read the benefits of echinacea here.
Calendula (Calendula officinalis) I love this particular calendula. While I’ll just be using the flowers for teas, the leaves are great for making an extract. Read about the benefits of calendula here.
Turmeric (Curcuma longa ) The spicy, earthy flavor of turmeric pairs nicely with many ginger, green, black, and chai tea blends. Read here the benefits of turmeric in your tea if you also add a little pepper.
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) Chicory makes me happy. I’ve been growing it for 4 years and love the fact that I can (kinda) grow my own coffee. You see I harvest the roots, dehydrate and roast them, then grind them up to steep in hot water as a delicious tea that tastes like coffee (recipe here). Read about the numerous benefits of chicory here.
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) This plant is another one I’m familiar with. I experimented with growing 2 plants last year and I was so pleased with the big roots that I harvested and roasted to make a medicinal powder that I add to my healthy hot chocolate mix. Read about the benefits of ashwagandha here.

Stay tuned. I’ll be updating you on my garden and all the yummy things I’ll be making from its harvest.

Follow on instagram and you can join me in the garden often, every summer.

Listen in to my updates on this year’s garden–my failures and what I’d do differently–on this episode of the Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy podcast: Crazy Things I Grew This Summer.

Gardening tools you might want if you’re growing herbs for tea

More like Growing Herbs for Tea & Medicinal Drinks

Sunflowers in the garden–a secret you need to know

My chat with the lavender farmer (listen to the podcast episode)

A lavender farmer explains why you need this herb in your life (watch on youtube)

5 best all-natural drinks when you’re sick

How to Make Tea Blends that you’ll love

The post The Ultimate Guide to Herbs for Tea first appeared on Souly Rested.

The Ultimate Guide to Planting a Cover Crop in a Home Garden

Michelle — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 15:45:16 +0000

I’ve been slowly, over the past decade, working towards a more sustainable way of gardening and cover crops have been an important part. Today I’m sharing all the details, to help you do the same.

These cover crops are hands-down my favorite.

But the first step was using this amazing soil test (read that story here and how I almost lost my garden), with helped me recognize the huge deficiencies in my soil that I was misdiagnosing and treating incorrectly for years. I am in love with this particular soil test because it is genuinely easy to understand your results (no agricultural degree required) and it offers suggestions for solutions to any problems your soil might have.

Then I found an organic soil amendment that gives an all-natural spark to the soil, with amazing results, and an organic fertilizer (I couldn’t believe how much more my garden produced when I applied both of these, the first in the spring and again in the fall and the second I applied weekly).

And, over the last few years I’ve been dabbling in the idea of cover crops and learning a lot as I experimented.

A cover crop in a home garden

Any resources I would refer to on cover crops seemed to all be written for a large-scale farmer.

So I decided the world needed an Ultimate Guide to Cover Crops in Small Gardens.

You, my friend, have stumbled upon my little guide, and I hope it helps you tremendously. I hope it helps you to learn more about sustainable gardening practices. I hope you see how cover crops improve your soil’s minerals and nutrients. I hope you witness cover crops loosening your soil’s compactness and improving excessive erosion issues.

But most importantly, I hope this Ultimate Guide to Planting a Cover Crop in a Home Garden helps you grow more nutrient-dense food for your family. In the end, that’s what it’s all about.

Well-cared for soil feeds your plants well, producing the best food, and enriching your family’s meals.

So let’s dive into all things “cover crop” for small gardens…

What are cover crops?

Cover crops are fast-growing plants—legumes, grasses, and brassicas—that are planted in late summer or fall, when areas of a garden have stopped producing well for the summer.

Behind the scenes, in your garden’s “down” time, these cover crops are busy doing the hard work. They’re improving your soil’s health, adding important organic matter back into your soil, and–by doing that–improving the very structure of the dirt and making it more fertile.

Cover crops will give you not only more nutrient-dense food, but also a higher yield and a healthier eco-system in your soil, feeding the micro-organisms and worms.

Go here for more about how you can know the current quality of your soil: Is Soil Testing Important for your Garden?

Is a cover crop in a home garden worth it?

Many large-scale farms will allow areas to grow fallow, with cover crops, for an entire growing cycle, but for a backyard gardener this isn’t usually possible. If this would require you to give up too much space that you need for growing each summer, take heart. I’ve been growing cover crops for years and doing it in such a way that I haven’t lost any growing area, any year.

Types of cover crop for a home garden

There are three basic families of cover crops, and they each offer specific benefits and challenges. (Yes, as much as I believe in them, I will admit that cover crops do come with some disadvantages too. More on that below.)

These 3 groups don’t include every option, but it’s close and it helps to look at the big picture–of 1,000s of options–in a small number of categories when you’re choosing which crop to grow when you’re planning to use cover crops on a small scale.

I’ve done my best to simplify these 3 categories and their benefits on the chart below. In areas where 2 crops both do a nice job, I’ve added stars to the crop that, in my opinion, tends to outshine the other and I’ve explained why below, in each crop’s description.

Brassicas as a cover crop

Benefits of this group of cover crops?

They add nutrients to your soil & are excellent at aerating soil that is too compact.

My favorite cover crop in this category?

This mustard mix is my personal favorite brassica crop that I grow.

But I also love leaving my kale, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts in the garden until after Thanksgiving. They’re all serving double duty, still producing food for our family while the roots are also aerating the soil.

Things to know about this cover crop?

This group of cover crops germinate quickly, which is extra important if you hope to have a full growing season yet have your cover crops planted and growing well before winter hits. This group of cover crops also does a nice job of keeping weeds at bay, and they’re easy to turn into the soil in the spring, for the best nutrient benefits.

Often this group of cover crops is used for animal foraging. So large-scale farmers might plant kale, radish, and turnips, for instance, for their cows or pigs to forage while that field is dormant from growing food for a year.

But brassicas, or other similar cover crops, can be used very well by backyard gardeners who also raise backyard chickens. Chickens love most of the greens of these cover crops that grow above ground. While our family runs a small pig farm, and I grow these sort of crops for feeding to our pigs every summer and fall, I do also feed my greens to our chickens, who love the treat.

The crop I love growing in this category? Chicory. Except, like I said things don’t always fit nicely into only 3 categories and officially chicory is a broadleaf perennial herb. But I treat it like an annual cover crop and not a perennial plant that will return to the same plot of land each year. Because I want to rotate where the chicory roots grow each year, and do their job as cover crops, I make sure to prune any and all chicory blooms all summer long, so the plants can’t reseed themselves.

When fall arrives, I remove the chicory roots, for making an amazing decaf coffee substitute, and plant another cover crop in that patch of soil to grow through the fall and winter.

Mustard is another cover crop that backyard chickens will love to snack on in the spring, after the cover crops have grown all fall and winter.

No matter what brassica cover crop you choose, brassicas are known for their extensive roots, which can go up to six feet deep. This is important for your soil because they will scavenge nutrients below the rooting depth of most other plants you will grow in your garden and pull those nutrients up to be accessible to your garden plants. This fact is why I chose to give this cover crop group the recognition on our chart as the best for providing nutrients.

These large roots, of course, do an amazing job of breaking up compact garden soil as well, which explains the other set of stars I gave to this group of cover crops on my chart.

Grasses as a cover crop

Benefits of this group of cover crops?

Grasses are kind of a “jack of all trades” when it comes to cover crops, but they excel at providing mulch for the backyard gardener. When you terminate the grasses, knock them over (or cut them off at ground level) and let them dry out on the ground, then redistribute them where you want the added mulch in the garden. If you have a farm, grasses can also be fodder for your animals.

My favorite cover crop in this category?

Hairy vetch wins the prize because it’s a fast, aggressive grower (super important in our brief growing season).

Things to know about this cover crop?

If you’re struggling with soil that is too compact, grasses may help, thanks to their pretty extensive root systems, but the intense tap roots of most brassicas do this better, in my experience. So I would choose grasses only if I was also dealing with a significant erosion problem (of course, truth be told, all cover crops help with erosion, to come extent). They work well at slowing down the movement of water and preventing erosion in your garden.

While big scale farmers will use this cover crop for animal feed, as soon as it reaches maturity, a small-scale backyard gardener can harvest these grasses as green manure, or mulch, on next summer’s garden. But legumes are also excellent at this, and the quality of your soil will help you decide which one is the better option for you, so keep reading.

Note that I did give grasses the star of distinction on our chart as mulch, since it’s the type of hay-like mulch most of us are most familiar with. If nitrogen fixation is not a need in your soil, I feel like grasses are a better option as mulch for a gardener who is new to cover crops.

Legumes as a cover crop

Benefits of this group of cover crops?

Legumes shine in the cover crop world for one very important reason: they fix a nitrogen deficiency, which is a very common problem in backyard gardens. How do you know if your soil has a nitrogen deficiency? Read more here about Is soil testing important for your garden? And join me as I do a soil test and explain why it is so helpful to backyard gardeners in this video:

My favorite cover crop in this category?

I recommend mammoth clover as a multi-purpose, cold hardy, and very durable cover crop in the legume family. It can serve as mulching material, depending on your termination method (more about that below), and it does very well in our cold New England climate.

Things to know about this cover crop?

Legumes are known for their excellent nitrogen fixation. Unlike grasses and grains that store nitrogen in the plant, legumes are excellent are capturing nitrogen from the air and transferring it back into the soil.

Let me rephrase that… the legume plant itself can’t capture nitrogen from the air. But a magical thing happens if you inoculate your legume seeds right before planting them (more about that below). Inoculating adds a good bacteria to the seed–Rhizobium. This bacteria infects the legume plants (peas, beans, and clover) and uses the plant to help it draw nitrogen from the air. It’s the bacteria that actually do the magic. Then the bacteria converts this nitrogen gas and stores it in the roots of the plant.

In the spring, you can simply till under the plants into your garden beds. As these plants decompose, they will raise the total nitrogen level in the soil and will make nitrogen available for next summer’s plants, which aren’t able to get nitrogen from the air on their own.

Your garden will grow greener and more lush thanks to plants that fix nitrogen and their beneficial symbiotic relationship with bacteria. Who said gardening wasn’t fascinating?

Another option, if you raise any farm animals, is to harvest your legume cover crop and use it as high-quality animal feed.

Legumes can also provide a sort of “green manure,” or a “living mulch,” which protects your garden from erosion and even helps next year’s plants thrive by holding moisture in the ground for the plants’ roots and preventing weeds in next year’s garden. Your plants will be able to thrive without the competition of the weeds, which will often win the battle over your garden plants for sunlight, nutrients, and water if they’re allowed to co-habit in your garden with your food.

In the end, legumes have proven to be my personal favorite cover crop. Ironically I didn’t award them a “plus sign” on my cover crop chart above, but that’s only because no other cover crop can even do what they excel at, which is nitrogen fixation, which honestly is a garden miracle in my book. But there is one caveat that I didn’t know when I first planted legumes as cover crops, and it cost me. So keep reading.

How do you inoculate legume cover crops?

Rhizobium bacteria does not usually exist in high enough quantities in most soil to inoculate your legumes naturally. When legumes are inoculated with the proper strain of Rhizobium bacteria (I buy Rhizobium bacteria in small bags–it goes a long way), they produce large, pink nodules on the roots of the legumes. The pinkish color comes from the molecule that’s required for nitrogen fixation to occur.

To inoculate your seeds, simply moisten them with just enough water to coat the seeds in a bowl or small bucket, pour on a small dusting of inoculant, and mix well to coat seeds. Plant seeds immediately after inoculation.

How to plant a cover crop in a home garden?

Before planting your cover crops, prepare your soil. I will do this in small patches in my gardens. As soon as any particular crop has finished producing food, I will remove those dying plants and get that section ready for cover crops.

Rake your soil and remove any weeds, plants, or other debris.

Consider adding this all-natural amendment at this point, and water it in well.

Once the soil is ready, broadcast your seeds in sections that are no deeper than you can reach comfortably with your rake. Lightly rake over your seeds as you plant each row in that section. Continue this in strips until you have broadcast seeds to cover the area you’re working with.

If you have hay available to cover your newly planted area, the hay will keep moisture in and weeds down while your crop starts growing.

Join me, live, in my garden as I show how to plant them (and what NOT to do) as well:

When to terminate your cover crop in a home garden?

It can be a little hard to understand when a cover crop is ready to work into the soil. Just keep in mind that a plant is storing up nutrients right through the point when it starts to bloom, and you won’t have any trouble knowing the most ideal time to turn over your cover crops. Once the cover crop has started to form buds and will soon be going to flower, it’s at the peak of the benefits it can over your soil.

Also, if you let your cover crops to to flower you are risking that the plants will drop seeds and cause you a mess of unwanted “weeds” growing in your summer garden.

Mind you, you may not have time to let your cover crops mature to this point. If it’s time for you to plant your garden, you need to remove your cover crops. In most cases you’ll actually need to do this a week or two before planting, so often my crops aren’t at their peak nutrient quality, but that’s okay, they’re still adding wonderful food to the microbiome of my soil.

How do you terminate your cover crop in a home garden?

This is the part that stumped me for the longest time. Honestly, I put off even trying to grow cover crops for years because I couldn’t understand this very idea. But it’s so much easier than I thought. In fact, there are lots of choices, and they can be used hand-in-hand as well. So I choose the method that works best for me, my particular garden, and what I want to plant next spring.

First of all, keep in mind that you don’t want to kill your cover crops until they develop enough organic, usable material to nourish your soil. This plant material (above and below the surface) will break down and become the nutrient-rich soil you’re aiming for.

Let’s go over the 6 main ways to terminate your cover crops:

1. Weed whacking cover crops

Obviously, large amounts of plant material is great for nourishing your garden, but it’s not so great to have to kill on a large scale every spring.

To help with the termination process, the first year that I experimented cover crops, I planted very sparingly. But the following year I knew I wanted even more nourishing plant material for my garden in the spring, so I scattered my cover crops very densely.

Since densely planted crops are very time consuming to turn over, I found that weed whacking them first helped a lot that year. This step will, of course, leave resilient root systems to continue growing, so this step is very seldom a stand-alone method. But when you pair weed whacking with another method, such as turning over or tarping, it works well.

If you’re planting well-established seedlings, you might find you can simply clear, by hand, small areas within your weed whacked cover crops for planting each seedling. The success of this method really depends on how established the root system is of your cover crop.

If your garden is a large field, you could of course use a tractor or lawn mower for this step. But average-size gardens and raised beds do well with a weed whacker.

Be sure to not let your cover crops grow too tall before weed whacking them, or it becomes very difficult.

2. Turning over cover crops

Turning crops over, or tilling them, is the best way to kill cover crops. It significantly injures the plants, pulls up the root system, and leaves the dead plant matter where the microorganisms can feast on it and break it down pretty quickly.

It usually takes very little time to do this if you weed whack your crops a few weeks before this step.

If you’re terminating crops in a raised bed, you might find this is easiest with a turning fork.

3. Winter-killing cover crops

Winter-killed plants are tender to freezing temperatures and can naturally be killed by cool winter temperatures. This is definitely the easiest way to terminate your crops, because it requires no work at all on your part in the spring. But this method isn’t effective, of course, if your cover crop gets planted too late in the fall. If your crops don’t have enough time to grow very much before frost arrives, you won’t be adding much, if any, plant material to your soil.

If, on the other hand, you plant your tender crops in late summer, the dead plant matter that results in the fall will create a mulch-like mat on top of the soil, which is great for reducing soil erosion. In the spring, simply rake away your “mat” and voila, you have a clean, weed-free plant-able garden.

I will use this method whenever I can (which isn’t too often in our short New England growing season). When any garden crop dies off in early to mid summer (often this is the case for my lettuce, and sometimes it happens if a predator has destroyed a section of the garden) I immediately plant mustard–my favorite winter kill cover crop.

4. Knocking over cover crops

This is sometimes called “crimping,” but it’s truly as simple as knocking over your plants. This isn’t so much of a stand-alone termination method as it is one to use hand-in-hand with other methods, often used as the first step in tarping or solarizing. If you use using a tool that scratches up the plants as they’re flattened (a roller-crimper or power harrow), you’ll get the best results and you’ll shorten how long you need to keep the crops covered with a tarp as well.

5. Tarping cover crops

A large tarp over your cover crops works well at killing the plants, if you have a few weeks time to let the process happen before you want to plant your spring seeds or seedlings. You will simply need to lay the tarps over your cover crops and place weights (like old bricks or cinder blacks) on your tarps.

Tarping works well by trapping heat, blocking light, and stifling airflow. These 3 things work together to kill your cover crops, usually within about 2 weeks, but of course this will be longer if you have cold temperatures and cloudy days (both of which are common in my gardens in the spring, here in NH). The cooler the temperatures, the longer your crop will need to be covered before it dies.

If your temperatures are below 50, you will need at least 3 weeks for this method to work, which means on most years it’s not an effective way to terminate cover crops in the short New England growing season.

6. Harnessing solar power to kill cover crops

If you tarp your crops with a clear sheet of plastic in the early spring you’ll create a greenhouse effect that “bakes” the cover crop faster than the tarp method. I don’t choose this option for two reasons. First our spring summer here in NH isn’t usually strong enough for this to be effective but second, and more importantly, if you leaving a cover crop in this greenhouse effect for too many days you might sterilize your soil and kill many important soil microorganisms.

But this method can work, if you’re cautious and don’t absentmindedly leave your cover on for too long.

Do you pull out cover crops?

I never recommend totally pulling out cover crops and disposing of them in the spring. Instead, I recommend tilling them into the soil, to add all those nutrients that the cover crops have been making back into your soil.

What is the fastest growing cover crop?

While I certainly haven’t tried all of the thousands of cover crop options, I can tell you the fastest one I grow is mustard, specifically this mustard blend. Mustard gives a rapidly growing amount of nutrient-filled plant material to your garden. While it isn’t a nitrogen fixer (read the legume section above for more details about that), it is a nitrogen lifter, and it will work at bringing any nitrogen that does exist in your soil within reach of your plants. It’s also good at suppressing weeds, so it gets a place of honor in many of my gardens every fall.

How long does it take for cover crops to work?

I read recently that the commercial fertilizer options like 10-10-10 take years to fully make any difference in your plants. One genuinely beautiful thing about cover crops is they start making a difference immediately and keep making a difference for the entire year ahead and beyond.

On the other hand, cover crops, like this amendment that I also highly recommend, are an all-natural soil amending progress. They will do a great job for your soil, but at a natural pace. Changing what’s happening below the surface requires patience. Eventually, you will achieve a sustainable, thriving ecosystem for your home garden crops. Microbial life will show up in your soil quickly, but the full potential of your soil’s fertility will come to life after multiple seasons of good care.

Can you plant directly into cover crops?

You can, potentially, plant well established seedlings into your cover crops, after partially terminating them. Read more about that in the terminating method descriptions above.

What are the disadvantages of cover crops?

While I’ve found the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages of cover crops, I will never deny that there are indeed disadvantages.

Cover crops can:

Shorten your growing season. You may find yourself pulling out summer crops before they’re totally done producing in order to give your cover crops more time to reach maturity before they need to be terminated next spring.
Work better for gardeners in the south, with longer growing windows of time. But even in our northern climate, I find the cover crops do indeed have enough time to make a nutrient difference in my soil, even though I often don’t have enough growing time for the cover crops to reach maturity.
Lead to a future “infestation” of sorts of your cover crop plants in your next summer’s garden if you aren’t careful to terminate the cover crop before it goes to seed. If you are sure to kill the cover crop before it blooms, you won’t have this problem.

Talk to me about your cover crops

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me which cover crops you’re planting @souly.rested.

My Favorite Ways to Improve Garden Soil

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Garden Soil Lessons from an Unconventional Ag Guy (S5 E13)

Michelle — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 03:17:06 +0000

In this episode with Karson Rippstein, of Redmond Agriculture, we dig deep into the “dirt” on dirt… the stuff every gardener needs to know, yet most don’t…

Where to Listen or Watch

Listen in here:

Garden Soil Lessons from an Unconventional Ag Guy, Season 5 Episode 15 of the Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy Podcast

Or here:

And watch here:

Lessons from an unconventional Ag guy (S5, E13)

In this episode:

A different way to look at “farm to table”
Where to start when analyzing your garden soil
How to start with the outliers when analyzing your soil (regardless if it’s macronutrient or micronutrient or ph)
How Agronomy–large agriculture farming–analyzes a soil test
How the example of vitamins added to a poor diet correlates to soil supplements added to unhealthy/dead soil
How this soil test doesn’t record minerals in soil that are tied up, only ones that are available to plants
Signs of healthy, alive soil
Signs of unhealthy soil
Why manure, humates, compost, sea minerals, and volcanic minerals are the best additions to most gardens
Why a book may not be your best resource when trying to learn about improving your soil
Helpful, hands-on resources to learn more about soil health
Tested results of using chicken manure as a soil amendment
The most convenient animal poo to use as soil amendment
The “More-On” principle
The importance of balance in your garden soil
How big should your garden be before you do a soil test?
Best plan for testing the soil in raised beds
Does healthy soil produce more nutrient-rich food?
Is homegrown food genuinely superior to large-scale farming food?
The value of bentonite clay to garden soil
What Cation Exchange Capacity is and why every gardener should know about it
Why & how salt and clay add different value to your garden soil
What humates are and how they improve cation exchange capacity
Where (and WHY) to get salt for you, your garden, and your livestock.

Resources:

Soil Test Kit Karson & I were geeking out over: https://bit.ly/3Nx2PXf

BRAND NEW soil amendment Karson mentioned (use code SOULYRESTED): stay tuned… available soon right here.)

The bulk size bag of salt I love (use code SOULYRESTED for 15% off anytime): https://bit.ly/3XCHJeo

Follow Guest:

on Instagram: https://instagram.com/redmondagriculture

on YouTube: Redmond Agriculture https://www.youtube.com/@redmondagriculture2794

website: https://redmondagriculture.com/

This Episode is Brought to you by:

Redmond Salt is unrefined salt with over 60 trace minerals. It’s the only salt I’ve used for many years. Check out my all-time favorite Redmond items and grab a SWEET discount here: https://soulyrested.com/salt/

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Is soil testing important for your garden?

Michelle — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 06:02:17 +0000

Is soil testing important for your vegetable garden? I never thought so. Until I almost killed my garden.

Truth is, without a soil test, I would have killed my garden & never understood why.

Until now, I never thought a soil test was important.

I also never thought you could have too much phosphorous, since it is, after all, one of the 3 necessary nutrients for your garden.

And I never thought a garden could have too much manure or compost added in, because both are so good for a garden… or so I thought.

Boy was I wrong. On all accounts. Read on to find out how I almost killed my garden by doing all the “right” things and NOT doing the one thing I should have.

Is Soil Testing Important for your Garden?

For so many reasons, soil testing every so often is very important for you garden. Keep reading for the full scoop.

What nutrients does a soil test look for?

To be it’s best, garden soil needs these major, and minor, components:

Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Potassium
manganese
zinc
copper
iron
baron
sulfur
magnesium
sodium
molybdenum
calcium
chlorine
silicon
oxygen
carbon
hydrogen

The first 3 are the big 3 macronutrients that you always hear about. They’re the big 3 that make up fertilizers, in various degrees. The fertilizer numbers tell you the amount of these 3 macronutrients, so a fertilizer labeled with “23-3-8” will contain 23% Nitrogen, 3% Phosphorus, and 8% Potassium.

You can also purchase micronutrient fertilizers, but more on that in a minute.

Why do these nutrients matter in your garden soil?

The healthier your garden soil is, with the ideal balance of all the macro and micronutrients, the healthier your soil bacteria will be.

Why does bacteria matter in your soil? It’s kind of the same idea as the importance of healthy bacteria in your gut, actually. (Y’all know I take that topic very seriously, and solve it deliciously, by making my own kombucha.)

When the good bacteria is healthy, they form new soil constantly and your soil is continually fertile. Those good little guys also create growth regulators in your soil, which the plants need in order to take in nutrients. (source)

Can you really have too much of a good nutrient in your garden soil?

Okay, so if these nutrients are all vital in good bacteria development and the overall soil health, surely you can’t have too many nutrients, right?

That’s honestly what I always thought. I knew that compost and manure were great at building up soil nutrients. And I knew that 10-10-10 fertilizer packed a nice dose of all 3 important nutrients into the soil.

So I always made sure to add the major nutrients at every opportunity. I would do all of these things:

I always dug deep below each new seedling or seed before planting it to bury some 10-10-10 to feed the roots as each plant grew.
Then I would scatter some 10-10-10 around the top of the ground near all newly planted things in my garden soil.
In the same areas where I added fertilizer I sprinkled rich, black compost as well. Compost I tended to myself all year long and knew it was good stuff.
Every fall I would allow the chickens and ducks free-ranging access to the garden area, after I had harvest all our food. They could turn over the soil, dig out roots, and leave their poo all over for added wonderful manure.

While there’s nothing wrong with any of these techniques, without first testing your soil, to analyze your current nutrients, every one of these things could do more harm than good.

Why I did a soil test…

Last year’s garden baffled me a little.

We had a lot of rain. A LOT. And my plants were all looking bad. Their leaves all had signs of fungus, so I removed any bad looking leaves, made sure no plants had leaves toughing the ground, removed all bad leaves far from the garden (and made sure to never add them to my compost pile… go here for more on how to make compost), and treated the plants with a natural fungicide.

But nothing helped.

I was very thankful I had early crops of everything because the garden quickly dried up and I had little to harvest by end of August. More leaves continually kept looking yellow, even after a month of doing all the right things to combat fungus.

So I ordered a soil kit.

Because I’ve had great respect for Redmonds for years (I’ve used no other salt since I met them) I knew I wanted to try their new soil test kits. I talked with their company and knew they were not only affordable but would provide all the details I needed to analyze my garden soil (in layman’s terms), and correct any deficiencies.

It was super easy to collect my dirt sample and mail it back in the postage paid envelope that was included in the kit. The wait, on the other hand, was pretty hard. Thankfully, in exactly 5 days from when placed the kit in my mail box (even including 3 days over a holiday weekend!) I had an email with a link to my results.

I knew a soil test like this one that I requested doesn’t test for soil disease, fungus, or pest problems. But I also knew that healthy soil is always much less susceptible to disease and pests than unhealthy soil, so it seemed logical to start by seeing if indeed my soil was healthy.

It turned out it was the perfect place for me to start.

If you’re interested in a soil test kit of your own, use code SOULYRESTED and save 15% off your entire order (feel free to order multiple kits and take 15% off the full amount).

Join me, live, in my gardens as I gather soil to do a soil test:

What I learned from a soil test of my garden soil…

I was surprised at how shocked I was with the results. I truly thought I surely had fantastic soil. It looked wonderful. I did all the “right” things. And until that dreaded excessive rain and fungus I’d never had a problem.

I was also surprised that I felt like a dejected middle schooler with an embarrassing report card as I opened that email of test results a few days after sending in my soil.

I had an insanely high amount of Phosphorus. And an almost non-existent amount of both Nitrogen and Potassium.

While a surplus of any nutrient may not seem like an issue, high phosphorus levels can actually do some excessive damage to garden plants.

What does excess phosphorus do to garden soil?

Too much phosphorus in the soil can destroy otherwise healthy plants.

I was shocked the more research I did… It turns out that plants growing in excessive amounts of phosphorus develop yellow leaves. Guys, I never had a fungus! I had excessive phosphorus, but to combat what I thought was fungus I kept adding all the “good nutrients” to the soil… I added more compost than usual. More 10-10-10 than usual. And I let the chickens and ducks spend even more long weeks in the garden last fall and even in winter…

All of these things added MORE phosphorus to the soil and exasperated my problem.

Then this spring my poor new seedlings were going into bad soil and I made it worse by planting them with excess compost and fertilizer.

I should have done the soil test last fall, instead of after planting the garden this spring.

You see, when there is high amounts of phosphorus, it impacts plant roots to the point that they are not able to take in zinc and iron from the soil, even if there is plenty of these micronutrients in the garden soil.

My results showed a low amount of iron, but crazy high amounts of zinc, in fact as high as the phosphorus.

But my plants were suffering from a lack of zinc because they weren’t able to get the zinc through their roots.

When the plant isn’t getting these micronutrients, the leaves will turn yellow and wither.

At this point I was really thankful that the soil test I chose to use made the rest super easy for me.

So what do you do if a soil test reveals excess phosphorus?

Unlike other soil tests I’ve heard of, my results covered both ends of the spectrum. I liked that I had a quick glance, with a simple bar chart, but also the nitty gritty details:

But what I really loved was that they didn’t do. They didn’t leave me hanging, telling me a bunch of information but no solution. Funny enough before I even realized this I was googling what to do about high phosphorus levels in garden soil.

I was reading things like,”While commercial growers may be able to treat zinc and iron deficient plants through foliar feeding, this option is often not realistic for home growers.” What?

I read lots about how phosphorus harms the roots and how specifically zine and iron will not be able to enter the roots and the plant will yellow and wither from deficiencies. I read about what causes the high phosphorus levels, and I read about long-term ways to correct the problem. But I was left defeatedly feeling there wasn’t much I could do to help my poor just-planted garden.

Then (silly me) I finally read the rest of my test result information. (Don’t be me. Trust me, read it all before you panic.)

With handy links, my test results told me two products that I could apply immediately that may save my plants.

Tips To Lower Phosphorous Levels In Soil

Unfortunately with phosphorous, there is no one perfect method to magically solve your problem. But you can takes these steps to prevent and reduce the phosphorous levels:

Avoid adding manure – animal poo contains important nutrients for your soil, but it typically includes very high levels of phosphorous.
Use only phosphorus-free fertilizer – if you can limit the amount of phosphorous added to your soil, you can encourage the plants to use up the phosphorus that’s already in your soil. Meanwhile, continue giving your plants any nutrients your soil test kit says your soil is average or low in, such as Nitrogen and Potassium. Look for a zero in the middle number in the list of fertilizer numbers. Look for 10-0-10, or 5-0-5, if your garden still needs nitrogen and potassium (the zero in the middle tells you there’s no phosphorous).
Water your soil well – soaking your soil can drive out excess phosphorous. But, since you may also leech other key nutrients away as well, I’ll use this only as a last ditch effort.
Test your soil with a soil test kit after a few months of taking these actions, to see if your work has made a difference.

What Was the Biggest Lesson I Learned?

Soil health is quite possibly the most important aspect of a productive garden. All your other hard work is useless if your soil is killing your plants.

So, to sum up:

What I’m doing immediately

No more compost goes in the garden. At all.
No more 10-10-10 (Avoiding the addition of phosphorus for several growing seasons will help reduce the amount present in the soil.)
Ordered foliar spray of iron and zinc
Ordered 5-0-5 fertilizer

What I’m doing as soon as I can

Spreading, working into the soil, and watering well 5-0-5 fertilizer over every inch of the garden (avoiding getting it directly on any of the plants)
Mulching with straw and/or grass clippings to encourage the fertilizer to stay in place, and not run off with watering or rainfall
Treating all the plants’ leaves with the foliar spray weekly (or at least once a month) *
Adding a lot of coffee grounds to my compost pile, which will add a lot of nitrogen to my garden soil next year. (To increase our usual amount, I’m going to try to find a local coffee shop that will save their grids for me for a few days, hoping they’ll want to help a local gardener amend her soil.)
Researching a good cover crop that will amend this soil problem. **

What I won’t be doing in the upcoming years

Adding compost to the garden, unless I’ve built up sufficient nitrogen and less phosphorus (a soil test will tell me next year)
Adding manure to the garden
Allowing the chickens and ducks to forage in the garden in the fall
Using 10-10-10 fertilizer again, at least until I get back positive soil test results in future years
Retesting my soil at least once a year, maybe twice (spring and fall). Since code SOULYRESTED saves 15% off my entire order, for a limited time, I may stock up on these soil test kits!

How to Apply Foliar Zinc & Iron

Spray foliar zinc and iron on plants in high phosphorous soils. High phosphorous levels require additional zinc and iron treatments for plants to maintain their health. Texas A&M University suggests mixing a spray that contains water with 1 percent foliar zinc and iron, then applying that spray to plants every week if phosphorous levels are excessively high. You may apply it every four weeks if phosphorous levels are slightly high. Soils with 300 parts per million phosphorous will take up to five years to go back to acceptable levels. (source)

More About Cover Crops

To fix high phosphorous levels, try planting a winter cover crop of legumes, such as clover or winter peas. (source) In the spring, you can simply till under the plants into your garden beds. As these plants decompose, they will raise the total nitrogen in the soil and will make nitrogen available for plants that are unable to get nitrogen from the air. Your garden will grow greener and more lush thanks to plants that fix nitrogen and their beneficial symbiotic relationship with bacteria.

Nitrogen fixing plants don’t pull nitrogen from the air on their own. They actually need help from a common bacteria called Rhizobium. The bacteria infects legume plants such as peas and beans and uses the plant to help it draw nitrogen from the air. The bacteria converts this nitrogen gas and stores it in the roots of the plant. When the plant stores the nitrogen in the roots, it produces a lump on the root called a nitrogen nodule (You can bet I’ll be looking for nitrogen nodules next fall!) This is harmless to the plant but very beneficial to your garden.

A Few of my Favorite Gardening Things

Talk to me about soil testing in a backyard garden…

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your amazing gardens @souly.rested.

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Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2021 as well.

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Sunflowers in the Garden

Michelle — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 22:37:07 +0000

Why I plant sunflowers in the garden

One sunflower’s giant bloom is covered in hundreds of tiny flowers. Flowers that attract and feed pollinators all day long. All summer long. What’s not to love about that? Without pollinators, my garden would never be able to provide our family with all the goodness it yields; so yes, flowers in my garden are important to me. And sunflowers are one of the bees’ favorites.

Not only do the gorgeous yellow blooms stand tall above my garden, as beacons to the pollinators, but they droop low and heavy with seeds every fall. Seeds that make a yummy snack. Not many flowers can boast that… beauty, pollination, and a winter snack.

But, if you’re considering adding sunflowers to your gardens, there is a little secret about them that you really need to know…

Want to know all my favorite garden tools and necessities I wouldn’t want to garden without? I share all my favorites with you, right here!

Are sunflowers good or bad for the garden?

The answer is “both.” Sunflowers are good AND bad for the garden.

The good part?

Well, for starters, they’re iconically gorgeous; come in a huge range of heights, colors, and styles; and they make me smile every stinking time I see one.

They also–more importantly–attract a wide array of pollinators to your gardens, and they provide a delicious snack for the birds or for YOU, if you harvest the seeds in the fall.

The bad part?

Sunflowers give off specific phenolic compounds that, crazy enough, are toxic to some plants.

These compounds impede the growth of some plants around them, or even kill some plant varieties.

Are sunflowers high maintenance?

After reading that “bad part” stuff above, the fact that sunflowers are very LOW maintenance might not convince you to forgive them for their evil ways.

But don’t write off the gorgeous sunflower as a good fit for your vegetable garden, rest assured many plants do okay in companion planting with them and the fact that sunflowers are not high maintenance is a nice bonus.

So, before you write off the sunflower as the villain in the garden, keep in mind that the sunflower uses this protective measure of releasing phenolic compounds to survive. By stunting the grown of their neighbors, but not their own seedlings, the sunflower (which can only reproduce by seeds) gets a head start every spring, making sure it can come back the following year. Without this protective measure, we may not have these garden sentinels at all.

AND bonus—I love this!—the sunflower is so good at what it does that scientists are using sunflower extracts to try to create effective, organic herbicides.

Fascinating.

So read on to find out particular plants that are impacted the worst by these phenolic compounds and simply avoid planting sunflowers near them.

What should you never plant near sunflowers?

The two plants that are the most impacted–meaning their growth is completely stunted if sunflowers are growing nearby–are potatoes and green beans.

I know many folks think sunflowers would make a nice stake for climbing beans to grow up, but resist the temptation. Unless, of course, you don’t mind stunted vines, with no beans.

Do sunflowers prevent other plants from growing?

Yes, sunflowers drastically stunt the growth of some garden plants.

But sunflowers shouldn’t take all the heat. It turns out there are other plants that do this weird toxic “thing” as well. Plants that dramatically prevent other plants from growing are known as “allelopathic plants.” (source)

Other allelopathic plants include elderberry, forsythia, sumac, goldenrod, and rhododendron.

Why I rotate where I plant sunflowers in the garden

Crazy enough, if sunflowers are grown year after year in the same spot, even their own seedlings will eventually start to suffer themselves from these toxins that the adult flowers naturally release into the garden soil.

So if you do decide to plant sunflowers in your garden, make sure you keep them far from potatoes or beans, watch other plant varieties for unusual stunted growth and avoid planting sunflowers near them in future years, and be sure to rotate the location of the sunflowers in your garden.

Also, one last thing to keep in mind…

Sunflowers will add phosphorus to your garden

After getting back a very disheartening soil test this spring, I’m very conscientious of how each plant i grow and every act I do in the garden impacts the overall health of my soil.

Depending on your soil, adding phosphorus may be good or bad. If you don’t know which scenario is true, or if you haven’t tested your garden soil in recent years (or ever… if you’re like me) I can’t recommend enough that you grab this soil test kit (or 3).

My garden was on a downward spiral that I truly never would have recovered from without the detailed results I got from this soil test kit. It’s super easy, very affordable, and the results are not only very thorough, but very speedy as well.

Order one or two soil kits today and start improving your soil next week. Use code SOULYRESTED right here for 15% off your entire purchase, any time.

Once you know, based on your soil test, if phosphorus is good or bad for your garden plot, know that some plants–including sunflowers, barley, and poppies–place a lot of phosphorus in the soil.

What plants do well planted near sunflowers in the garden?

Some plants–flowers and veggies–have built up a resistance to the sunflower’s toxic attempts. These are ones I’ve found listed on various gardening sites, but certainly many other plants will do fine.

I’ve had these veggies and flowers near sunflowers and never noticed any stunted growth (but this is just my own observation, not based on other evidence, so I’m not including these in the full list below): popcorn, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, hollyhock, and zinnea.

But now that you know this dirty little secret of the stately king of the flowers, just keep an eye on other plants nearby and notice if there are some you should avoid planting near sunflowers in future years.

And please comment if you know of more that should be added to this list of resistant plants.

Black-eyed Susan
Carnations
Clematis
Coneflower
Coral bells
Coreopsis
Dahlia
Daylily
Iris
Lemon balm
Lupines
Mint
Periwinkle
Roses
Thyme

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Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2021 as well.

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Grow seedlings to sell for profit

Michelle — Sat, 14 May 2022 13:50:08 +0000

I had a handful of folks asking me if it was worth it to try to grow seedlings to sell for profit when i shared I was doing that very thing on instagram.

So I thought I’d document what I did, what I earned, and if it was worth it.

Deciding What to Grow From Seed

Tomatoes were wildly popular with my customer base, here in New England. While I will probably expand to more offerings next year, I will weigh heavy on the side of unique, heirloom, organic tomatoes.

But of course you could poll your audience and see what folks seem to be most interested in growing in their gardens next year and what they’d like to buy.

Creating Interest Before You Even Plant

It’s a great idea to start a “wait list” to create demand and so when the perfect week rolls around in the spring–when your plants are at their prime and planting season is upon you–you already have an eager list of customers.

If you do keep a wait list, I highly recommend sending them updates every few weeks once you plant your seeds to get them excited and to make sure they haven’t forgotten about you and wind up going to a nursery to buy their wish list.

When it’s Time to Plant

I’m still new to this idea of growing seedlings to sell for profit, so I am careful to only plant varieties that I myself truly want. If I wind up with an excess I can most likely put them to good use. But I have some other tips too:

Plant what you want for yourself (nothing goes to waste).
Plant what you know. It helps to sell the plants if you know what you’re talking about. So many potential customers said things like “I want a tomato that’s really big and great for sandwiches.” Or “I want a cherry tomato that’s average size… not too small, not too big.” I had to know the details about my seedlings if I wanted to recommend the right plant for them. And because i was confident with what they’d like, they often bought extra.
Label everything. Even if you color code everything and think you’ll remember what is what, trust me. You won’t. So label well. I’d also recommend avoiding your own shorthand, realizing the customer will want the full name of the plant on each container.
Plant in containers you don’t want back. This might seem silly, but I was scrambling for enough containers when my seedlings took off and needed to be up-potted and I regretted that I planted some, which I later sold, in containers that cost me a few dollars to buy. That cuts a good bit into your profit.
Use good quality soil. These plants are with you for 10 weeks, you want them to look great when it’s time to sell them, plus you want to be able to assure your customers that these are organic, high-quality plants.

What You’ll Need to Get Started

I can’t recommend a good grow light system enough. Hearty plants lead to satisfied customers. Everyone who picked up plants surveyed their box or bag and were very excited to dish out the cash to me. I’m pretty sure they will be repeat customers. But without a grow light set up my plants would have inevitably been leggy and skinny. Aside from your overall growing location, you will need:

Great seeds. I can’t stress this enough. Great germination is key or you won’t have time to grow the full amount you had hoped to sell.
Compost
Potting soil
Disposable cups with drainage holes drilled in the bottom
Some larger disposable options as well, for the plants that need up-potting (and will bring you more money too). I use large plastic tubs, think xl sour cream, xl margarine tubs, bubble gum tubs. You can even ask on local facebook groups for these containers in the winter ahead and stockpile them.
Sharpie for labeling as you plant
Many strong box trays or seedling trays for transporting your cups of seeds/seedlings/plants around the growing areas and outside when it’s time to start hardening them off. Over the next 10 weeks, you will be moving these around a LOT. It’s worth the investment in some sturdy trays.

What You Need to Send Plants Home with Customers

Start stocking up on the perfect sized cardboard boxes if you can a few weeks before it’s time to sell the plants. Aldi’s and BJs is a perfect spot, and I keep any packaging boxes that are delivered to our home too.
Packaging tape is a great way to secure the cups of plants to the inside wall of boxes they’re being transported home in.
Brown bags are handy for transport as well. If you cut off the top and use them as a (flimsy) tray of sorts
Plastic shopping bags are nice to use to line the bottom of paper bags or boxes for transport, incase the plants are leaking water or dirt.
Old newspaper is great to shove in around the cups of the plants to keep them in place in their packaging box or bag.
Cash for change. When they pick up their plants they may not have exact change.

This Sunrise Bumblebee tomato plant was very tall and a little fragile, so I secured the cup (the orange one) to the back of a tall box with packaging tape and nestled the customer’s other two (smaller) plants in a brown lunch bag (with the top cut off) to keep them in place in front of the bumblebee. Then I filled the rest of the box with a few inches of crumpled up newspaper. Customers genuinely appreciate the little extra effort you take to help them get their plants home safely.

Things to Think About When You do Your Inventory

I can only give you my own example, from this year (my first at doing this). In fact, I didn’t mean to get into the seeding business at all. I just got really over-eager when I was planting my seeds this year and was shocked with I counted my total about a month after I had planted. I had 219 plants, but only room in my garden for about 125.

So I itemized my inventory and decided three things before listing plants for sale:

What plants I wanted for my own garden. (The only plants I had extra of were tomatoes. I only had enough peppers, basil, oregano, chicory, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts for myself. I guess I was just feeling extra happy when I was planting tomato seeds.)
What plants I might want extras of. (Something always dies once they go in the garden, so were there some plants I wanted to keep extras of?)
What plants I wanted to set aside to gift to my daughter or friends who may not have the means to buy plants (I helped Logan turn over her first-ever garden last week–happy day!)

How to Decide What to Charge

The best advice I can give you is to go to a high-quality nursery and see what they’re charging. If your plants look nice and healthy, most potential customers are willing to pay you slightly more than they’d spend at a nursery if you’re offering varieties of plants that are hard to find and that they know are organically grown.

It’s a difficult game to play to decide ideal planting time, but of course the bigger your plants the more you can charge. If they get too big you have the problem of having to stake them (I just use twigs I gather in the yard and twine) and up-pot them.

I decided to charge a range based on plant maturity. It’s all arbitrary, but it worked for me. I asked customers what they wanted, picked through my inventory for the ideal plants for them, pulling out the largest/most beautiful first, and quoted them a total based on plant maturity ($5 for very small, $7 for average, $9 for large). My plan was to down-size their plants if anyone bulked a little at the total, but honestly no one did. I always made sure they knew I was pulling out the most mature, healthiest plants for them and reiterated that they were heirloom (if they were) and organic.

Also, a few of my customers didn’t come through until my final “advertising” (which was just posting to a few relevant local fb groups, no real “ads” going on). At that point I had tended the plants an extra 2 weeks beyond my first sales. Factoring in my extra time spent with caring for and hardening off these plants, and the fact that they were considerably taller now, I upped my range to $7 (all small or medium size) or $14 (the largest ones).

What Your Profit Might Look Like

So, in the end, after setting aside extra plants for myself and Logan, I only had 59 plants to sell.

Yeah, not a whirlwind entrepreneurial adventure here. But still worth documenting so I can expand wisely next year, given what I learned this year. Here are my numbers:

59 plants
10 paying customers
$401 in sales

I thought it was interesting that in the end I made almost $7 per plant, which of course was the average price. (Math is funny that way, huh?)

So after all is said and done I figure my own large garden was free this year… I imagine $401 more than covers the seeds and any other expenses I will have (staking, fertilizer, pots/containers, and straw for mulching) and in a weird way it was kinda fun… 5th grade Michelle, who loved to play “store,” came out in full force last Saturday when I had customers messaging and popping in through out the day.

EDIT to add: I had more expenses than I expected after doing a Soil Test, and finding out how badly my soil needed amending. I shared here about my soil problems in my garden.

If I want to upscale my plant-selling operation, I could pretty easily make a few thousand dollars next year. Of course I would need to invest in more growing shelves and lights, so the first year that would eat into that profit.

It was so fun, and honestly rewarding to be helping others grow their own food this year, I might give it a whirl in a future year.

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me (with the hashtag #simpleDIYkombucha) on ig to show me your plants and garden @souly.rested.

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Which varieties of tomatoes are best to dehydrate

Michelle — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 20:41:29 +0000

Why Dehydrate Tomatoes?

My dehydrator is my best friend these days. The garden surplus is overwhelming and I hate heating up the kitchen all day long to can tomato sauce. In fact, I have never been a fan of canning tomatoes. I felt like I boiled them down all day long and my final product was never quite right.

But dehydrating? Yes, please!

The dehydrating process completely retains a food’s original nutritional value! Most food preservation decreases a food’s nutritional content, but dehydrating retains all the protein, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, and vitamins. Amazing, right?

Given that scientific studies have shown that eating tomatoes decreases risk of cancer (source), not to mention all the other healthful reasons to enjoy veggies, dehydrated tomatoes are my new favorite thing.

And it’s so easy to slice up the tomatoes, fill the trays, and turn the dehydrator on. That’s it. And I’ll have amazing tomatoes all winter long. I list the many ways to use dehydrated tomatoes right here.

Which Tomatoes are Best for Dehydrating?

I grew 6 varieties of tomatoes in my garden this year and I can definitely tell you they are not all created equal when it comes to dehydrating. Some varieties of tomatoes are definitely better for dehydrating than others. But I should add that you can do a bang-up job dehydrating absolutely any tomato, so if you have a less-than-ideal variety on hand, don’t be discouraged, your results will still be fantastic.

I’m going to break down the 6 varieties I dehydrated this year and share the results with you.

Golden Queen

Golden Queen tomatoes are not only a gorgeous orange color (I love using them–and Lemon Boys–in salsa), but they’re wonderfully meaty, with not a lot of seeds. This means they’re less watery than most tomatoes and great candidates for nice, efficient dehydrating.

Not to mention that fresh-sliced Golden Queen tomatoes have been the backbone of some of the best BLTs all summer long around here.

Blue Beauty

This was my first year growing Blue Beauty tomatoes, but I’m in love. They’re so pretty on the vines, almost looking like large, gorgeous plums. The tops are deep blue and the bottoms a pretty pink/purple color. While the tomatoes are average with amount of seeds/juice when you slice them, they slice so evenly and nicely. The fact that they make firm, easy, uniform slices made them my favorite to dehydrate this year.

And, bonus, they retain their gorgeous skin color after they’re dehydrated.

Lemon Boy

I love the flavor and surprising color of a Lemon Boy tomato. They’re my favorite tomato addition to both tossed salad and pico de gallo. But they’re my least favorite tomato to dehydrate. They’re very watery and have a good amount of seeds, so they seemed to take longer in the dehydrator than most other varieties and they final outcome was more fragile and flimsy than many others.

German Pink

I love a perfect sized tomato that offers a generous, meaty slice to make the perfect tomato sandwich or BLT. These German Pink tomatoes have never let me down. So I was very happy to find out how wonderfully they dehydrate as well. They’re pretty efficient at dehydrating and easy to slice uniformly too. It may be a drop-dead three-way tie between German Pink, Golden Queen, and Blue Beauty, honestly.

Hillbilly

I’ll be straight out honest about this variety. I saw the name of it years ago and wanted to grow it immediately, just because it was a nod to my daddy, my gardening inspiration who always referred to himself, without reservation, as a hillbilly.

It turns out this Hillbilly tomato is a good tomato. A little seedier and juicier than is ideal for dehydrating, but it yields a nice result. It just doesn’t get as dry as I would like, as quickly as a meatier variety.

Black Cherry Tomatoes

These Black Cherry tomatoes are my favorite cherry tomatoes. I love their large size that makes them so easy to chop up quickly for pico de gallo. Yet they’re not too big to pop in your mouth in one large bite of an antioxidant-ladden snack. It turns out they dehydrate well too, as far as cherry tomatoes go.

Cherry tomatoes, by their nature, take a much longer time to dehydrate than large slices of less seedy, less watery tomatoes. And I guess you could say these extra-large cherry tomatoes are a little more of a hassle to prepare for the dehydrator trays than smaller cherry tomatoes, which simply need to be cut in half. To reduce the dehydrating time, I like to slice out the middle section of these, creating two halves along with the middle slice.

Cherry tomatoes shrivel up to tiny little dehydrated tomatoes, but these extra-large ones are still a nice little size. And their dark, almost black, color sure makes a pretty dehydrated tomato.

In an upcoming post I’ll break down the details on how to dehydrate tomatoes. And in my last post, I listed 10 ways I love to use dehydrated tomatoes.

What is the Best Dehydrator?

I have tried many different dehydrators over the years, trying to save money with lower priced ones. I’ve also dehydrated many herbs by hanging them to air dry and many veggies by spreading them out on baking trays on the dashboard of my car on a hot sunny day.

While there are many ways to dehydrate without fancy equipment, and many lower priced dehydrating machines on the market that are fine, I can tell you I will never go back to any other way now that I have found the top echelon of dehydrators.

This is my dehydrator and I whole heartedly recommend it to anyone who asks.

Listen in to More About my Dehydrator

I talk about my dehydrator, and why I’m in love with it–along with 11 other kitchen tools I’m kinda obsessed with–in this episode of my podcast:

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your delicious dehydrated food @souly.rested.

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Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

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7 Tips for Container Planting

Michelle — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 15:14:56 +0000

Container plants were always something I avoided like the plague in my garden.

Don’t get me wrong, I always loved the way they look and always wanted to try container gardening, but, well, I’m awful at manual, regular watering. I can turn on the sprinkler when things get dry and (maybe) remember to turn it off 1/2 hour later, but manually watering containers… often… well, I was sure I would fail.

But I decided to try my hand at growing container plants a few years ago, and I will never look back. Especially after I learned a secret to success with container gardening. I shared the details of my secret in this 30-second video on instagram. But you’ll find that secret, as well as all the best tips for success with container gardening, below as well.

Why I Want to Grow Some Plants in Containers

There are 3 main reasons I want to grow some plants in pots:

1. Container planting controls invasive plants.

First and foremost, planting invasive plants like mint in containers, well contains them. I love to avoid extra work in the garden whenever possible. And digging up and dividing invasive plants every year is not on my list of ways I want to spend my time. I love mint. In fact, I’m growing four types of mint this year:

Sweet Mint (these plants make dried herbs that I add to iced tea)
Peppermint (these are the seeds)
Chocolate Mint (this plant is as pretty as the tea is delicious that I make with)
Spearmint (like this)

As I expanded the varieties of mint and other herbs that I was growing, and as I perfected ways of drying my herbs, I knew containers were no longer an option. Not if I wanted to avoid having my entire garden bed becoming full of invasive herbs.

2. Container planting means your plants can be moved.

Every year there is always something failing in the garden, whether it’s death-by-squash-bugs, or torrential winds, or chipmunk invasion, there is bound to be something that dies and leaves an ugly bare spot in my garden. With thriving, moveable plants available to me, I can rearrange my plantings and still have a pretty garden, no matter what might ail it.

3. Container planting allows you to easily overwinter plants inside.

In a cold New England winter, being able to tuck dormant plants away in the basement of my barn means that most will come back to life in the spring, with a little sun and water.

Tips for Success with Container Planting

1. Make sure you have good drainage when you’re planting in containers.

The galvanized metal planters I wanted to use in my garden were intended as cold drink tubs, so they of course didn’t have drainage holes. That’s fine, with the right drill bit, that was super easy to correct.

2. Make sure your container plants are level and the drainage holes work well.

Our garden is on a slight slope, so I always have to prop up my planters with a brick or two underneath so that they sit level. This works out well to making sure it can drain well too.

3. Use the right kind of containers.

If you’re not using glazed pots, which help prevent evaporation of the important water you add, make sure you do other things to help your containers maintain moisture. (Keep reading.)

4. Mulch your container plants.

Adding a layer of mulch or rocks to the top of your containers. (Rocks are my preference by far, since I live in the Granite State and I’m overrun with rocks of all sizes) This will help the soil maintain more of the moisture that you add with each watering session.

5. Keep the roots cool in the containers.

If you want to use metal plant containers like mine you may find your roots just can’t take the heat. Solutions would be to place your plant where it gets a moderate mount of shade on hot days, surround it by other plants that will shade it, or line your metal container with newspaper to insulate the dirt and roots a little from the sun’s heat. Someday I am going to make some plant pots that will be nice and cool for the plants’ roots.

6. Water your container plants at the best time of day.

If you can, water in early morning or late evening when it’s cooler temperatures and the sun isn’t so hot that it’ll cook off the water you add before the roots get any benefit from it.

7. Automate the way you water your container plants.

While a drip irrigation system would be ideal (seriously, check out these awesome options) for watering outdoor potted plants, I’ve been doing something much cheaper (okay, free) for many years that works pretty well for me. It doesn’t replace my watering, but if definitely means I can water a lot less and my plants survive.

Keep reading…

How I Water My Container Plants on Auto Pilot for FREE

We live on a 200+ year old homestead. And we find a lot of treasures on the property, including some really neat old bottles with some great stories. Those bottles turn out to serve as perfect waterers for my container plants. You of course can use any old bottle you want. Saving up wine bottles would be ideal.

Here are the steps to using bottles to water your container plantings:

Salvage bottles with long “necks” (pretty colors are ideal too) and remove the labels. (Or don’t.)
Prepare a hole in the dirt of your container plants where you’d like the bottle to serve as an automatic waterer.
Water your container plant well (if you insert the bottle into dry dirt, the water will seep out of your waterer pretty quickly)
Fill your bottle with water by submerging it in a bucket of water (it’s full when the bubbling subsides) or using the spigot or a watering can.
Quickly flip your filled bottle upside down (without any lid), right into the hole you prepared.
Check your bottle a few times a week and refill as needed.

Check out this amazing bottle we found on our homestead (I’m NOT using this one as a bottle waterer) and the story behind it.

Now Talk to Me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your gardens & container plantings today (I love garden-spiration!) @souly.rested.

8 Gardening Tips and Tricks Inspired by the Pros

Michelle — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 22:24:29 +0000

Yes, the pros have a lot of gardening tips and tricks for backyard gardeners like us. Because innovative growing techniques aren’t just for commercial growers, guys. These techniques can be tweaked and used right in your own garden. Whether you’re looking to increase your food production or minimize the long hours you spend working up a sweat in the garden, these practices are definitely worth exploring, even here on my little New England homestead.

This post contains affiliate links & I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Go here to read the full disclosure about that if you love fascinating legal language.

8 Gardening Tips and Tricks Inspired by the Pros

Here in my garden on our New England homestead I pretty much rely on sweat labor and lots of organic pest control. This is my favorite organic bug spray that uses ingredients you have in your kitchen right now.

But I love being inspired by tips and tricks I learn by watching the pros. The commercial growers use technology, like hydroponics, vertical farming, and artificial intelligence, to maximize their growing potential. This might include minimizing labor, improving sustainability, reducing resource inputs, or growing food even when there’s no suitable farmland available.

And guess what? We can all learn something from the way the big guys do this thing called “gardening.” We can adapt and scale down some of these brilliant ideas to maximize our own growing efforts in our home gardens… Here are just 8 tips & tricks from professional gardeners and farmers that have inspired me. Please comment below and share the techniques that have inspired you!

(Thanks, btw, to Nicole McCray for her help, behind the scenes, pulling this article together. Sneak a peek at Nicole’s writing portfolio here.)

1. Think Vertical Farming, Indoors

Indoor vertical farming can be useful to the home gardener in a number of ways. It allows you to grow food even when you don’t have room for an outdoor garden, grow food more quickly, grow food year-round, and grow more in a small space. It also allows you to grow food with less water and fewer pests. This vertical garden is ingenious.

In an indoor vertical farming system, the plants are grown in towers or on shelves that are stacked from floor to ceiling to maximize space. The home gardener could use grow lights in a basement, garage, spare room, or even a large closet for this type of setup. I loved my seeding set up this year, the first year I ever had anything beyond the bathroom counter, shelves, and window ledges (yep, I’ve been gardening my whole life without a seedling set up guys, it can be done.)

My simple shelving unit (this is it, right here) transformed an extra bedroom into lots of growing space.

2. Continue Your Vertical Gardening, Outdoors

Of course outdoor gardens can also maximize the space with vertical gardening and lots of trellises. Our plain-jane trellis that Bill and Kayla put together with some 2x4s, metal posts, and i-hooks is the perfect system for me to string twine from to hold our climbing beans and tall-climbing peas this year. So I will harvest a whole lot of food in this narrow little section of the garden.

Next year I plan to add a few of these vertical gardens along the fence as a perfect spot to grow more food… probably strawberries. Mmmmm.

3. Turn on the Automation in Your Gardens

The big growers often use artificial intelligence in agriculture, which is just a fancy term for the fact that they automate things. Automation allows commercial growers to create the perfect growing conditions for their plants so they grow faster, produce more, and stay healthier.

In your home garden, you can utilize grow lights on timers, hydroponics, fans, misting systems, and climate control to create the same effects. Check out all of these amazing irrigation options. Or just start by automating your watering with this solar timer for your hose.

4. Heck, Turn on the Automation in Other Ways too

Smart farming, or farming automation, simply means using modern technology to improve production and efficiency on commercial farms. While you’re probably not going to be using self-driving tractors or drones in your home garden (although my SILs may someday hook me up with some garden drones, right Ayden and Alex?), there are lots of tasks you can automate on a smaller scale.

You can start by “automating” your seasonal activities… make a personalized list of what needs to be done each season and stick to it. You’ll save yourself so much time and heartache in the long run.

Start right here, with the Ultimate Checklist.

You can also take advantage of modern gadgets to minimize your labor input and improve your garden production. For example, adding an automatic irrigation system on a timer to your hose like this solar-powered one allows you to water and fertilize your crops while you’re sleeping, on vacation, or working on other tasks.

If you’re a homesteader with livestock, don’t forget about automatic feeders, waterers, and coop doors to save you time when it comes to caring for your critters. I can’t imagine not having an automatic water system for the chickens and the automatic feeder for the pigs. These kinds of things save so much time and energy, plus they mean that the animals are rarely without food and water, even on the days I’m slacking.

Read more about what I grow in my garden for the chickens, and about processing pigs at home.

5. Add Some Hydroponics

Most vertical farms utilize hydroponics, but it can also be used outdoors, or in a greenhouse as well. Hydroponics is really gaining popularity these days. It’s definitely less labor-intensive, and, bonus, once you invest in your initial setup, it’s said to save you money.

In a hydroponics system, the water and nutrients are reused over and over again. There’s very little evaporation and no risk of runoff into the local water supply. All of the water and nutrients are actually used by the plants. With a traditional garden, much of the water and nutrients applied are lost to evaporation and runoff.

With a hydroponics system, you can create ideal growing conditions for your garden. You’re also delivering the water and nutrients directly to the roots of your plants, which is always a good thing for gardeners. This lets your plants invest their energy into growing and producing food. Our ultimate goal, yes?

Do you love gardening and think you want to venture into homesteading on a larger scale? Here are 6 ways to start homesteading now. But first, ask yourself these 12 questions.

6. Do Soil Testing. Often.

If you’re not doing a soil test at the beginning of each growing season, you are really missing out on a good thing. Soil testing can help the home gardener maximize their yields and keep money in their wallet, in the long run. You see, if you skip the soil test, you’re applying amendments blindly, whether you need them or not.

Read all about my soil testing experience. (Wow was I messing up!)

You can check with your local extension office to find a lab that processes soil samples for home gardeners. This will give you the most detailed information. But you can also purchase a home soil testing kit to find out which nutrients you need most and what the pH of your soil is. (Use code SOULYRESTED to save 15%!)

If you’re an urban farmer, I’m told having your soil tested for heavy metal is especially important. Certain metals, like zinc, copper, and iron, aren’t a problem for you or plants. But arsenic, lead, and cadmium are. A soil test will tell you what’s going on with your soil and what you can do to set things right.

7. Introduce Beneficial Insects for Pest Control

The next time you see some caterpillars munching on your cabbage, consider ordering up some parasitic wasps instead of breaking out any chemicals. We all struggle with pests from time to time, but beneficial insects can get them under control quickly with chemicals that can be harmful to you and the environment.

Ladybugs are a popular beneficial insect for home gardeners who struggle with aphids. But there are lots of different options, including green lacewings and praying mantises, depending on what type of pest is causing the damage.

Insects also do the important job of pollination, and they improve soil fertility while attracting even more beneficial insects to your garden who see them as a food source. You can order them in advance and release them when the time is right, as long as their preferred food sources are available to help them survive and do their job.

Added bonus, all garden insects give you lots of great reason to start a Backyard Book with your kids or grandkids. Our family has always treasured what we’ve learned by closely observing the insect world in our own backyard.

And if you want to know more about the best pollinators, I share here some about our beekeeping efforts.

And don’t forget about the other beneficial garden residents that you have around naturally, if you just know how to attract them.

8. Consider Greenhouses and High Tunnels

The pros use greenhouses and high tunnels to give them more control over the growing environment. Of course you can use these same options, on a smaller scale, in your home garden for the same purpose.

Did you know you could start with a greenhouse for only $50? Modern high tunnels and greenhouses can be scaled up or down to suit your space, in fact, you’ll be amazed at the selection you find here, at my absolute favorite source for greenhouses, hoop houses, high and low tunnels, and so much more.

But this one is just a dream for me right now. Someday… and wow will it be great…

Greenhouses and hoop tunnels can extend your growing season by a month or more in late fall and early spring. You’ll find you can start plants earlier, grow some things later, or even grow crops that require a longer growing season than your location normally allows. Something I crave deeply here in my New England gardens.

You can also do your spring seed starting right in your greenhouse. You’ll find the best seed starting supplies right here, btw. I, of course, start seeds without a greenhouse, so you can save a ton of money over buying started plants without a greenhouse. But what would life be like to not have garden plants strung out across bathroom counters, deep window ledges, and tables everywhere, all spring?

The Bottom Line When it Comes to Any Gardening Tip Inspired by the Pros

We all get in a rut sometimes, but looking at some of the brilliant techniques that the pros are using can inspire us to switch up our gardening game and maybe even make gardening a little easier and a little more productive. Now that’s a win, yes?

But do I still have seedlings spread out on ledges and tables every where, every spring? Yep.

Find out the story behind my 100-year-old farmhouse table here.

So there you have it… 8 tips & tricks I’ve gleaned by watching professional gardeners and/or farmers.

Now Talk to Me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your gardens today (I love garden-spiration!) @souly.rested.

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The post 8 Gardening Tips and Tricks Inspired by the Pros first appeared on Souly Rested.

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