garden – Upcycle & Co

Vertical Gardens for $1

By James on November 13th, 2017

At Upcycle and Company, you know how adamant we are about saving money when we garden. We like saving money almost as we like saving space. That’s why I was so excited to stumble upon John Kohler’s post at Growing Your Greens when he went to the 99 Cent Only Store to find himself the materials for a cheap vertical garden. Now, this wasn’t a 99 cents and up, this was a 99 Cent Only store. It’s amazing how much technology is floating around the gardening world right now, but when it comes right down to it, sometimes the simplest idea is also the cheapest idea. That’s something we can get behind.

After all, being pound for pound cheaper than our competitors is something we pride ourselves on. Let’s listen to John for a bit and get ready to #FindYourSoilMate.

This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. I have another exciting episode for you today. I’m outside the 99 only stores, and the 99 only stores are a chain of stores that sell things like it’s like a dollar store basically, and I’m here today to show you guys any products that may help you grow more food at home. Now, while I’m not into a lot of the products that they sell here, they do have some good deals. In the past, I’ve gotten plant clips and seeds and even air pumps for aquariums for $1.

You never, never, know what I’m going to find and every day they always have new stuff. I’m excited to show you guys if there’s anything I the 99 store, or the dollar store, that’ll help you grow more food at home. So, we’re here in the dollar store and we’re inside and there’s literally thousands of items and a lot of them you probably just don’t need.

Cheap Garden Starts

They don’t add any value to your life, but there are a few things here that will allow you to grow more food, and those are the things that I’m here to show you guys today. First off, of course, they have bulbs, a lot of bulbs. Most of these are not edible, but I want to show you guys a couple that are.

You got 12 Dutch onions, that’s 99 cents, defiantly a good deal. Also, they got the red baron Dutch onions. So, these bulbs you could plant not and definitely good to have some onions. So, $1 could grow you 12 onions.

In addition, they got some good deals on some seeds. The seed packet has been picked through a lot. The seeds here are not 99 cents, they’re cents. So, that’s actually 30 cents only, but 20 cents will buy you a packet of squash or cucumber or lettuce or carrots or radishes, even actually the best deal here is this corn here. This was marked at 1.99, 29 cents for a pack of corn seeds. So, next, I’m going to show you guys some planters that are actually stacking planters that they have here at the dollar store.

Cheaper Still?

Now, these are the same, or at least very similar to the ones you just saw. Here they are right here. This is one kind. Once again, cents. These are the stacking planters. You can see this one’s 99 cents. There are no holes in this, so, you know, you’re going to have to pop some holes in it yourself, but, check this out, these are made to stack up very nicely, and they have 2 designs. They have this design and they have these guys over here. This is the circular design. They probably hold very similar amounts of soil. Check it out. For $10 you could get a setup like this. This setup is 10 high and this will grow you 30 plants.

So, you know, definitely a good deal. $10, 30 plants, because of the 99 only store. Now, once again, these are plastic. These are made in Israel, so they may be fairly high quality but they don’t have any holes in them and if you’re going to grow something this tall it can get kind of wobbly, so you may want to drill the holes out in the middle, right through here, and put like a nice tubing through there, like EMT tubing, something like that, to stabilize it and also of course run an irrigation system and make sure you pop those holes in it.

Cheap Vertical Gardens

Now, I’m not a huge fan of plastic, but if plastic planters are going to allow you to grow more food, I’m all for it. So, next I’m going to show you guys planters that I do like, actually, that they have here at 99 only store. They got your standard clay pots. Now, these are nice clay pots. This one pot would be good for like one head of lettuce or some herbs. Actually, it’s really good to grow mint, something like this, grow your mint in here and then plant this underneath the ground so that the mint can’t spread out. So, that’s actually a nice tip, but 99 cents, a nice clay pot, definitely a good deal as well. Besides the pot, they also have potting soil for 99 cents. Now, I don’t recommend the potting soil here. You get hardly anything. This is so light, this is not a good deal, although they make it out to be.

Is it a Good Deal?

So, not everything at the 99 only store is a good deal. Go to a big box store and get some organic potting soil or organic compost instead, but another good item at the 99 only store is this guy right here. You can see it’s only, but it’s these guys. It’s a foldable plant support. You can see here, looks like a standard tomato cage.

They’re showing tomatoes here, but I wouldn’t recommend this for tomatoes. These guys just kind of pop up like this and then there are 3 bars that hold this stable so it collapses for easy storage when you’re done with the season, and, you know, for 99 cents, definitely a good deal, but I would probably only use these and not tomatoes because you know what? This is not even that tall, maybe like 2 feet tall if that.

How to Build Cheap Vertical Gardens

Last thing I want to show you guys here and the 99 cents store that can help you grow more food, especially if you’re growing vertically in cheap vertical gardens, you need to tie so that you can get your plants off the ground so that they can grow vertically ’cause you may have more airspace than you do land if you live in a residential area. These guys right here. This is the first time I’ve seen these at the 99 store. These are clips, and these allow you to basically reuse these clips to pin up your tomatoes and all different kinds, peas and plants to bamboo stakes. It’s 99 cents for 16 reusable, that’s the thing, reusable plant clips. Great deal, and these guys, on the back, are marked 2.95. So, that’s 1/3 off here, and I know that these are definitely a good deal. In addition, they just got your standard flexible plant tape.

Finding the Deal

This stuff might cot 2-3 bucks at a nursery, just 99 cents here, but once again, I’d encourage you guy to get the reusable plant ties instead because you can use this year after year whereas if you just tear this off and tie things, usually that takes more time plus you usually got to throw this stuff away. They also have some tools down here, and a lot of these tools, you know, you guys get what you pay for.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend them. Some of them are nicer, something like this, you know, for $1, a little hand trough or shovel thing, oops, that breaks. I probably wouldn’t recommend some of the stuff that I showed you guys. They also have some irrigation things, like plastic sprinklers and whatnot. Now, once again, you guys get what you pay for and I’d probably recommend you spending a little bit more and getting a lot higher quality items, Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode, learning more about some of these items at the 99 cent only store that’ll help you grow more food at home.

Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingoyurgreens.com. We’ll see you next time and keep on growing…

As found on Youtube

Find Your Soil Mate

Grow A 6 Foot Tomato Plant With A Garden Infrastructure Plan

By James on June 29th, 2017

While Upcycle and Company creates sustainably sourced fertilizer from upcycled waste that is dynamite, we know it isn’t the only piece to the puzzle. One of the most popular vegetables to grow in any backyard or patio garden is the humble, yet versatile, tomato. With its lycopene density, not only is it one of the easiest plants to start with, it is also extremely healthy. As a vining plant, it needs more direction than a toddler, so garden infrastructure is an important part of garden planning.

Garden Infrastructure

The guys over at Grow It Now Garden Products have some of the easiest to implement garden infrastructure that we have seen. This is obviously a step or two above building your own raised garden bed in an hour. While we support the DIY ethic, we also understand it isn’t for everyone.

If growing is really your ultimate goal outcome, you might consider ordering a prefabricated kit. Watch the video below to learn how to grow a six foot tomato plant using the right technique. Native Soil Fertilizer is essentially the afterburner in this engine. While we are focused primarily on tomatoes here, a more comprehensive infrastructure plan might be the next step.

How to Get Started

Hello this is Russel Smith with Grow it Now Garden Products. I am here with you today in my backyard garden to talk about how to grow a six foot tall tomato plant. In one of my previous episodes I planted this tomato plant. What I did was I buried it deep. I dug a hole about two feet deep. I buried my tomato plant in there so that only about six inches was sticking up out of the ground. And then I put an eleven inch miniature greenhouse over that. Staked it down. And then I put the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over that.

Add a Little Sun

What those do is they add heat to the plant so it stimulates plant growth. And since I’ve done that video and shared it with the gardening community I have had a lot of questions come back and the questions are what do I do with the plant when it grows out of the eleven inch miniature greenhouse? Do I take both of them off? And the answer to that is no. Only take the eleven inch miniature greenhouse off and then leave the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over top of it, until it grows out of the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse.

In this case, that was as far as I went. On some of my other tomato plants I actually went to a thirty-six inch miniature greenhouse and added even more growth and plant stimulation to the plant. In that case you are going to have to make sure you come in and shake the plant in order to get the pollination. So with this one, that was the secret sauce.

I dug the hole, buried it deep so that only six inches were sticking out of the ground, put my eleven inch miniature greenhouse over it and then the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over that. Since that video I have also had the question well what do you do for fertilizer? So here’s my secret to fertilizing. Since I’m getting in the ground early, I’m planting my tomatoes early and I’m trying to push the season with the miniature greenhouses.

I like to prepare my garden in the fall for spring planting. So what I’ll do every fall is I put four to six inches of cow manure overtop of the garden and then I till it in really deep. So that is one of the things that I use to fertilize.

#NOrganic Fertilizer

[Editor’s Note] This next section Russel discusses the fertilizer blends he used to achieve this result. Native Soil is an off the shelf fertilizer that meets these criteria. We firmly believe that our sustainably sourced blend is better than “certified organic.” Our future friendly fertilizer blend is as important as any physical garden infrastructure.

The other thing I use to fertilize is I’ll use a dilute solution of fertilizer. Off the shelf fertilizer. So that is a nonorganic way, and then I mix it with other organic fertilizers. So I experiment both ways. If you are a new gardener I would recommend starting out with an off the shelf all-purpose fertilizer and then weaning yourself off of that to a more organic fertilizer. So on this six foot tall tomato plant you can see I have a lot of tomatoes growing. I probably have fifty or so tomatoes on this plant, just going like crazy. And the other thing is that you can see the stems on these up high. Look how thick that stem is.

It is about one inch thick. Down low there is only one stem coming out of the ground and that is feeding off of a massive root base in order to support this whole tomato plant. So tip and trick, burry it deep, put the eleven inch miniature greenhouse overtop of it, eighteen inch overtop of that..

As found on Youtube

Add Native Soil to the Mix

Easy Steps to Growing a City Garden

By James on October 17th, 2016

Gardening may seem very involved and confusing, but if you put in a little study and a lot of practice, you will soon know your way around. I know San Diego is rarely considered a true “city,” but there are a lot of urban spaces that are crying out for healthy gardens. Fortunately, you have discovered this article. It should provide you with all the help you need to increase your gardening skills and confidence, so that your efforts will yield a fruitful and beautiful city garden.

The Basics are the Basics

Starting a garden which is pest-free is easy, if you have healthy soil. Healthy soil encourages vigorous plant growth and makes your garden more resistant to common diseases and insects. High-quality soil that is low on chemicals is key. It’s the first thing you should think about when planning on growing your garden. Even if you’re buying soil from a store in lieu of what your land has given you, setting up the chemistry right is paramount.

Try using annuals and biennials to add color to your flower beds, and brighten them up. Using a variety of flowers allows your flower garden to have a different look each season. They can make a handy, gap-filler between shrubs and perennials located in sunny areas. Some examples include sunflowers, marigolds, petunias, hollyhocks, and cosmos.

If you’re growing food in an urban landscape, choose high yield crops that are nearly fool proof. Ever wonder why so many people grow tomatoes? Think of tomatoes like a bike with training wheels. Everyone starts out there. You’ll skin a few knees, but once you get the hang of tomatoes, feel free to graduate to more finicky grows.

How to Deal with the Urban Nuances

There are home solutions available to combat the powdery mildew you may find on your plants. A lot of this comes from traffic, airplanes and just urban living. Combine baking soda with a small dollop of liquid soap and add it to water. Once a week, spray this solution on your plants and your mildew should disappear in no time. No damage will occur to your plants, and the baking soda is mild and efficient.

Before actually putting plants into your garden, check the type and compostion of your soil. Have a soil analysis completed so you can know what you need to add to have soil which will fully support your garden. A lot of Cooperative Extension locations offer this service, and you can prevent ruining a few crops by identifying the specific steps to take.

Can’t Stress Pests Enough

When gardening, be watchful of stink bugs, particularly in the fall. They love to inhabit peppers, beans, tomatoes and all kinds of fruit varieties. If left uncontrolled, they can cause substantial damage in your garden, so make plans for how to protect your plants from these pests. I know we say this a lot here, but it is important. A pest infestation, especially in an urban environment where they are especially out of place can really put a damper on a new city garden enthusiast’s enthusiasm.

Try and maintain daily aerated and dried plants. Moisture not only attracts parasites, but also makes it easier for your plants to contract diseases. Fungi is a common problem in the world of plants. To control fungi, use a fungicide spray on the area before you notice any problems.

Most of All, Have Fun

Try growing your peas indoors for the first couple months. Seeds will always germinate much better when you first plant them indoors initially. They will also be healthier and hardier, allowing them to better resist pests and disease. You could transplant the seedlings outdoors once they are able to survive and thrive. Start small. Start green. Have fun.

Hopefully, you can now see that becoming a great gardener is not as difficult as you first feared. There is all kinds of information available to the avid gardener. With a few basic tips, you can get off to a good start on your gardening adventure. Follow our tips to start happily on your way.