Do These FIVE Things For Vertical Gardening Success!

what's going on everyone in today's episode I'm going to give you some Surefire tips to help you have success planting up vertigal Planters let's go so for today's episode we're going to planting up a greenstock garden planter now not a sponsor but if you do want to check out green stock go ahead over to amig gardner.com every purchase you make does help support the show so get yourself one but in today's episode we're going to be talking all about these vertical Planters because they can help you grow a ton of food in a small area I love that I've always said that growing vertically can sometimes be better than growing horizontally because if you have a small space if you're in an apartment or a patio or I mean if even if you have a garden like we do at a certain point going out becomes a little bit more difficult than going up and you can grow a whole lot more food and a lot less space so I'm going to get these things set up and then we're going to go through some success tips to really getting your plants Off to the Races and growing well so you can grow the most amount of food in the smallest space so the first success tip I can give you guys when we're filling this up here is you use good soil I cannot stress this enough that when you're going vertically it really is going to help you out to go with high quality soil we're going to be using promix again not a sponsor just the soil that we really have come to know and love it's a really great product has awesome moisture holding capabilities but it's got a lot of perlite for that drainage and it's been amended with dolomitic lime so it's pH neutral it's really going to be awesome for just about anything you're uh you're growing but one of the biggest mistakes I see gardeners making is they buy these really amazing tools to help them grow a ton of food but then they skimp out they cheapen out on the soil and now normally if it was in ground or growing in raised beds I would typically say most Garden soils are going to be fine however if you go with something that's very heavy or very dense what's going to happen is this soil here is over time going to really compact it's really going to restrict that root development and the pots themselves are going to really hold on to too much moisture because the the water doesn't have anywhere to go but the bottom little drainage holes here and so you want the soil to drain very well you want the roots to develop very fast and move throughout the soil very well but you also want to make sure that it doesn't compact because if it does you're going to have real problems and The Roots won't be able to breathe and your plants won't be able to grow so we're again we're going with promix here and we're going to fill it all the way up to the top that's the second mistake I see a lot of gardeners making with these vertical Planters is they only fill them up like 25 30 40% of the way you've got to make sure and I know right I know what you probably think think Luke it seems like it's going to take a lot of soil yes these are the uh the five tiered deep green stock so they are going to take more soil but the nice thing is the fact that it's a lot of soil for your plants to to grow in for what we're planting here we're planting strawberries and if you want your strawberries to survive and thrive you want to make sure that you fill this up as high as you can right because it's only going to be as tall as you have soil the pocket could be 8 in tall but if you only fill it up four or 5 in of soil that's all that your roots are going to have to grow grow in it doesn't matter how deep the pocket is if you don't utilize it so make sure you fill it all the way up because over time the soil will settle a little bit and also because you're growing in a container The Roots can't leave this space so you want to make sure you fill it up please do that it's a big mistake because a lot of gardeners will simply say I'm going to save a little bit of money and only fill it up halfway again it's kind of the same as cheapening out on your soil you're just you're just setting yourself back third success tip I can give you and I've seen this a lot online and it's people that are struggling to put them together now they could not be simpler to put together if you put the soil in the containers first and I know it seems crazy but once you fill these up with soil they actually click right in place they've got little notches on the bottom and they just they it could not be simpler um we're talking like few seconds but if they're empty it can be really challenging also when it comes to planting a lot of gardeners will plant them up when they're separate and you can do that if you want I prefer to plant them up all assembled that's just my personal prefer you do you some people will prefer to put each layer plant them up individually and then stack them I find that the risk of crushing plants is a little bit high but again my aversion to risk is really low if you feel like you're going to do it okay and not Crush plants you do you so I prefer to assemble the whole thing and then plant the plants after that so then once we're all filled up here we're going to get some plants in but that leads me to my fourth success tip and that's fertilizing so when it comes to fertilizing hands down and I think this is probably one of the biggest mistakes I see people making with all container gardens not just vertical ones but containers in general and that's over fertilizing because of a fear that because they're in a container they're going to be lacking nutrients now true the soil we're adding is basically it's inert there's no nutrients in it so everything the plants are accessing does have to be added through supplemental fertilizer right so there's no nutrients in the soil that we're adding so we're adding the nutrients now but that doesn't mean you have to add more than you would normally add that is really a big distinction I want to make because I see it so frequently where gardeners will double or even triple the amount of fertilizer they add and all you're doing is you're wasting money and you're over fertilizing where the plants are going to be growing far bigger and far healthier than they would had they had just the right amount if you feed a tomato plant too much what happens it gets really green but it doesn't produce a lot of fruit what happens when you over fertilize a carrot produces a lot of tops but no roots as you can see over fertilizing at its face value seem like a good thing in containers but the same exact thing will happen in your containers as what happens in your garden and you're going to end up with subpar harvests and a lot of wasted time and money so I just want you to normally fertilize normally fertilize that's all you need to do so in our case here we're using trifactive plus and for each because we're doing strawberries we're doing a/4 cup per pocket and I'm not doing any more than that that doesn't matter it doesn't change just cuz we're doing a vertical planter just cuz we're in a container you still do the same exact amount as what is recommended fifth success tip for you is based on what you're planting where it's going to go in the planter because this actually can make a huge difference now with these green stocks they have a self-watering mechanism where if you water this top Reservoir that sits on top the water slowly will drain through all of the bottom holes and then basically you water the top it Waters all of the layers and that is awesome I absolutely love that about the green stock however you want to ask yourself what you're planting because if you plant stuff at the bottom that likes to be kept drier it's going to run into some problems and the reason why is because in our experience the plants up top should be the ones that like the drier soil because the top will dry out faster than the bottom will and so what we're going to do is if we're planting out something like Mediterranean herb like thyme or basil we're going to plant those up top here whereas if we're planting something like cilantro or green onions that like it a little more damp they like a little more water those are going to go down at the bottom because at the end of the day they're going to prefer the slightly more damp conditions that are going to happen down lower in the container and it's going to give you more success continuing on that tip here I got another one for you and that's based on the size of the plant and where it's going to go in the container so if we were planting something like a pepper plant pepper plants do really great in these deep containers here the green stock five tier has a little bit deeper pockets and that allows for more soil which a pepper plant is going to do really well in we would not put a tall large pepper plant up top because what happens is as it gets bigger and as it get gets larger what's going to happen is it's going to shade out and create some shade for those lower Pockets so I prefer to plant out the taller plants at the bottom and that allows for more sunlight to access more of the container as well as not be so topheavy as this you know I've never had one fall over but I also really wouldn't want one to fall over and if I had a really tall giant plant up top here and the wind was catching it I could easily see how it could be a little bit topheavy so again I'd prefer to have more of the weight in the larger plants down lower so again smaller plants I prefer to keep up top bigger plants go down below again just what I have found in my experience for my you know my most success and I want you guys to have success with these as well because like I said they are awesome now the final thing I was going to mention on planting is is try planting up some of these Planters with single crops so in this one example here we had some cold weather stuff we're going to be planting up a few of these one of our green stocks here that we're planting up is going to be all leafy greens kale lettuce Swiss chard tons of different leafy greens in that same pot but they're all kind of different species whereas this pot here is going to be all strawberries and that's great because what it's going to do is going to all fill out it's going to look really uniform and super amazing and what's awesome about this as strawberries uh they like to kind of uh drape and Trail a little bit it's going to be great cuz it's going to keep them off the ground and it's going to get nice and full so it's just kind of a planting idea for you as well because a lot of people ask me well what what would go well in a green stock or what would go well in a vertical planter and the answer is just about anything as long as the pockets are deep enough if you can plant out single crops like bush beans would be so cool in here uh last year we planted up herbs herbs did so well uh we planted up a whole planter of just a bunch of herbs they did so well but bush beans would do great as well I also try to stay away from things that trail right I'm not going to do pole beans in here I'm not going to do like a cucumber would be a little bit difficult in here but most things that stay kind of compact and bushy do extremely well in these vertical Planters all right in the sixth and final success tip I can give you and this is I actually stand corrected this is probably one of the biggest mistakes I see gardeners making and it's the location they put their Planters in now just like any other Garden location sunlight is so key and where you put it does have to have access to nice full sun now that doesn't necessarily mean that the front is going to be the problem it's sometimes the back of the raised bed so this green stock here is going to get beautiful sun when the Sun rises all the way up as the sun rises in the East we're going to get full sun here for probably about 5 to 7 hours which is wonderful that's enough sunlight to grow these uh these strawberries here and just about any crop that you want no problem at all 5 to 7 hours is perfect however the back is going to be shaded so what do you have to to do well they do make Greenock does make basically like a turntable U like a little Lazy Susan but the nice thing is they're also not terribly heavy even when wet to rotate and so what you want to do is you want to rotate them every once in a while if you have a case where the plants on the back are not going to get access to that sunlight now we're obviously underneath an awning we're at our shop here this is our main headquarters so we're trying to make it look pretty with some different stuff here so obviously if this was outside and exposed tall the sun wouldn't be a problem if the sun was rising in the East and setting in the west and it was getting sun on all angles it'd be fantastic but every once in a while about every 2 or 3 days we're just going to come through here and give it a little twist and that way the plants on the back are not going to be lacking for the sunlight and that way everything is going to grow nice and evenly so I want to thank you guys so much for watching today's episode I hope you all learned something new again this is not a sponsored video I don't want to feel like I'm you know shoving products in your face ever I just am someone that always wants to Advocate growing more food I think anytime you can grow more food it's going to empower you to not only take back food security but it's going to save money over time on your grocery bill and it's going to allow you to eat a more healthy diet like I said we do carry these over Mi Gardener but gardening is not a one-size fits-all solution and if you're someone that grows in ground like we do or grows in uh in raised beds and stuff that's fantastic you get two amazing green thumbs up but I always want to show you more than one ways to Garden so that way anyone can grow a garden anywhere and so uh I hope you guys benefited from this if you enjoyed this episode or if you have any questions Post in the comments box down below I do read every single comment you guys leave and it helps me to see where you guys might be at so please let me know if you did enjoy if you learn something new if you're trying these setups or if you're not and uh anything else you want to let me know in the comments box down below and as always this is Luke from the M Gardner Channel reminding you to grow bigger take care bye hey thank you so much for watching today's video I really appreciate it if you enjoyed consider checking this one out you'll probably enjoy it just as much I want to thank you so much for your viewership because without it this channel would not be as amazing as it is if you haven't subscribed yet it's free consider doing that we upload every Monday Wednesday and Friday rain or shine and if you need any garden tools supplies or seeds check out amig gardner.com we got you covered see you guys in the garden bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 42,537

Keywords: vegetable gardening, organic gardening, garden, gardening, growing food, vegetables, vegetable garden, tomatoes, how to grow, simple, sustainable, urban gardening, raised bed, permaculture, peppers, homesteading, homestead, simple living, garden tips, beginning gardener, first garden, seed starting, pepper, potato, carrot, onion, growing onions, growing carrots, growing cucumbers, grow from seed, compost, square foot gardening, migardener

Id: SaiQ4WcUZ0I

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024