Natural calendula salve was not something I’ve always used. Many years ago, I was a Neosporin girl. Unfortunately, some members of my family began to have reactions to triple antibiotic ointment.  At the time, I was just entering my crunchy mom phase and learning all about the power of nature. I was happy to look at healthy and natural remedies as alternatives to medicine. 

The recipe I found was a gentle multipurpose skin cream that had a concoction of various herbs and dry flowers that were difficult to find.  However, I was often stuck buying a pound of each variety. It was difficult finding smaller quantities. From the very first time, the salve worked SO well though!  It just became an expensive investment.

I began adding medicinal herbs to my garden to grow things I needed to make a natural healing salve. I subsequently pared the ingredients down to the simplest ones I could find that still gave me a great result.  This recipe was born!  

What is natural calendula salve?

Natural calendula salve is a semi soft balm that is used to soothe and heal skin irritations.  A mixture of natural ingredients makes this homemade calendula salve silky smooth.  It includes infused oil made from organic extra virgin olive oil and dried calendula flowers. In addition, it contains organic beeswax, and extra virgin organic coconut oil.  

It’s a super simple process to turn these organic oils and natural ingredients into a multi-purpose salve. You’ll be so happy you have it on hand!

If you’ve used my furniture salve, you’ll notice that the recipe is similar.  That’s the great thing about recipes like this.  Once you find out what proportions of oils to beeswax you prefer, swapping ingredients is easy. It allows you to make all different kinds of salves and balms!

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Why Do You Use Calendula in this multipurpose salve? 

Originally, my healing balm had many varieties of medicinal herbs in it.  I realized that it super simple to grow my own calendula and it had enough healing properties to stand alone!

Calendula’s proper name is calendula officinalis and was originally found in Southern Europe.  It is full of beneficial plant compounds, so it was grown for medicinal purposes.  Calendula has been shown to be a potent remedy for a variety of skin issues. 

It has powerful anti-inflammatory properties, so it’s often used for skin inflammation, bug bites or baby diaper irritation.  Its antibacterial properties help minor cuts and ulcers heal faster, possibly due to increased blood flow.  With its antioxidant and antifungal properties, it is even used to speed burn recovery!  It’s also soothing so it aids in the healing process of dry skin patches.

Above all, I would like to mention that I am not a doctor so I cannot give medical advice. In other words, while I have found this natural calendula salve to be useful, it hasn’t been reviewed by the food and drug administration. I cannot guarantee that it will work the same for everybody.  I can just share what has worked for us!

These sunshiney calendula blooms were from my garden. Can you even believe how beautiful they are? Every time people to cut flowers from my garden, I had to steer them away from the calendula. They ARE beautiful – but I was growing them for medicinal purposes.

Organic Ingredients for Natural Calendula Salve:

This small batch gentle skin cream has only 5 ingredients:

Organic olive oil: 

Olive oil is the basis for much of the natural calendula salve.  It is simple to infuse with the essential oils of the calendula petals either with a long room temperature steep, or a short low heat. Unfortunately, olive oil is runny and oily, so it needs other, harder oils to firm it up. This is the olive oil I often use.

Organic calendula flowers: 

Like we discussed above, when using the whole flower, calendula has many medicinal purposes.  You can buy dry flowers.  Alternately, you can grow them yourself and dry them on a screen.  

I usually elevate my screen a little to allow for airflow.  Either way, you will want to make sure you’re using fully dried calendula flowers to make sure you’re not adding any moisture to the natural calendula salve.  Too much moisture makes the mixture go rancid. In order to make sure the oil lasts, use very dry flowers.

Extra virgin organic coconut oil:  

Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, so it adds firmness and stability to the healing balm.  The antimicrobial effects add to the effectiveness of the natural calendula salve. This is the coconut oil I use.

Organic yellow beeswax: 

The small amount of beeswax acts as a hardener in this homemade calendula salve.  It’s waxy nature also provides a natural barrier and creates a layer of protection on the top of the skin.  Not only does it do all that, but organic beeswax helps to heal wounds and fight infections.  This looks like a great organic beeswax.

Raw Honey

Raw honey can help wounds and burns due to its antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties.

How Do You Make Natural Calendula Salve?

It’s so simple to turn these 5 organic ingredients into small batches of herbal salve to soothe irritated skin!

1. Make the Organic Calendula Oil:

The first step in the process of making natural calendula salve is infusing the essential oils from the organic calendula blossoms into the organic olive oil, creating an organic calendula oil.  This can be done a number of ways. Which way you choose is up to your personal preference.  Originally, I grew and dried my own calendula in my garden as a medicinal herb, but when I needed to take photos for this post, I didn’t have any left so I bought these ones to use.

Long, slow steep:

The first method takes a long time, but it is the gentlest processing of the herb and may keep the most medicinal value.  I use this method when I don’t need to make the salve right away and have some time before I’ll use it.  Fill a 16 oz mason jar with ½ cup of dried calendula flowers.  Cover the dry flowers with about 1 cup of organic extra virgin olive oil.

Remember that the dried petals will soak up the oil, so you won’t end up with the same amount of oil that you put in.  Because of this, you’ll want to make sure to use more oil than the ½ cup that is called for in the recipe.

Put a lid on the mason jar and keep it in a dark place, out of direct sunlight.  Some people put the calendula oil in a brown paper bag, but I prefer to just put it inside a cupboard I rarely open.  This allows for it to be out of sunlight, without me forgetting about it because I can see it when I open the cupboard!  Shake it whenever you see it – some people say daily, but I never do it that much!

After it steeps for 4-6 weeks, you’ll see that it has created a beautiful vibrant orange oil to add to your salve.  Just strain it through cheese cloth into a clean container.  And that’s it!  You’ve got calendula oil!

Short, low heat steep:

In this second method to create calendula infused oil, you’ll want to put ½ cup of calendula blossoms, 1/2 cup coconut oil and 1/2 cup of organic olive oil in a pot or a double boiler over very low heat.  If you’re like me, I just use a makeshift double boiler and put a bowl over a pot of water.  It works like a charm!

Heat the calendula petals and oil for 30 minutes to one hour on low heat.  After it steeps, strain it through cheesecloth into a clean jar.  And that’s it!  You’ve got calendula oil!

2. Melt the beeswax into the mixture:

During the infusing process, measure your beeswax into a jar. Put the infused oil into the jar with beeswax pellets and set in a pot with about an inch of water. Heat until they just melt.

3. Pour it into your container:

Once the beeswax is just melted, add the raw honey. Whisk until combined and pour it into the containers you’ll be using. Most importantly, just like when you were making the infused oil, you’ll want to make sure it’s out of direct sunlight. You can use metal tins, or glass jars that you store in a dark place.

4. Let it cool to room temperature:

That’s it! Let it cool to room temperature and you’re done! Wasn’t that simple!?

Ways to Use Natural Calendula Salve

The healing properties of this organic salve make it so amazing to have on hand for daily uses.  For example, here is a quick list of ways to use this small batch salve on a variety of skin issues:

*First, use this gentle skin cream to heal minor skin irritations or itchy skin

*Secondly use it on a baby’s bottom for diaper rash and to create a protective barrier from wetness

*Put it in your arsenal to use for insect bites or insect stings

*Use it for chapped skin from the cold winter wind

*Apply it as a new mother nipple cream for nursing mamas

*Spread on minor cuts, using the antiseptic properties of the calendula to heal

*treat burns 

*soothe cradle cap

*smooth dry hands and dry feet

(Remember, this is for external use only! Do not ingest. In addition, if you have any sensitive skin types, try it on a small patch to see if you have any reaction. Then, apply it to larger areas.)

FAQs:

Do I have to make this into a salve, or can I make this into a lotion bar?

I think this would make a great lotion bar!  Basically, the ingredients in both are about the same, so you’re not a long way off from a lotion bar! Consequently, you can increase the organic yellow beeswax to ½ cup.  Many of the lotion bar recipes have equal parts liquid oil to solid butter/oil to beeswax. 

Put it into a silicone mold and let it cool to room temperature.  If the lotion bar is too hard or soft, remelt it and add either more oil or wax to compensate.  If you try this out, let me know the final result!

Can I add any other oils or herbs?

Absolutely!  I wanted to keep this as simple as possible, but you can add in other beneficial things to this natural calendula salve.  I have used dried plantain and chamomile flowers infused along with the calendula in the infused oil.  

You can also swap out some of the olive oil for other oils you love:

*sweet almond oil

*organic sunflower oil

*jojoba oil

You could even add a bit of vitamin e oil for skin healing.  

Finally, you can swap out some of the extra virgin organic coconut oil for other semi hard butters. Examples of these would be organic raw shae butter, cocoa butter, organic mango butter, or african shea butter.  

I think the biggest thing is to keep the overall ratios the same:

*1/2c liquid oil

*A half cup semi solid butter/oil

*1/2c medicinal herbs

*4T beeswax.

You keep saying organic.  Do I have to use organic?

Technically no.  However, your skin in the largest organ in your body. Everything you put on it can enter into your system.  The high grade organic alternatives to these items are only negligibly more expensive. Consequently, I think it’s worth it to go the organic route and end up with the best product you can.  

Can this natural calendula salve be used on all skin types?

If you have sensitive skin, for the best results, you may want to try the natural calendula salve on a small spot to make sure there are no skin irritations.  

Natural Calendula Salve

This soothing and healing salve will have you giving up your antibiotic ointment!

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Ingredients

Infused Oil

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• 1/2c. olive oil
• 1/2c. coconut oil
• 1/2c. dried calendula

Final Mixture

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• 4T. beeswax pellets
• 2t. raw honey

Instructions

1. You begin by infusing your oils with the calendula. The best way to do this would be to combine the olive oil and dried calendula and leave it in a dark place for a few weeks, shaking it every day. Usually I don't think ahead that much, so I almost always utilize the gently heated method. Heat olive oil and coconut oil until they just begin to get bubbles around the edge of the pan, but don't let it boil.
2. Add dried calendula and let it sit for 30 min to an hour. Once they have infused and the oil is cooler, put it through a few layers of cheesecloth and squeeze the dried calendula to make sure to get all the infused oil out.
3. Put the infused oil into a jar and set in a pot with about an inch of water. Add beeswax pellets and heat until they just melt.
4. Pull the jar out of the pot of water and add 2t. raw honey. Stir well and allow to cool.
5. Store in the fridge or medicine cabinet for about a year.

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I love to have lots of bushy basil plants. In order to get basil to be bushy instead of leggy, it needs to be pruned back just above a set of leaves. When that stem is pinched out, the side shoots are stimulated to grow. This leads to a full, bushy basil plant.

The best part is, you can begin growing basil from a cutting by doing something you already have to do…prune!

How to begin growing basil from a cutting

A few years ago, I found out that basil is one of the easiest plants to root. That is amazing news, because I love basil and I want lots of it! So if I can easily root the cuttings, then I can make more plants quickly and easily.

I already have to pinch back my basil to prune it on a regular basis. What I learned was that when I’m doing my regular pruning, I can root those pinched off ends to produce new basil plants!

1. Prune basil just above a set of leaves

Like I mentioned above, you want to prune your basil on a regular basis. In order to begin growing basil from a cutting, you need a cutting. This is the perfect way to do it!

You’ll want to leave a few sets of leaves on each stem when you prune it, so go up 2-3 sets of leaves before you take a cutting. Then simply pinch off the stem directly between a set of leaves. Here’s a super quick video of how to do that.

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You can also use sharp scissors or some garden pruning shears. These are my very favorite ones because they can get into small spaces. This works especially well when the plant is older and you forgot to prune it. As the stems get bigger they get a bit tougher, so the pruning shears help.

Prune back your basil plants and use it to make pesto and Margherita pizza, and caprese grilled cheese sandwiches, but save a few of the cuttings to root.

2. Put the basil cutting in water

I usually use a glass cup so I can see the roots as they grow. I put plastic wrap tightly over the top of the cup and poke little holes into it with a toothpick. Then I put the stem of the cutting through the hole so that it is dangling into the water.

You’ll want to make sure the cut on the bottom is nice and fresh. If it starts to heal up, it will seal the stem and it won’t allow the water to go up the stem. If it doubt, give it a quick fresh cut to be sure.

The basil pictured here is Purple Opal Basil. Isn’t it so pretty!? It’s one of my favorites. Here’s a link to get seeds for this variety!

3. Replenish water and wait

Make sure to keep the water level so it’s always touching the bottom of the cuttings. Keep it in a sunny window and over the course of a couple weeks, you’ll see roots beginning to grow.

I wait until they get about this long, and then I take them out to the garden!

4. Once the basil has roots, plant it!

Once the basil has roots, you’re almost finished with growing basil from a cutting! Now all you need to do is tuck that tiny seedling into the ground.

I normally plant my basil between my tomato plants, since they are known to be good companion plants. I follow the Back to Eden method (find out more about why I use a no till method here). Because my garden is covered in chipped wood, I just pull that back and then plant the seedling into the soil below.

Give it a good drink of water and let it grow!

5. Start growing basil from a cutting all over again

Once the roots settle in, your little basil plant will begin to grow. To keep it from getting leggy, after it has a few sets of leaves on it, make sure to prune it back. Again, this will help to make it big and bushy instead of tall and lanky.

The crazy thing is that you can take these pruned cuttings from your new plant and do the same thing you did before!

Can I grow basil from a cutting when it’s cold outside?

Absolutely! I live in Northeast Ohio, so we can only grow basil outside a few months a year. The great thing is that basil grows wonderfully in a warm location, so inside your house is perfect.

When you go to plant your cuttings, instead of planting them outside in the garden, just put them in a pot indoors and place in a sunny location.

It’s as easy as that!

What to do with all my basil

Now that you’ve got tons of basil, what do you do with it all!?

Use it as a filler

I follow Floret Flowers and they mention on their blog post that basil is a wonderful summer foliage to use as a bouquet filler! Did you know that?! I didn’t!

Eat it

Obviously, you can use it for basil pesto, or for Margherita pizza, or caprese grilled cheese sandwiches or on of a million fresh basil recipes!

Preserve it

You can also preserve it for later in the year! One of my favorite ways of preserving herbs is to throw them in our Vitamix with some olive oil and let it blend up. Then I put it into a quart baggie and flatten it and make sure I get all the air out. Then I freeze it flat. When I want to use it, I just break off a frozen chunk!

You can also just chop it and add it with olive oil to an ice cube tray and freeze it that way.

So that’s how you grow bail from a cutting. See? I told you it was easy!!! Let me know how it goes if you try it!

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What is No Till Gardening?

No till gardening simply means that you don’t till up the soil before you plant. Sometimes you’ll hear this method called “no dig” or “no till”.

I use a method called Back to Eden. Essentially, that system has you cover the ground with newspaper or cardboard. Next, lay a few inches of compost on top of that. Finally, chipped wood is on top of that.

The first year, you plant into the compost. Over time, the grass dies and you’re planting into the compost and the soil underneath.

This is a photo of when we were building our current garden. You can see the three distinct layers of newspaper, compost, and then chipped wood.

The basic premise of most no till gardening is that the soil is not worked. It is also covered with some sort of leaves, grass clippings, straw/hay, etc.

For the purposes of this post, I will be going on the assumption that the ground is covered with chipped wood. This is not mulch (only wood). This is when a tree service cuts down a tree and chips the branches – leaves and all.

After about 10 years of using this method, I’ve experienced good and bad. I thought I would give you the no till gardening pros and cons from my perspective!

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No Till Gardening Pros and Cons

No Till Gardening Pros

So let’s dive into the no till gardening pros and cons. We will start with the benefits. Obviously there are SO many reasons to garden this way! Here are my greatest reasons why I keep moving forward with this method.

Your soil is ready to plant whenever you are!

Typical gardeners till the soil each spring. Before planting can begin, someone needs to go out and rototill the soil. So you buy a big piece of equipment, or rent one from Home Depot, or borrow one from your neighbor. Either way, it’s a huge hassle.

However, with no till gardening, it’s a whole new world! You just go out to your garden, pull back the chipped wood, and plant into the soil beneath. You don’t need to do anything to prep the ground. It’s just always ready to go!

Very little watering is needed

Have you heard of something getting water logged? One day, my kids were at the lake and large branch was floating in the water. They tried to lift it and it was SO heavy because it had soaked up all the water and became water logged.

The chipped wood in the garden does the same thing! When it rains, that wood soaks up all the water and retains it. Then over time as the ground needs it, it releases the water.

Another thing the chipped wood does is to protect the open soil from the beating sun. It keeps it covered so that the sun can’t evaporate the moisture that is already in the soil, leaving it dry and crumbly.

So I do water my garden, but normally just when I’m planting seeds or seedlings. After I establish those plants, I don’t really water again! I do live in Northeast Ohio, so we get plenty of rain. If you live in a more arid climate, you’ll need to water, but those wood chips will help you retain that water you’re spending all that money on!

Little to no weeding

I call this “gardening for the lazy gardener”. I’m pretty lazy when it comes to gardening. After I’ve done all the work of starting seedlings, hardening them off, planning the garden, and planting everything, I’m kind of done. The last thing I want to do is go out every day to weed!

The great part about a no till garden is that the soil has to be covered with chipped wood! If you go to my blog post about organically taming thistle, I talk a lot about the benefits of putting a thick layer of chipped wood on your garden. It naturally supresses the weeds because it makes them have to fight really hard to grow through that thick layer.

Additionally, because you don’t really have to water the garden, you also aren’t watering the weed seeds that blow into your garden. The only time those weed seeds that are sitting on top of the chipped wood get watered is when it rains. They begin to grow, but their roots are just in that top layer of wood and are super easy to pick out.

Normally I just hand pick a couple weeds every few days when I walk out into the garden first thing in the morning with my coffee. Ain’t nobody got time for weeding!

Built in fertilizer makes your soil better and better over time

The chipped wood we talked about using is a mixture of greens and browns – greens being the leaves and browns being the branches. If you have ever composted, you’ll know that you need that mixture of greens and browns to break down into nutrient dense organic garden food.

So basically, when you use this method, you’re composting on top of your soil! As the chipped wood breaks down over time, it creates that healthy compost that feeds your garden and continues to add nutrients to the soil. Bonus!

You don’t hurt the beneficial microorganisms in the soil

Worms are not the only thing that builds soil health! There is a dense population of microorganisms that feed on dead and decaying matter and live roots in the soil. Tilling the soil breaks up those live root systems and ruins the environment those microorganisms thrive in. Sadly, that lowers the overall health of the soil.

I’ve linked a really short article here that goes into more depth about why tilling hurts soil health. They are WAY smarter than I am and can explain it better!

No Till Gardening Cons

It’s important to look at the no till gardening pros and cons because there aren’t just benefits. There are also drawbacks! Here are some I’ve experienced over the last decade.

Can steal nitrogen from your plants

That amazing chipped wood is so great, but as it’s breaking down, the wood components need nitrogen, especially during that first year. Unfortunately, it will take it from wherever it can and that includes your plants!

In the Back to Eden method, Paul is really clear that you need to use aged chipped wood – at least a year old. But, if you’re having a local tree company drop it off at your house, it will be completely fresh. If you don’t have a place to store it for a year to age, and you put it directly on the garden like most of us have to do, it detrimentally affects the garden.

I try to have the chipped wood delivered in the fall so it has 6 months to age on the garden before I plant. That’s what I did last year, but I’m still having some issues this growing year because it isn’t aged enough. The way I’ve dealt with this in the past is to pull the chipped wood away from the base of the plants and to surround the plant with aged manure. This tends to boost the plant with enough nitrogen to rebound.

It’s sometimes hard to get chipped wood

I had this problem for the last few years and it was SO frustrating! I had a tree company I had used in the past that supplied me with chipped wood whenever I needed it. For some reason, they got super flakey and told me they were coming every time I called over a two year period, but never came.

Last year I spent an afternoon calling around to tree companies in the area and found a great guy who was happy to dump his chipped wood for me for free. Now I have his phone number saved in my cell phone for when I need it again!

In the interim, I did find some piles of chipped wood that the surrounding cities provided from when they trimmed trees. You just need to make sure you have a truck to be able to pick up loads from there.

It’s a little cumbersome during planting time

While the soil is always ready to go, depending on how deep your layer of chipped wood is, it can be a pain to plant. The chipped wood needs to be pulled back to expose the soil in order to plant into it. I keep a pretty deep layer of chipped wood, so I have a huge trench or hole in which to plant.

But that chipped wood needs to stay out of the trench or hole until the plant is grown enough for the chipped wood to be moved back to place. So you have piles of chipped wood mounded up. It also slides back into the hole when you have teeny tiny seeds popping up. Just like it inhibits the weed growth, if it slides on top of those little sprouts, it will keep them from growing too.

What I often do to combat this is to pull the chipped wood away and then fill that space with compost and plant into that. Then the chipped wood can’t slide back into the hole because it has been filled. That tends to solve my problem.

It still needs additional nutrients

Even though the chipped wood adds vitamins and minerals to the soil as it breaks down, you still need to be adding beneficial nutrients to the soil to compensate for the ones that your vegetables and flowers take out of the soil.

This can come in the form of worm castings, or compost, or compost tea, or natural fertilizer (this is my favorite), or aged manure. Either way, you’ll want to give your seeds and plants a boost when you plant them. You can fill the hole with compost like I spoke about above. You could put a handful of aged manure in the hole when you plant, or feed them with compost tea.

Either way you do it, you’ll need to add a little nutrition to your soil when you plant, even though the soil in a no till garden gets more rich every year.

It doesn’t always produce well the first year

Remember how we talked about the chipped wood needing to age? That can really affect the harvest you get, especially in your first year of using the no till method.

I’ve heard that when some people make the switch, they keep a bit of their old gardening method and then switch a portion of their garden over to no till. Then as the soil gets richer, they convert the rest of their garden. That is a great idea if you’re already a gardener and want to make the move to no till.

It can be expensive to get started

Remember when I said you cover the ground with newspapers and then a few inches of compost? That is what you’ll be planting into the first year, so it has to be around 5″ deep. My garden is 36’x24′. It was quite costly to cover that area with compost.

Luckily the chipped wood is often free, as are the newspapers. But that layer of compost can get super pricey! That was definitely a drawback in the beginning when we were building.

If I had been more patient, I probably could have skipped the compost step if I had been willing to cover the ground with newspapers and chipped wood in the fall and allow it to sit all winter long. Then in the spring, the grass would be dead and the newspaper would have broken down and allows you to plant directly into the soil.

If I were doing it again and I was patient, that’s how I would do it.

So those are the no till gardening pros and cons that I have experienced over the last 10 years. Do you have anything to add to it? I’d love to hear!

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Other tomato support methods

I’ve used other methods over the years to contain my tomatoes and keep them accessible, healthy, and pruned. Many people use tomato cages. While I’ve never tried them, they seem like it would be SO hard to prune tomatoes when they are all crammed in there!

Mel Bartholomew in Square Foot Gardening recommended a trellising method that uses PVC pipe and nylon netting. That worked pretty well for me when I did a square foot garden. Once I extended our garden footprint, though, it became a bit cumbersome.

The method I’ve settled on for the last 10 or so years is a cross between a netting like I used in my Square Foot Garden, and a stake. It’s essentially a piece of fencing attached to a 2×2″ stake. It works great to tie the stem to the stake and intertwine the leaves in the fencing. However, they take a lot of room to store and each one needs to be replaced when the bottom of the post begins to rot out.

That’s when I began looking for another method. I found that a tomato twine trellis can be just as easy to use, makes it easy to prune, is super inexpensive, and easy to store!

Why is it important to prune tomatoes?

One of the reasons it’s so important to choose the right way to support the tomato is because it’s vital to be able to see the tomato vines to prune them. Many varieties are called indeterminate tomatoes. Those ones will grow and grow and grow until they get a cold snap that kills them.

For short summers like ours in Northeast Ohio, that is not great news. We need to be able to get as many tomatoes grown and ripened as we can in the few months of nice weather we have.

On tomato plants, the main vine produces the very best fruit. It’s the biggest and the heartiest. Then there are vines that shoot off the main vine, called a sucker. Those will produce fruit if you allow them to grow, but the fruit will be less plentiful. Additionally, it steals nutrients that could be going to the fruit on that main vine to feed the best tomatoes.

Because of that, it’s important to prune those suckers off when they are small. This keeps the plant sending nutrients up the main vine to the most plentiful fruit. And it allows as many as possible to ripen within the short season that we have.

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How to Start a Tomato Twine Trellis

There are many ways to make this work. The way I did this worked for the way my garden was set up. However, there’s lots of other ways you could create a tomato twine trellis system. I will give some other options to do it a different way than I did.

My garden has a 6 foot high fence, so I utilized the posts in order to create the support for my tomato twine trellis. I just took chunks of 2×4 we had laying around and screwed them into our main posts. Then we took 1x2s we also had around and spanned the top. It wasn’t super ideal because the posts are 12′ apart and the 1x2s are only 8 foot. But my hubby attached them together and to the 2×4 chunks and they seem pretty secure.

Some alternate options for the tomato twine trellis:

Option 1 – Freestanding trellis with 1x2s or bamboo

If I had a tomato bed that I needed supports for and didn’t have my current system, I’d build something like this.

Option 2: Raised garden bed with attached metal conduit

If you’re growing in a raised bed, you can use metal conduit and make an upside down U shape with elbows. Attach it to the inside of the raised bed with brackets and then drop the twine down from there. I’d attach the brackets on the inside of the raised bed to hide the ugly parts!

The twine should not be wavy like that! I just drew it that way to differentiate it from the support posts. Please enjoy my handwritten drawings. I’m not super gifted in that department. But man, I can make you a mean loaf of sourdough!!!

No matter what direction you go, just get creative and use what you have first and foremost. That is what homesteading is all about!

How to secure the twine

I’ve seen a few different ways to do this. I’ll share all three with you.

1. Use garden landscape staples to secure the twine

The first way to secure the twine works especially well if you need to get the tomatoes into the ground but have not figured out your trellis system. This is actually a great option because if you’re using a stake, you need to drive that in when you plant the tomatoes in order to keep from disturbing the roots.

With this method, you simply drop the twine down to the ground with a little extra at the end. Then wrap the bottom of the twine around the garden landscape staple and press it into the ground. I would do this on an angle in order to make it be a bit more secure in the ground.

You’ll want to make sure that when you put the staple into the ground, it pulls the twine tight in order to make a “stake” for the tomato to be wound around.

Alternately, if you have some wire on hand, or even an old fashioned wire hanger, you could use wire cutters and make your own U shaped staples. This would be the most budget friendly option if you wanted to use staples.

2. Tie the twine to the tomato plant

The second option can also be done after the tomato plant is tucked in the ground. You simply take the twine and tie it to the bottom of the tomato plant.

My only concern with this way of doing it is that if you tie it too tightly, it will cut off the ability for the main stem to get thicker and could hurt the plant. Also, It makes me wonder if you could get it secured tightly enough without damaging the tomato plant.

3. Plant twine with the tomato plant

This is the method I used. I actually held off for about 2 weeks planting my seedlings in order to get my trellis system set up. I think that was the biggest drawback of this option.

The great thing is that I had transplanted them into my 4″ soil blocks and they were THRIVING. I gave a few seedlings away to a friend and this is what they looked like about a week before I planted them into the garden. (My son is almost 13 and taller than me, just to give you perspective!)

If you haven’t tried soil blocking, you should absolutely consider it. It has been one of my biggest joys this spring!

Dig your hole

When using this method, just dig a hole deep enough for your seedling. I always take off the bottom set of leaves and plant it deeper than the level in the pot or soil block. Unlike other seedlings, tomatoes will grow new roots from the stem, so if you plant it deeper, you’ll have a more securely rooted plant.

This year, I took my grandpa’s advice and planted a few of them sideways because they were so tall that I didn’t want to plant them as deeply as I would need to in order to get to the lowest set of leaves. So you plant them sideways and then just gently guide the stem up and wind it around the twine.

Add ground eggshells

I sprinkle ground eggshells into the bottom of the hole in order to add calcium to the soil and prevent blossom end rot.

The strings or twine drop down from the top of the trellis and make sure to cut it about 6 inches past the ground. This allows you to secure the string under the tomato seedling.

Tuck your twine under the seedling

Then tuck the twine under the bottom of the seedling. I like to pull it snug at this point in order to get a nice tight string trellis going. Then fill the hole in with the dirt and press it down.

Add the soil around it and wind it up the twine

After you get it planted, very gently wind the main stem up the twine. I tend to wrap it around one time under every set of leaves. It should look like this after it’s all wound up.

Prune and wind throughout the season

The last thing you do is to check your plants when you do your daily walkthrough. If there are suckers, prune them out when they are little to keep pushing the nutrients to the main vine. Then gently guide the vine by wrapping it around the twine.

And that’s it!!! Can you even believe how easy that was?! I’m looking forward to doing an update post toward the end of the season to let you know how they fared next to the ones I have across from them that are using my old method of tomato trellising…and I’m really excited to not have to store anything this winter!

If you try this, let me know how yours goes!

1 year update

So I’ve got a year under my belt with this method! It worked really well! One thing that’s important to remember is that you have to train them to a single vine and keep them pruned. Once you do that, it makes it super easy to wrap it around the twine.

A word on the twine I used…don’t use it! Unbeknownst to me, twine breaks down really really fast! So unfortunately, in the middle of the growing season, the part under the ground had disintegrated and came detached. I just ended up tying it to the base of the plant and it worked fine.

In the future, in order to keep this from happening, I think I’ll use a twine that is a little more suited for that purpose. I found this tomato twine and I think it will work perfectly! The package I linked is huge, but maybe you can split it with friends?! I think it will perfectly solve the problem I had!

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The post Try a Tomato Twine Trellis for the Best Support System! appeared first on Little Reasons.

Making Maple Syrup for Beginners

Just a handful of years ago, I could not have told you how maple syrup is made step by step, or explained where maple syrup comes from. But then we bought 2 acres and here we are! We began tapping our own maple trees on our property 3 years ago. Don’t get me wrong – we don’t live out in the country. We aren’t farmers. Our family is what you’d call urban homesteaders.

We live in the city, 10 minutes away from Starbucks and Target. But we have a little property that we love to utilize. We want our kids to know how to do stuff and to see where their food comes from.

My husband hunts and we’ve even butchered deer together as a family (I’ll spare you the photos!). I have an organic garden and we love to harvest and cook as much as we can from that garden produce.

We have chickens for free range eggs…and…we make maple syrup. It’s starts with nothing but a tree and it turns into the most delicious liquid that we use for months to come! It’s a family team building exercise and it actually gives us something we use all year to remind us of our effort!

Find out how to go from maple sap to syrup – start to finish with me!

Maple Syrup Collecting to Harvesting:

There are many steps in the process of maple sap to syrup. I wrote stand alone posts that cover the 4 biggest steps, but I realized I had never really put the full process together all in one place. So here you go! Maple sap to syrup in 6 easy steps!

Step 1 – Identifying the trees

You can tap many kinds of trees to make syrup, but the ones that give you the most sap for the least amount of work are sugar maples. They are kind of hard to identify in the winter once the leaves have fallen. So set a reminder in your calendar to go out in the early fall and mark your trees.

You can just tie a string around them if you’d like. That way when it’s time to do the tapping, you’ll know which trees to tap.

Step 2 – Tapping the trees

This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

The next step in the process of maple sap to syrup is tapping the trees to collect the maple sap. I wrote an in depth blog post about this process. In it, I go over how to tap the trees and collect the sap. I also give links to the spiles and tubes we use, and give ideas on how to gather collection buckets in the most frugal way.

It even has a video that allows you to see the process of my son tapping the trees for the people that really love to see it done. He’s really smart, so he explains a lot of the process too!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST ABOUT TAPPING TREES

Step 3 – Building a maple syrup evaporator

Once you’ve collected your syrup, you need a way to boil it down. You cannot boil sap inside your house because for every gallon of syrup you end up with, you boil off 39 gallons of water. Can you imagine having 39 gallons of water floating around inside your house? People who have tried that have had their paint peel, wallpaper begin to come off, and mold form in their rooms!

So you’ll need to do this outside. There are many ways to boil it down, but since we have access to lots of wood, our preference is building a maple syrup evaporator in our backyard that can be broken down when we are done with it. This summer, we set up the evaporator on the side of our house and we are using it as an extra compost bin! Double duty!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST ABOUT BUILDING A MAPLE SYRUP EVAPORATOR

Step 4 – Boiling sap

You boil and boil and boil sap. We often have 30 or 40 gallons of sap to boil down, so we spend all day stoking the fire and refilling the pans. I wrote another in depth post about how to boiling sap and how to recognize when it’s time to move to the next step!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST ABOUT BOILING SAP

Step 5 – Finishing maple syrup on the stovetop

We’re almost done turning maple sap to syrup! Once you’ve boiled down the sap outside until it’s almost done, it’s time to bring it inside to finish it off on the stovetop. Because I boiled down sap multiple times this year, I just stored my almost completed sap in the freezer. Then the next time I did it, I just added them together and was able to do this final process at the same time.

If you’re canning your maple syrup, you’ll need to have all those things ready before you get this on the stovetop to finish off. But once all those things are ready to go, you can dive in to this final step!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST ABOUT FINISHING MAPLE SAP ON THE STOVE

Step 6 – Maple syrup storage

Once you finish the maple syrup on the stovetop, you need to figure out how you’ll be storing your precious liquid. There are a few methods of maple syrup storage. Maple syrup cannot just be set in a pantry and used like the pancake syrup you get from the store – unless it’s properly canned. But even then, once it’s opened it needs to be refrigerated.

When I first started using maple syrup, I used to buy it by the gallon in Amish Country. One day I grabbed my partly used gallon from the pantry storage and put it on our pancakes and thought I would die! If you’ve ever tasted mold, you know what this tasted like. It was the sweetest mold you’ve ever tasted! Yuck!

What was even worse was that there was most of the gallon still remaining and I had to throw it out. It was devastating! But, I did learn my lesson! Store maple syrup properly!

If you just have a small amount, you can certainly just store it in the refrigerator. But if you make quite a bit of it like we do, you’ll need another option. So what are some other kinds of maple syrup storage?

Can you can maple syrup?

Absolutely! This is what I normally do because it allows the maple syrup to be stored at room temperature. It’s not hard, but there is a process to follow to make sure that the maple syrup will not go bad before you’re able to use it.

The great thing about canning it is that you don’t need to use up any refrigerator or freezer space. Plus, when you’re ready to use it, it’s already at room temperature. It’s a little more work on the front end, but super easy when you go to use it.

In the last post about finishing maple syrup on the stovetop, I gave pretty comprehensive instructions on how to do it.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST THAT EXPLAINS HOW TO CAN MAPLE SYRUP

Can you freeze maple syrup?

YES!!! I wondered the same thing so this year I tried it out! I made sure to leave head room in the mason jar in order to allow for expansion. Because almost all the water was boiled out of this, mine didn’t expand a ton.

The really cool thing is that it never completely froze! It was almost the texture of a maple syrup slushy! I found that it worked really well and I would definitely do it if I didn’t want to take the time to actually can the syrup.

How long does maple syrup last?

If you store it in the refrigerator, maple syrup will last about a year. If it’s canned properly in a mason jar, it can last for many years! Honestly, ours has never gone past a year because we eat it so fast. But I’ve read that it can last from 4 years to indefinitely! You can store it in the deep freeze indefinitely as well. I try to use things in my freezer within about 2-3 years because more than that just creeps me out!

So that’s the process of going from map sap to syrup. I hope it inspired you to jump in and try it out yourself. I think you will absolutely love the process, and more importantly, the reward!

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The post Turn Maple Sap to Syrup in 6 Easy Steps appeared first on Little Reasons.

My mom is my gardening mentor. She learned from her dad, and she’s passing what she knows down to me. When my kids were little, she urged me to grow my pole beans on a teepee. She promised me that the kids would love it and did she sure deliver on that promise!

For around $10, you’ll have an amazing support system for your pole beans. Plus, you’ll be able to grow WAY more than you can grow in that same square footage using normal methods.

How to make a pole bean teepee

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You’ll start by gathering a few supplies:

5 – 1x2x8 furring strip boards

saw

hammer

twine

step ladder

Once you gather all your supplies, this comes together really quickly!

Step 1 – sharpen the 1x2s

Sharpening the 1x2s is not completely necessary, but it does make sticking them into the ground easier! We used a circular saw and cut the end of ours into points. You can do this by slicing across the board and making the point on one of the edges, or by cutting a little off each side so the point is in the middle of the board.

No matter how you choose to make the point, just make sure to maintain the full 8′ length. You’ll need it! These pole beans get TALL!

Step 2 – determine your pole bean teepee area

Next, determine your pole bean teepee area. Technically, you could probably get by with a 2×2′ square to make your teepee in. However, I really prefer a 4×4′ square. I like my teepees to be roomy on the inside. If you have littles, they will love to hang out in their little fort.

But if you are like me and the kids are past that stage, you can use that interior for more growing space! Lettuce is a cool weather crop and hates the heat. So when the sun starts beating down, it bolts and gets bitter. That’s where the teepee comes in!

All you need to do is plant your lettuce inside the interior of the teepee. As the pole beans grow, they begin to shade the lettuce and keep it cool. That allows you to grow lettuce well into the summer, even though it’s a cool weather crop. Double duty!

Step 3 – press the 1x2s into the ground

Pressing the 1x2s into the ground is often easier to do if it has rained recently. It is sometimes difficult to get them very deep, so after a rain, the soil is softer.

I usually determine where I want the opening to the teepee. I start with those two posts and drive them into the dirt on an angle so they meet at the top.

Then I put the post at the back of the teepee, halfway between the two at the front. Again, this post goes in at an angle so they meet at the top.

Then I put the last 2 posts in. I try to make sure they are about halfway between the front posts and the rear post. The more symmetrical it is, the cooler it looks as it fills up with bean plants!

Step 4 – use twine to secure the teepee

Hop onto a step ladder and grab the tops of the 1x2s and gather them together. Take twine and wrap it around a few times and then tie it off. You can even weave in between the posts to hold them together more securely.

At this point, you have the general outline of the teepee, but you need to make it a little more secure. You don’t want it falling over once it’s laden with heavy bean plants!

Step 5 – pound 1x2s into the ground

Pound each post into the ground with a hammer. It doesn’t need to go in super far, but I normally tap it 5-10 times to get them pretty snug in the ground. The pole bean teepee should be relatively stable at this point.

Step 6 – plant 5 pole beans around each leg of the pole bean teepee

I use the Back to Eden gardening method, so I need to pull back the chipped wood in order to expose the dirt. Evenly space 5 pole beans around the post. Plant them into the dirt according to the package directions as far as depth.

It’s super important to make sure you have pole beans and NOT bush beans. There is a huge difference! Bush beans make little bushes and stay that same size. A pole bean is vining and climbs for what seems like forever!

My very favorite pole beans in the whole world are Renee’s Garden Emerite Pole Beans. They are also called filet green beans. You should DEFINITELY try them! She also has so many other varieties of seeds. I love how she color codes them, so she can put multiple varieties of a particular vegetable all in one pack. That way you don’t have to buy three larger packages of seeds to get 3 varieties!

Step 7 – help the beans up the pole

You’ll be surprised as the beans grow that they have kind of sticky little tendrils. While these really help the beans crawl up the posts, you do have to help them along.

I normally wind them around the poles each morning as I visit the garden. Sometimes you’ll need to tie the plants on so they won’t slide down the post. You can use one of my T shirt ties so that it doesn’t harm the bean vines.

As long as you work with them as they grow, it won’t be a tough task to get them trained up the posts. What will be hard is waiting to eat the fruit of your labor!

Step 8 – harvest your beans!

Once your pole bean teepee is ready to harvest, you can climb inside like my sweet girl did, or you can pick them from the outside. Look closely because those green beans are sneaky and love to hide!

Step 9 – remove vines at the end of the season

Once the season is over and your beans are done producing, you’ll want to cut the vines off the poles. You can put the dead vines in your garbage, in your compost pile, or feed them to your chickens!

Don’t pull the pole bean roots out of the ground. There are really beneficial microorganisms living on them. So just cut the plant off at the top of the soil level. The roots will decompose into the soil over time.

Step 10 – store the pole bean teepee for winter

You won’t want to leave the teepee up over the winter. When the wood remains in the ground, it degrades the wood. They last a lot longer if you store them someplace dry for the winter. I normally just pull them out of the ground, remove the twine, rub off the dirt, and put them inside.

Check out what else you can grow vertically! I wrote posts about:

how to grow winter squash in a cattle panel trellis,

and also

how to train huge zucchini plants up a post!

It will revolutionize your gardening!

I hope this inspires you to make your own pole bean teepee and produce 25 green bean plants in one small space! If you have success stories or questions, I’d love to hear about them below!

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The post How to Make a Cheap and Easy Pole Bean Teepee appeared first on Little Reasons.

Once the gardening season progresses, you’ll find that you need to tie some of your plants to stakes or trellises. What you choose can really have an effect on the health of your plants. It’s important to choose wisely.

How can garden plant ties affect my plants negatively?

The difficult part of choosing a garden plant tie is that those tender plants cannot have something firm pressing into them. It can cut the stem and kill the plant.

Another reason it cannot have a firm tie is that the stems thicken over time. Because of that, the tie that is used needs to have some give to it so that the stem can get thicker without something cutting into it.

Have you ever seen a tree with a rope swing tied around it and the tree begins to grow around the rope and swallow it up? That’s sort of what happens in this case, but the main stem is what carries all the nutrients to the plant. So if that is cut off, the plant is compromised and can die.

This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

What kind of ties should I use in my garden?

Since firm ties – like twine or string – can hurt your plants, there has to be another answer. Lots of people buy garden plant ties like these that don’t hurt their plants. That is a viable option.

But I prefer to make my own. Remember my grandpa who owned the greenhouse? This was one of his tricks and I love it so much!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Homesteaders are known for using what they have laying around to solve their problems. They are sort of like the McGuyver of the current day.

I am a homesteader at heart and want to make sure I’m being responsible with the things I have in my home. Looking for ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle things I would normally discard is really important to me. Not only does it save money, but it reduces the amount of waste I’m sending to the land fill.

How do I use what I have around to make garden plant ties?

Now that I’ve been doing this for a while, I try to plan throughout the year. As I’m sorting through clothing to donate, I always find shirts or athletic shorts with stains that cannot really be given to someone else.

When I find those, instead of throwing them away, I put them in my gardening area in the basement. When it’s getting close to gardening season and I’m itching to get growing, this is a project I love to do to get me into the spring feeling.

Cutting the T-shirts

I’ll normally sit down with an audio book or podcast. I gather all the clothing I’ve set aside throughout the year. I grab my trusty sewing scissors and begin to cut close to all the seams and hems in order to leave me with big pieces of the stretchy fabric.

Once have these big pieces cut out, I lay them flat and cut long strips (about 1/2″ wide). Depending on how long those strips are, I cut them into lengths of about 5-8″.

Why cut both shorter and longer ones?

I tend to use shorter strips for my pepper plants and tomato plants and pole beans. I utilize the longer strips for tying my zucchini to a post to grow it vertically.

This year I even used very small strips to tie my seedlings to a skewer. I’ve never had to do this before. The soil mixture I made this year for my soil blocks made my seedlings go crazy!! See how I start my seedlings indoors here!

Storing garden plant ties:

When I finish cutting up the ties, I store them in a basket or bag that is easy to transport into the garden. Sometimes, I even put them in a small rubber tote that I store right in my garden. This way I can pull one out whenever I need it!

How do I make garden plant ties?

1. Collect unusable t-shirts or athletic shorts, or other clothing that is soft and stretchy that would otherwise be discarded.
2. Use fabric scissors to cut close to the seams and hems.
3. Once you have big chunks of the stretchy fabric, cut them into long, 1/2″ strips.
4. Cut the long strips into ties – about 5-8″ long.
5. Store in a basket or rubber tote.
6. Use in the garden to secure plants to stakes!

Do I still need to be careful when I use these homemade garden ties?

Absolutely! Any time you tie a stem to a stake, you can cause damage to your plants. Just tie them securely, but not tightly. You want to make sure there is enough room for the stem to thicken, so leave a little space.

DO NOT pull tightly and stretch the fabric as you’re tying it. Instead, tie it more loosely so that the fabric still has stretch left in it. That keeps it tied more loosely to the plant and prevents damage.

Will these t-shirt ties make my garden look bad?

That depends. I know everyone has a different garden aesthetic. I use what I have around and I feel like there is so much lush greenery in my garden that I never notice the color of the ties.

However, if that sort of thing bothers you, it can be easily fixed. Instead of using shirts you have laying around the house, you can buy green t-shirts at garage sales and resale shops.

In that way, you’re still using something that would be discarded, and you’re not spending much money at all. Plus, it doesn’t draw attention away from the beauty you’re looking for! Win-win.

What plants need to be tied up in the vegetable garden?

I use these ties on a lot of plants in my vegetable garden!

1. Pepper plants tend to get top heavy once they start producing fruit. I often put a bamboo stick next to the plant when I put them in the garden. I simply keep them tied to that stake in order to prevent them from flopping over.
2. My biggest use of garden plant ties is for my tomato plants. I use a combination stake/cage in order to keep my tomato plants contained. Because of that, I utilize a ton of these plant ties on my tomato plants each year.
3. I grow my zucchini vertically because it saves so much space. Additionally, it allows me to prune the plant quickly and easily see the fruit. In order to tie the thick zucchini stem to the T Post, I use these strong but flexible plant ties.
4. Occasionally I’ll use the ties to secure the pole beans to the green bean teepee.

If you try these out, let me know how they work for you!

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The post How to Make The Best, Cheap Garden Plant Ties appeared first on Little Reasons.

When I began gardening, I loved Square Foot Gardening. My mom used this method when I was growing up. She gave each of us a plot and all I wanted in mine was strawberries. I remember them sending out runners and they completely took over every square inch. I didn’t mind!

As an adult, I still loved Mel Bartholamew’s teaching. I loved his intensive method that keeps weeds down. And I loved his way to utilize vertical space.

One of the most exciting things in gardening is learning new methods of getting lots of amazing produce from a small space. Training squash to grow up instead of taking over the garden is one of the best ways to do this.

How is squash normally grown?

Squash is often grown in hills and then the vines trail all over the ground. While this is great if you have acres and acres of land, most of us have smaller garden areas and don’t want to dedicate multiple square feet to just one plant.

This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Why grow squash vertically?

Growing vertically has so many benefits! It takes up less space, you can see to prune, it protects the fruit, and it’s more beautiful.

Less space

As we talked about above, it takes so much less space to garden vertically. Most people do it for that sole reason. If you install a trellis of some kind, you can put one squash per foot. In contrast, when it trails on the ground, that same squash will take up multiple square feet of your garden.

You can see to prune

Pruning squash helps it to force nutrients to the fruit on the main vine. This is especially helpful if you live in a climate like mine in Zone 6 – the season is short! We need that fruit to ripen as quickly as possible in a short summer area.

By pruning, you can make the plant focus on growing and ripening the fruit that is already there instead of expending nutrients on setting out new fruit that may not have time to ripen.

Protect the fruit

Usually squash sits on the ground for long periods of time. Growing squash vertically keeps it up off the ground. Bugs and critters can attack your precious fruit when it’s laying on the ground for so long, so this helps to keep it bite free.

Beauty

Growing squash vertically also produces more beautiful fruit. It is prettier because it doesn’t create variations in color or shape due to sitting in the dirt. This is especially important if you’re using them for fall decorating.

Additionally, your garden looks more beautiful! There’s something about seeing squash suspended from the top of an arch, or dangling from a trellis. It’s intriguing and adds visual interest to your garden.

What squash can I grow vertically?

Winter Squash

Just like I have been talking about, many winter squash can be grown vertically. You won’t be able to grow Hubbard squash or large pumpkins this way. That creates too much strain on the stem and it can fall off.

However, pie pumpkins, kabocha, butternut, delicata, buttercup, acorn and lots of other smaller winter squash can be grown this way without worries!

What can I use when growing squash vertically?

You can use a cattle panel that has been staked into the ground with Tposts like you can see here. You can also use the Square Foot Garden method of PVC pipe and nylon netting like this.

My favorite way of growing squash vertically is by building a cattle panel trellis arch. I will show you how to do this in a future post! But here’s a picture of the before and after and I just love how it makes the garden look!

How to get squash to climb vertically:

Squash doesn’t actually climb completely on it’s own. It needs some help, so you’ll need to put just a little effort into it. But, just like keeping your garden thistle free, it really just takes visiting your garden every day for about 10 minutes to maintain it.

The reason you want to keep up on it every few days is because over time, the vines get thicker and firmer. Young vines are really pliable. You can easily weave them into the trellis. But as they get older, they thicken up and when you try to tuck them in, they will often break. So just do a little bit every day and you’ll be able to keep up on it without it becoming a chore.

I go out to my garden each morning with my coffee. When I do, I check out what has grown since the day before, pull a few weeds, and train my vertical vines. It only takes a few minutes and it is so stunning to be in the garden with the early morning sun streaming in and the dew drops still on the plants.

A squash plant can grow so much in a single day. It’s shocking! Once the summer heat hits, you’ll find that every day you’ll have new growth that you can trellis.

Weave it in

Just take those tender new vines and weave them in and out of the trellis. I try to keep them spread out so that they take up the entire space. At this point, you can also see where to prune off a couple shoots while they are small.

Another thing you can do at this point is to take the tiny squash and pull them through the trellis so they are on the inside. I had one on top last year that I forgot to pull through and it was a bear to harvest!

Tendrils take over from there

The squash plants send out tendrils that will hold tight to the trellis and keep them on. It’s really quite amazing! I normally don’t have to use any of my t shirt ties except when I’m first attaching the plant to the trellis at the bottom when it’s little. The tendrils do all the work for me!

What else can I grow vertically?

Summer Squash & Zucchini

I love to grow summer squash vertically! I wrote a whole blog post about how I grow my zucchini this way. It’s so easy! Zucchini has a super thick stem. That makes it almost impossible to trellis the way I do for winter squash. But the method I share in my post shows a great way to grow zucchini vertically.

Melons

Melons can also be grown vertically! I probably wouldn’t grow a watermelon this way, because like the large squash, it puts too much strain on the stem.

But personal size melons, as well as regular melons can be grown this way. Since the stems on melon are a little skinnier than winter squash, you can make a sling to hold it if you feel that it is in danger of falling before it’s ripe.

Green Beans

We absolutely love to grow pole beans vertically! Not only is it so fun to look at, but it takes up way less space! In this photo, we had 25 plants growing on a teepee. It gave us SO much food!

Cucumbers

Cucumbers can also be grown on a cattle panel trellis, or a PVC pipe and nylon netting trellis. They could also be worked into the cattle panel arch between your squash!

How close do I plant them?

When growing vertically, you can plant much closer than when you plant them and have the vines trail along the ground. I grow mine about one foot apart on each side of the trellis and I’ve had no problems. They seem to be able to get plenty of nutrients with that spacing.

I hope you try growing squash vertically! If you do, let me know how it goes!

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It’s March and the sun is shining like crazy in North East Ohio! I’m tapping trees for maple syrup and starting seedlings and gearing up for garden season. I’m SO thankful that I tacked the thistle beast last year! As I look back on my garden from last season, I can’t believe how thistle had taken over. If that’s your problem too, I’ve got you covered! Read on!

What is thistle?

Thistle is considered a weed in vegetable gardens. If you let it go, it will take over in no time! It has an unbelievably extensive root system. Unlike a weed that spreads only through seeds blowing, it can spread via the underground roots as well.

Because of the many ways it can spread, thistle can be super invasive. Many people go after thistle with weed killers, but that is absolutely NOT necessary! With a bit of work and some ground cover, you can have a thistle free garden this year! So let’s dive in to how to get rid of thistle.

How did thistle take over my garden?

If thistle has taken over your garden, I know your pain! I let my garden lay fallow for one year and thistle insidiously crept into it. Since I didn’t plant the garden that year, the thistle went to seed and it spread everywhere. In addition to the seeds, the root system went crazy and spread thistle throughout my garden that way as well!

The final nail in the coffin is that we use the Back to Eden method that covers the untilled dirt with chipped wood. I was in my third year and desperately needed to get more chipped wood to keep weeds at bay. Instead, I had almost bare soil that was nutrient dense and absolutely loved growing weeds – especially this invasive one. I needed to know how to get rid of thistle!

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Why is thistle so hard to get rid of?

Thistle is a beast because it has an underground root system that feeds it. When you dig up one thistle, the root system senses that it’s in trouble and will often send up 2-3 new plants where you just removed one!

If you think about how plants get nutrients, they take in water from their roots, but they turn sunshine into food with their leaves. This is where you can really eradicate thistle! If you can keep them from getting to the stage where they have leaves that are soaking in that sun and making food to feed that hungry root system, you can kill it!

How to get rid of thistle:

Unfortunately, removing thistle takes quite a bit of work, especially if you have a huge garden like I do. But, if you’re committed to gardening in an organic way, it is WELL worth the effort!

It’s a pretty simple process to remove the thistle. I used gloves because those suckers are sharp! With one hand I gathered the thistle in my hand to expose the base of the stem. Then I used a hand shovel to go straight down following the root as low as I could get it. I tipped the handle away from the thistle so the end of the trowel cut the root. Then I did that over and over and over again.

Why did the thistle come back after I removed it?

Urgh. This happened to me too! You do all that work to get rid of thistle and it comes back WAY worse than it was before!!! This was my story! There’s a couple things to know when it comes to thistle. Remember when I told you that the root system freaks out when you remove the weed and it sends 2 or 3 shoots up where you removed that one? It’s in self preservation mode!

My mistake was that I left the ground bare after I removed them. The Back to Eden method we follow teaches that nowhere on earth do we see uncovered ground. It’s always protected and covered – either by grass or by rotting leaves or moss. The crazy thing about it is that it retains moisture that way – and it suppresses weeds!

How to suppress weeds:

My big mistake was that I did not cover the ground after I removed the weeds. There’s a couple ways to do this. First, you can get all your crops planted. When you have hungry tomatoes and cucumbers fighting for water and nutrients, it doesn’t give so much to the weeds. Having a full, productive garden is a great way to suppress weeds.

The second way to keep weeds at bay is to cover the ground. You can use many things like dried leaves, but the best medium in my opinion is chipped wood. Many tree companies will drop it off for free if they are doing work in your area because they actually pay to dump it. Normally, you’ll have to take the entire truck load, though. So be ready!

Additionally, many cities have piles of chipped wood for free. After they do the tree trimming for the city, they chip the branches and offer it for free! We chose this option first because we knew where to get it and we have a truck. It was a good quick way to get chipped wood fast.

After we got a couple truckloads from the city, I called probably 10 tree companies in our area and found one that was happy to dump chipped wood. The most amazing thing about chipped wood is that the branches have leaves on them. Every good compost pile has equal parts brown and green. That’s exactly what this chipped wood is. So as it breaks down in the garden, it’s turning into compost and adding nutrients to the soil!

A warning on chipped wood

The best chipped wood to use is aged at least one year. Since I needed to get something on the garden fast, I used what I could get, so it was fresh. If you use fresh chipped wood, you will need to do 2 things — NEVER mix it into your soil. As it breaks down, it uses nitrogen. So it will pull nitrogen from your soil to try to break down. This is bad news. So just put it on top of your soil. Second, pull it back from your plants and don’t let it touch the stems. I found in the past that it can cause my crops to get a little yellowed since it is using up that nitrogen.

So aged chipped wood is best. If you can get it in the spring and just have a pile somewhere on your property that’s best. Then you can use it next year. If you don’t have room for that, you can have it dumped at the end of the season and at least let it age over the winter on your garden plot. As it ages, your garden will just get better and better!

How often will I need new chipped wood?

I add new chipped wood to my garden about every 3 years or so. I like to keep 3-5 inches covering everything. In that 3 years, it breaks down, so you’ll need to add more on top of it as time progresses.

How to keep up on thistle so it doesn’t become a problem again – how to get rid of thistle FOR GOOD:

The best way to keep up on thistle and keep it at bay is to be in the garden everyday and remove any thistle you see immediately. I made a habit of taking my coffee into the garden first thing in the morning and spending 5-10 min taking out any thistle I saw. It was SO fast when I did it a tiny bit every day.

The reason this is important is because you don’t want the leaves to develop and greedily take in all that sunshine to feed the root system. In order to keep the root system weakening, you’ll need to get outside daily and get those thistle out asap. I just did this with my hands. Because they are so small, you won’t need a shovel or gloves to get them out.

That’s it! I’ll leave you with a picture of my garden partway through the season. No thistle at all. I hope you’ve been encouraged in how to get rid of that sneaky weed for good!

The post How to Get Rid of Thistle – Organically for Free! appeared first on Little Reasons.

I’ve been vertical gardening for some time now, so I can make the best use of limited space. But until recently, I have not had success with one of my favorite plants – zucchini! Summer squash and zucchini are such bushy plants and while they able to grow vertically, in the past I couldn’t figure it out. I knew that if I could nail down this vertical support, it would allow me to have more room available in my vegetable garden! Last year was the first year I figured it out and it gave me a bountiful harvest and saved space! So if you have a small space, or you just need a good idea for how to get more into your large garden, this post is for you!

This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Why start growing zucchini vertically?

Zucchini takes up lots of space in the garden. It craws along the ground and produces enormous leaves. Those leaves crowd out everything around it. The fruit also lays on the garden soil. Unfortunately it’s is a great way for it to develop scars in the flesh or lead to bug damage.

Growing zucchini vertically is one of the best ways to solve these issues. It provides air circulation, gives you the best fruit, allows you to have a huge plant in a smaller area, and it gives you access to the stem of the plant for a super effective way to prune! Not only does it get the fruit off the ground, but it allows you to only use a small area for the zucchini, utilizing your garden space more efficiently. It normally takes up multiple square feet! Another amazing benefit of growing zucchini vertically is that it gives you easy access to the stem for pruning. This allows the air to flow all around the plant.

Why couldn’t I get growing zucchini vertically to work?

I first heard that you could grow zucchini vertically when I was reading All New Square Foot Gardening. Mel Bartholomew was mentioning that you could make zucchini go up the frame trellis on the square foot garden beds. I could not figure out how to weave those huge pokey zucchini vines through the waffle like back supports. By the end of the growing season, I had given up. The zucchini plant was just hanging off the support structure.

But I desperately wanted to have the benefit of the zucchini taking up less space, having better air circulation, and producing fruit that wasn’t damaged by bugs or animals. So the next year I tried to tie it to bamboo poles and failed miserably. The young plants did well, but the squash plants become so heavy with the weight of the fruit that it just fell over.

I know some people even use a tomato cage, just like you’d use to keep control of tomato plants. While I never tried the tomato cage method, I think I found something that worked way better as a climbing aid for growing zucchini vertically.

Last year, everything changed!

I was not going to let this particular plant get the best of me. So I tried again. This time, I was very diligent about going into my garden every single morning. Wouldn’t you know that having the proper kind of stake, and having consistency were the keys for me?!

Zucchini grows SO fast in the beginning that if you miss a couple days, suddenly your zucchini plant is flopped over and those fat hollow stems breaks off, ruining the plant. But if you’re diligent in the beginning, it pays off in the end!

How to start growing zucchini vertically

The first thing to do when growing zucchini vertically is to have all the supplies ready when you plant your zucchini seeds. For the best results, you’ll want to have the following supplies available on the day you plant:

Zucchini seeds or the seedling you started with soil blocking (read my post here on how to do that)

Heavy duty stakes – one for each plant – I’ve used this T – Post in the past, but this year I’m trying this garden stake and it seems strong enough (do not use a bamboo stake, as I have found those to be flimsier)

Ties to tie up the plant – Read about my favorite garden plant ties here. If you’re in a hurry and just want to buy them, these seem like a great option!

(You won’t need the ties that first day unless your seedlings are pretty big. But you want to have them ready so you’ll be able to use them as soon as you see the need.)

What steps do I follow for growing zucchini vertically in my home garden?

1. Plant either a seedling from a soil block*, or a zucchini seed into the ground and water well.
2. Drive in a stake or T – Post into the garden soil in the ground near the seed or base of the plant.
3. If using a seedling and it’s grown quite a bit already, loosely tie the stem to the stake at the base of the stem.
4. Each day, visit the garden and be ready to tie a new portion of the zucchini stem to the stake. Make sure to tie loosely so that as the stem increases in circumference, it won’t be strangled by the tie. Tying the zucchini stem to the stake at regular intervals is the key! It doesn’t take much time and it’s SO worth it!
5. Tie just under a set of leaves. This gives it sort of an anchor so if it starts to slide down, it catches on the set of leaves.
6. Continue with tying up every few days at regular intervals, as needed.
7. Prune all the leaves below the bottom fruit to force nutrients to the fruit and new leaves.
8. Enjoy your beautiful, vertical zucchini!

*The benefit of using a seedling is that you’ll get a big head start over the seed planted directly into the soil. However, summer squash doesn’t transplant well, so I’d only recommend doing this if you’re using soil blocking. See the details on this method here.

Why do I need to put the stake in the day I plant it?

This is a great question! Any time you’re gardening and using a stake or post of any kind, you’ll find that they say to put it in immediately upon planting. Even though you won’t need it right away, it causes the least root disturbance if you put it in right away. Waiting until the plant gets all spread out and big and comfy in the soil means that those roots will be extended quite a bit from the main stem. If you drive a stake in at that point, you’ll be cutting through all those strong and secure roots.

Instead, you’ll drive the stake in right away. As the plant grows and develops, the roots will snake their way around the post in the ground and grow strong and healthy. It causes less disturbance to the plant, and that’s always our main goal! With that being said, if you don’t have your stake yet, you can still plant your seedling or seed. You’ll just want to get that post or stake in as soon as possible for the best possible outcome for the plant.

Why is pruning zucchini important?

Plants send out nutrients to their leaves to keep them strong because leaves are the life blood of the plant. Plants bring in water through their roots, but the leaves make sunlight into food via photosynthesis. So these leaves are SUPER important! But because they are so important, they take a lot of nutrients to keep them strong and stable.

In a zucchini plant, the leaves that are necessary are the ones above the fruit, shading it and protecting it. But it takes quite some time for the leaves below the fruit to begin to die off. In order to redirect all those nutrients to the newer leaves and the fruit, I always prune my zucchini plant below the bottom fruit.

It actually looks super funny! When I see it, I think of one of those funny poodles who just gets home from the groomer and has a skinny tail with a puff on the end! It looks funny, but trust me. This allows you to have more fruit. It will also keep your plant cleaned up so you can see when the zucchini is ready to pick.

When I prune back my zucchini plants, it looks like a massacre happened (see photo below). That’s totally ok! Your plants will thank you!

Will the Zucchini fall off if it gets too big?

This is actually an unexpected result of growing vertically! I didn’t realize that when the zucchini was growing on the ground, it blended in with the chipped wood and leaves and I often missed one under the zucchini leaves. Suddenly, I had a baseball bat sized one hiding under all those enormous leaves!

When it grows vertically, however, you can see the fruit hanging down very easily! So I find that I don’t have zucchini that is large enough to fall off. Unfortunately, you’ll still have situations like this photo where you go out of town and come back to an enormous fruit on your zucchini vines. That’s totally fine! As the stem grows, it becomes as large as it needs to be to support the weight of the fruit. So just like growing winter squash in a trellis or arch, the stem is thick enough to support the growth and I’ve never had one fall off the stem when I’ve used vertical growing!

What do I do with huge zucchinis!?

I don’t sauté these huge ones because they can be a bit tough. But these are the ones that I’ll often grate for fritters or zucchini chocolate chip pancakes or zucchini bread or zucchini bread oatmeal. If the skin is really thick, you can go ahead and peel it first. Then cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds – they tend to be really fat in large zucchini. Then grate the remainder of the fruit and use immediately, store it in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze!

When I freeze leftover shredded zucchini, I normally measure it out into the amount I use for my favorite recipes and mark that on the outside of the quart baggie. This way, I can grab a bag out of the freezer that has the exact amount I need for that particular recipe.

What happens if I forget to tie it up?

Toward the end of summer, I tend to get distracted. I did great all summer tying it up at regular intervals, and then I forgot for a little while. In this situation, somethings the hollow stem can crack off and ruin the plant. Luckily, even though the stem flopped over above the highest tie, it did not break. I went out with lots of t-shirt ties and did my best to gently guide it up the post. It worked!

So don’t lose heart if this happens to you! Just try your best to be really gentle with it. The hollow stems are flexible, but can be snapped easily if you’re not careful.

What kind of zucchini should I grow?

This is a total personal preference! I think the quintessential zucchini is the Black Beauty plant. It has a really dark, shiny skin and when it’s picked small, it’s so tender and delicate!

However, my very favorite is the Italian Striped variety! Honestly, if you knew me in person, you may say that I like it just because it’s not what everyone else grows and there’s probably truth in that! I like to be different and go to the beat of my own drum. But I also think this one looks SO pretty and different in summer dishes! You should really try it!

No matter what, I usually choose seeds that are heirloom variety. That means they haven’t been cross bred and if you save the seeds from your fruit and plant them next year, you’ll get the very same thing. If you have any other questions, let me know!

That’s it! Like I mentioned earlier, growing zucchini vertically is a super simple process, but it does take foresight and a little diligence in order to be successful. Getting more out of limited space is totally worth it!

Happy Gardening!

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