5 Tips for Container Gardening

five things that I do in my garden that have worked really well for me as a container gardener Number one keep things manageable which growing in containers helps me to do but it’s still important not to have more plants than I can keep up with especially with watering and general maintenance throughout the hottest days of the summer and my busiest days outside of the garden Number two I start all of my pots with a thin layer of natural undyed hardwood mulch at the bottom I got this huge bag for about $4 and it helps with supplementing some of the volume of the soil which is much more expensive It also helps with drainage Now you don’t want to add too much because it could rob your soil of nitrogen I’ve never had that problem because I don’t use that much and also because the soil I use is last year’s soil that still has roots from the previous plants breaking down and providing some nitrogen Which leads us to number three I reuse my soil from previous years I get asked a lot what kind of soil I use and the answer is whatever is most affordable and available when I need it Then it gets reused every year mixed with homemade compost for my compost tumbler which turns my kitchen scraps and shredded paper and cardboard into fertilizer I also make sure that I add perlite which is a lightweight porous volcanic material that really helps with drainage arration and root development Then I add some worm castings either mixed in through the soil or added to the pot And this is well quite frankly just worm poop but it’s a really good overall fertilizer that does a lot to improve soil quality And since my potted plants can’t have worms in them I want to make sure they still get the benefits of that worm poop Number four for any outdoor pots I like adding a thin layer of easy straw on top That will help keep the moisture in the soil from evaporating and also inhibit some of the weeds from popping up And number five I love using terracotta watering spikes to keep the soil moist They work like oyas but are the perfect size for larger pots and grow bags They fit wine bottles or beer bottles filled with water and they keep my garden from drying out all season long I do still water my garden and make sure that I fill the bottles when they’re empty And how often I do that depends a lot on the weather But I’ll tell you it’s a lot less often than without the watering spikes Most of the supplies that I use in the garden can be found on the gardening list on my Amazon storefront which you can find in the link on my profile I really hope that you found this helpful and you’ll add any more tips that you have in the comments Happy growing