Category: Gardening Tools & Equipment

We have all seen the mini greenhouses in the garden centers – seed trays with a clear, plastic cover that is often so flimsy it doesn’t last much past the essential time period needed to get those seeds off to a good start.  The seed trays often have a longer lifespan than the cover, and this is ok, to a point, because there are other ways we can recreate the greenhouse effect. I have found some success in storing the clear cover inverted underneath the seed tray as the tray is still in use (as they are often purchased), which prevents it from being in the way, however it doesn’t last very long even when stored that way because it is such thin plastic.

First let’s discuss why a cover is necessary for starting your seeds: A clear cover over the top of seeds just started helps retain moisture and heat that will keep the top layer of the seed starting medium favorable for new seedlings to emerge, and provide a beneficial atmosphere for the new seedling to grow.  Without that cover, the seed starting medium can develop a crust, making it hard for new seedlings to emerge, and the environment that it sprouts into can be cold and unwelcoming.  Some seedlings are more sensitive than others, but it’s generally a good idea to provide some sort of a cover until the seedlings have sprouted, especially if you are starting the seeds somewhere in your home that has varying temperatures and/or dry air.

If you are in need of a makeshift cover, in years past I have put the seedling trays or containers in plastic bags and tucked the ends under the tray, and I have also laid plastic wrap over the top of the containers and it is lifted as soon as I notice seedlings starting to sprout.  Poke some small holes in the cover so developing seedlings can still breathe. After seedlings have begun to sprout, I often remove the cover all together, however some seedlings will benefit from continued covering until they have grown a little more.  For plastic coverings that need to be raised off the surface of sprouting seedlings, I have inserted popsicle sticks or similar materials around the corners and some supports on the inside to lift the plastic off the surface of the seed starting medium.

Are seed starting trays with the plastic domes necessary?  While they are helpful, they are not vitally necessary.  There are other containers that will offer the same benefit, that you may already have laying around your home.

Salad trays, rotisserie chicken trays, berry containers, and other takeout containers that have a solid-bottomed container with a clear top will work perfectly.  You may need to add some holes at the bottom to allow drainage and in the top if it is not already vented.  You can also use a milk jug or plastic pop container with the label removed.  Cut the containers in half leaving them connected on one side so you can insert your seed starting medium and seeds, then close the container again.  You may want to tape the container together on the opposite end to keep the top end from lifting.

Another way I have made mini greenhouses is by buying the $1 plastic shoe boxes at the dollar store and drill a few air holes in the box, then use the lid as the tray that holds the seed starting containers and set the box over the lid.

In what ways have you made an “unconventional” mini greenhouse?  Feel free to share what has worked for you!

Gardening and tilling go together like peanut butter and jelly. But should they?

Every spring, tillers are pulled out of storage or rented, and started up all over the country as gardeners begin to break ground for their new garden season. Tillers will produce a flat, empty, often eye-appealing new slate that is fun to put new seedlings or seeds into. Every fall, gardeners typically till one last time to distribute compost, grind up the seasons plants so they can decompose over the winter, and prepare their garden for the long winter months.

Maybe you don’t have access to a tiller, and it is preventing you from starting your garden.

Let’s take a minute to talk about tilling, and decide if you really need one or not. If you decide to go with raised beds, a tiller is unnecessary. But if you have in-ground beds, you may discover it isn’t necessary for that, either.

Your need for a tiller will depend on a few things. If you are preparing a garden spot in the fall, you could till the grass and weeds under now, cover with cardboard, some compost and a layer of heavy mulch (you would not be tilling again in the spring). The cardboard will smother weeds for now, break down over the winter, the mulch will settle, and the compost will decompose. A word of warning though – if you have weeds that multiple through roots – such as Thistle, you would be better off simply hand-pulling and smothering the remaining weeds vs. cutting up the roots, because in some weeds, each bit of cut up root will sprout a new weed. It can quickly turn into a disaster. Even with smothering, you may need to continually top your garden bed with cardboard and mulch for a few years to starve those persistent weeds out but with diligence, they do eventually go away. I would not recommend tilling your soil and leaving it bare over the winter, as rain and snow can badly compact that top layer, leave it open to erosion, and weeds will readily sprout as soon as they can in the spring. That is why I do recommend covering your tilled area with cardboard, compost, and mulch. If those cannot be obtained, you may cover your garden using other means (check out my post on mulch) or plant a cover crop if you have enough time.

If you don’t have access to a tiller, don’t fret! Instead of tilling and then covering the bare soil, you could simply lay cardboard right down on the grass you wish to turn into a garden spot, top with compost and mulch, and let it rest all winter. In fact – I did this early in the spring last year and it worked spectacular – the only issue I had was getting through the layer of cardboard and initial soil was a little difficult because the cardboard hadn’t yet broken down and the soil was still compacted at the top layer- by the end of the season, compaction was gone thanks to the earthworms that took up residence!

In the fall, tilling is not necessary in a no-till garden – simply refresh compost and mulch. If you have a stubborn spot of thistle or another annoying weed that is hard to get rid of, smother it with another layer of cardboard right on top of your existing mulched bed. Top with compost and mulch, and let the smothering continue. It may take a few years, but if you prevent the weeds from going to seed or spreading, the repeated smothering will deplete the plants energy, thus prohibiting its ability to continue reproducing.

Tilling will allow for an instant garden, should you use a tiller in the spring. It will aerate your soil, spread amendments, give you a pretty new slate to plant in, chop up grass and weeds which will break down quickly. It does have some big drawbacks though – it can lead to compaction lower in your soil (which can hamper you roots and lead to bad drainage), slices apart the biology in your soil that keeps it functioning and fertile, bring up weed seeds that will sprout, and destroys soil structure. You should also avoid planting seeds directly in a newly tilled bed, as the broken up fresh green matter can prohibit germination. By the time the soil is ready to plant in, weeds will likely have taken over if you have not yet covered the soil with something.

You can reduce the harmful effects of tilling by tiling only when necessary, add organic matter every time you till, and change the depths at which you till each time to avoid compaction further down in the soil. Also, do not till if the soil is too wet.

Tilling Alternatives:

If you would like to use tillage to prepare your garden, but cannot access a tiller, there are still other options for turning the soil – a pitchfork can be used to turn dirt over (or better yet, simply loosen soil – you can hand pull weeds easily from there), a broadfork, or a hand tiller (may I also advise you that this will be a great workout as you twist and turn! I used one of these for a few years to till my smaller gardens back in the city).

If you choose to try gardening that doesn’t require tillage, I would love to hear from you. If you already prepare a garden that is no-till, or no-dig, I would love to hear about your experiences so far.

One of my goals this fall was to become more intentional with my composting. I have always done a “let it sit” approach, which seems to have worked well – but it also takes quite a while, too. As I learned (and continue to learn) about hot composting, I learned that the compost will be turned quite a bit.

Earlier this fall I build a compost bin out of extra fence posts we had hanging around. It wasn’t a permanent set up, because eventually we will use the posts as, well, fence posts for pasture. But they could serve a purpose now, by holding materials for compost. I felt like a kid again, as if I were playing with lincoln logs… haha. I thought it might actually hold my actual compost pile, until I realized how turning the pile worked. I would want to have full access to all the sides of the pile. I could remove the front posts, because I inserted bits of cut up fence post to support the remaining sides – the front posts could just be pulled right out without interfering with the integrity of the bins. But I figured that wouldn’t be enough. So for now, it holds leaves and browns on one side, and greens on the other. Once I use up all the greens this season, it will hold finished compost. If I have any left to sit around.

So a couple of my kids and I built compost cages. We had some woven wire fencing up in a pen that needed to come down. The fencing wasn’t big enough to really use anywhere else but it would be perfect to build a few compost cages from.

This was a great opportunity for math to come to life. We had to calculate the circumference of the bin if we wanted a 6ft. diameter, measure the fencing with a measuring wheel, and cut. But before we cut, we needed to measure the whole length and find out if we could get more than a couple compost cages out of the length of fencing – at some point I would want more than one going at a time. So, we measured length, divided by our needed circumference, and found out we could get about 4 cages. We rounded the circumference to make them all about the same size, then cut.

Before we began putting the cage together, I piled all of our fresh ‘greens’ into the garden aisle and had my daughter run the pile over with the lawn tractor to chop it into bits. Having everything in small bits leads to more surface area and quicker composting.

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After dragging them out to the garden, I used zip ties to secure the ends together (this was a mistake), set it up as round as I could, and began layering the cage with my browns, greens and manure. Using Elaine Inghams method, this worked out to be 60% browns, 30% greens, and 10% manure. We counted how many rows of wire were on the fencing and discovered there were 12 – so if we filled the cage up to the 10th row, we could divide the compost layers up based on the height of each row – two rows of brown, 1 row of green, a thin layer of manure, 2 rows of brown, 1 row of green, manure, repeat. Some people also use 10, 5-gallon buckets to get the right amounts, but you would need do that quite a few times in order to have a pile large enough to heat up enough.

I mentioned using zipties as my mistake – they hold just fine, but when it comes time to turn the pile, I will need to remove the cage. Remember how I mentioned wanting access to all the edges of the compost pile to turn it? Well, to turn a compost pile, the top goes on the bottom of another cage, then the outsides go to the inside, and you will the outside of the cage up with what was once the inside. So in order to use my original compost bin made of fence posts, I could be limited on three sides. That is why I built the cage. My plan was simply to cut the zip ties and unwind the fencing but after a few times that creates a lot of unnecessary waste. So now, my plan will be to use bungee cords!

Making a compost cage was very easy and very quick – and will be very effective. Hopefully you can do the same!

A dibble board is a great tool to have around to help with quick and easy seed spacing. Spacing is important for optimal performance of your plants – if your plants are too close together they will compete with one another for nutrients and water – and pest/disease problems are more likely as well. However, proper spacing can take a bit of extra time and effort, depending on your garden layout, or you end up wasting seed later by thinning your seedlings to reach proper spacing. Who wants to waste seed or time? Sometimes both?

A dibble board is designed to reduce both time and waste in the garden. You can spend money buying one already made, or you can probably make one yourself with odds and ends you already have laying around the house and very basic skills with tools.

What have I tried in the past?

In years past I have broadcast some seeds over the beds and thin later (that equated to lots of seed waste and far too much time trying to thin), I figured time saved just getting seed in the ground would outweigh what it would take later, to thin. Later, I then broadcast in rows, so at least the seedlings would be in the same general area instead of all over. Still, lots of seed waste and time. My next attempt was to use a string tied from one end of the garden bed to the other, marking my rows. I tried to space my seeds along the string. In some cases, I tied knots at regular intervals along the string so I didn’t need to guess too badly at spacing. I have also used a ruler (I’m a perfectionist of sorts….) and tried to set a single seed or just a few in small holes I dug. The string was helpful to keep my rows straight, and I still use a string today to help guide my rows. Making an extra effort to ensure seed spacing and single/double seeds per hole did reduce seed loss by a lot – but the time spent seeding increased.

A few years ago I had an idea – create a board (or several) with pegs that could make holes in the ground and were evenly spaced so I could pop seeds in the holes and get my seeding done quickly. I put together a dibble board, and it has been a great tool that I have been using for years.

I am going to issue a caution here: I used scrap pieces, it’s not beautiful, there could be a better way to go about doing this…. BUT it’s functional and has worked for the past three seasons. That’s a win in my book.

So here is how I did it:

I used a 2×4, a dowel rod (probably 1 inch? It was in the burn pile attached to something so I’m not sure on diameter, but diameter really isn’t important here) and screws. I cut the dowel rod in short segments – maybe an inch but it could (and probably should) be shorter to an average depth of the seeds you plant. Considering very few direct sown seeds are planted at an inch depth, this was one of my mistakes – but I can reduce how far I push this into the dirt and I can control how much soil I fill the holes in with, so I am mindful of proper depth. Then I screwed the dower rods on the bottom of a 2×4 that was cut to the width of my garden. I used a yardstick and measured the distance I wanted the pegs to be. I left a margin of about 6 inches on either side of the board so I wasn’t planting right up to the edge of my garden bed (plant overhang would likely get damaged as I cut my garden aisles, so I felt 6 inches was a good starting point. My beds are about 4 ft. wide, so that is about how long my board is.

After attaching pegs to one side, I then picked a different length and did the other side. I have 2, 4, 6, 12, 18 and 24 inch spacing, two different spacing per board.

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Here is how I use it:

I have found this can only be used on bare dirt, so if you have mulched beds your experience may vary. You will have to push the mulch aside to get to the dirt layer (ideally on an already established bed). If your bed has been sitting for a while, your soil hopefully won’t be too compact to use it, a simple clearing of the mulch and pressing the board in the area you cleared will hopefully work. If not, loosen the top layer of the soil somehow – using a hoe, pitchfork, or some other such tool. You don’t want t turn over the whole bed, or even go deep, just deep enough to leave an indentation from the pegs.

I till some of my beds to break the top layer of soil up a bit. Then I get down on my knees with my hands at either end of the board, and using the board with the narrow side touching the dirt, I move the board back and forth to smooth the surface of my bed. if I don’t do this, there will be areas of the garden bed that the pegs don’t’ reach because the soil is uneven.

Once the soil is smooth, I take my board and, with the pegs on the bottom of the board, stamp it into the ground.

I created the dibble board originally to be used straight across the width of the bed (which is why I had included the margins on either end), but in order to use it, that required that I kneel and walk in the garden bed, compressing the soil. I later changed up how I used it by using it in segments across the bed, smoothing soil from top to bottom if I am kneeling in the aisle between beds. I then stamp the dibble board in the dirt parallel to the length of the garden bed starting at the side furthest from me, then stamp additional rows coming back to the aisle I am kneeling in, depending on row spacing. I might place some sticks in the dirt to mark my rows at the beginning of the bed, but I can continue to stamp rows further down the bed as I work in segments as wide as my board, continually clearing, then stamping. I can see where the rows were previously stamped, and continue working off of that as far as row spacing.

I ended up looking online after I made these to see if there was anything like it, and I saw dibbles (also made one of those – love it for pricking out seedlings from my plug trays) and wider boards instead of a 2×4. I think those would be great to use, if they lined up well with the size of your garden bed. The nice thing about the dibble board I put together is that you can cut the 2×4 to whatever length you need – whether it’s the width of your garden bed or an armspan that is comfortable for you. Whatever you do, don’t make it too big to use comfortably.

Have you made something similar? I’d love to see it!

As a frugal gardener, my gardening tools don’t go much beyond shovels, trowels and rakes. But one year my husband saw this tool in our local hardware store and bought it for me on a whim, thinking maybe I could use it. He had no idea how it worked, if I’d like it, or how much it would change my life. Maybe I am being a little over dramatic, but seriously this tool cuts down HOURS in the garden when I am weeding bare-dirt beds. My kids enjoy using it. Weeding is almost pleasant even for the most anti-weeder.

Meet the Stirrup Hoe.

The type of stirrup hoe I use is a Hula Hoe. It has other names, Action Hoe is another. It comes in a short version, as I have pictured above and here on the side, and a long handled tool with a bigger hoe end that you use standing up. I have both, and I prefer the smaller version because – for me – it’s easier to use. It will give you a great arm workout regardless of which one you use, but I feel like I have more control when I am gardening on my hands and knees so I prefer the shorter tool. The shorter tool cost about $16 or so, and the long handled one was $25 or so. Check your local hardware stores, but if you can’t find them locally I bet you could find them on Amazon.

How to use it:

The tool can be used in a forward, backward, or forward and backward direction depending on your needs. The head is fixed on an angle with some flexion, and the bottom part of the tool that comes in contact with the dirt acts as a blade, slicing weeds apart. Depending on how deep you go, it may pull some smaller weeds out, or slice them apart under the soil line.

The blade is intended to have some wiggle to it, because depending on the direction that you pull it, it will move so the blade is constantly digging into the ground no matter if you are pushing or pulling. If you use more upper body strength, you can dig the hula hoe in the ground and use it to loosen up your soil around your plants. It’s excellent to run over your beds every couple days to slice off all those baby weeds before they ever become a problem in your garden. It’s ease of use cuts off hours of tedious hand-pulling of weeds. It’s narrow enough to run through your rows and you can get right up close and personal with your vegetable plants, slicing off weeds without ever disrupting the root system. When you hand-pull weeds that have taken deep root, it can mess with the root system of the plants you want in your garden bed, leading to stress and shock, which can lead to death of your plants!

Where it won’t work:

Stirrup hoes won’t work well in mulched beds, on wet soil, or with tall weeds. Hand pull the tall weeds and then maintain your beds with the hula hoe – simply finding a few minutes every couple or so days to run it over the soil and remove all the tiny baby weeds will save you so much hassle later on.

Have you ever tried a stirrup hoe?? What do you think about them? You know, if you are local and want to come try it before buying it, let me know! I would be happy to let you test drive one before making the purchase.