How to Fill a raised bed and container garden for free, laying to save water for plants like wicking bed, and how to fix old soil. How to Garden on the Free and Easy.
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Gardening Vegetables Vegetable Garden Growing peppers
I hope you watch and pay attention to this on what I do. Not that it’s going to work for you, but let me tell you, it works for me. I have people coming to me and telling me it’s hot, it’s summer, they lost all their plants, it didn’t matter if they were in containers, in the ground, everything is gone. But you know what? They’re my neighbors, so they shouldn’t be losing them if I’m not losing them. And why do I not lose them? Because I layer. I use pots in everything. Even on the ground, I will put pots around plants. But in totes or buckets or even other flower pots, I still layer with more pots. And why? It’s natural. It holds water even on the hottest days. But you’re going to see me refurbish something today. And I’m hoping I’m sparking something where you can go, hm, maybe I can do that, too. And well, this is just how I build my soil. But see pots in pots or I should say here a tote a pot a small squash plant that has given me so much squash this summer that it’s unbelievable. So, I hope you get something out of this video. Layer, layer, layer, not only for heat, but for feeding your plants and to have good, healthy, strong, longerliving plants, especially vegetable plants, cuz that’s what we’re really talking about. Let’s go through this. And I’m going to take my time on this because I want to explain so much. Now, here I am taking a plain old flower pot that you would get from a nursery. You buy a plant, comes in a pot. Do not throw them out. They are wonderful and they don’t get recycled. They literally go to the dump and get smashed. So, you keep them and you grow food in them or flowers or whatever you want. But believe me, these pots are like gold. Now, what I’m doing here is that is the tote that grew. I don’t know what it grew in there was. There was some peppers. There was a tomato. There was even some cutings in there. Well, I didn’t get to it this year. And that’s fine. But guess what? Everything I threw in there, like I usually do, all the kitchen scraps and leaves and branches, it’s all gone. I now have my own compost, which I’m going to call soil right now. I have all that soil that I can plant something in. So, as you saw, I filled up these pots and I’m going to put my baby pepper plants in here. Now, keep in mind, this is free. The pepper plant was free. It was a seed from the store. So, I bought the peppers, ate the peppers, and grew the seeds. The soil is free. The pot was free. So, it’s all free. I mean, it’s free for nature, you know, so why shouldn’t it be free for me? Why should I spend a lot of money? You can spend all the money you want, but I don’t have the money and I am not going to spend that much. That particular tote also, the big green one that came from a thrift store. I think it was like $23. But anyways, as you see, I filled the whole bottom up with leaves and branches and everything and even dirt, I’m going to call it, straight off the ground. And now, halfway up, I’m going to fill it up with this wonderful gold compost soil that I made in this tote from last year. All gone. All that matter broke down and disappeared. I’m going to fill it up. And I’m going to plant these two peppers and that eggplant that looks really sad that’s been sitting there I think for the past four or five months in that little cup. It’s about time you get it planted. Is it going to make it? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll put something else in there if it doesn’t. This is the eggplant. Poor thing. It’s even got celery growing on the bottom. It’s been sitting outside but not planted. So you keep the red cups, your plastic cups, if they look good, and you plant in them again. Be it now, be it next spring, just put them away. And now I’m going to plant in here. Now, all this soil would have cost me a lot of money if I would have gone and bought potting mix. Now, of course, if you don’t have it, you’re going to go buy it. But you’re going to build your own. You’re going to start building it the very moment you start planting and growing cuz you’re going to make your own soil. It’s you can’t get around it. You may throw it away in the trash and not even know it. Clean up your tote, get rid of all the leaves, throw it in the trash. You just threw away your soil. You don’t throw anything away. There’s so many different ways to make free soil. And this was one. It was something I grew in. The plants are gone and now I have all the soil. You’re going to reap the benefits over and over. Now, I want to give these plants a lot of nutrition. So, that’s why I’m doing it this way. And it works. We’ll get into why it works this way in a few moments. So, there’s this is plast. Oh, it’s a label off of something from the kitchen scraps. Maybe it’s off an apple or a banana I bought once. I don’t even know. Maybe even from a fruit from a party somebody brought here. Oh well. But anyways, so that soil is going to go halfway up. The last pepper will get planted and then we’re going to use those pots in this tote. But this tote, the soil in there, well, it’s been used. You know, the plants that were in there pulled everything up obviously because everything is gone. So, we need to fix it. Now, if I was working in a great big raised bed, I’d be going crazy trying to dig it out. I’ve got this on two chairs off the ground, and it’s easy to work. I’m putting in all kinds of branches, weeds, leaves, anything. Notice where I removed the soil. I made a hole, a concave. Well, that is where I’m putting in all my leaves. Now, some of you tell me, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Okay, that’s fine. I can’t do it. I’m going to do what I want. But anyways, does it work? Yes, but sometimes it might create a little extra nitrogen being pulled from the plants as it breaks down sometimes. So, doing it this way, you don’t have to worry about it. Not at all. Even the skeptical people that say it doesn’t work. Why? Because you’re not planting in this. I’m not planting in this today. Yet, you’ve seen tomatoes and squash and all kinds of stuff come up in raw food matter. But today, we’re doing this differently as I’m refurbishing this tote. And I’m burying the leaves now. I’m starting the process all over again. That is what I’m doing. And I’m putting the soil from the other side that I haven’t dealt with yet. You’re watching it with me. And I’m now going to put that wonderful compost I made in this tote for free in this flower pot. Now, why? Because I don’t have to use bag soil. Bag soil that may or may not be organic. That’s usually just broken down wood chips and that is it. I mean, I know what was in there. Food matter, leaf matter, branches, everything from nature was in there more than what will ever be in a bag of soil that you buy. Now, you can buy the most expensive bags, and some of them get really pricey. They’re not even that big, and they can cost you $60, if not more. And how many bags would you need because it’s organic and they put all kinds of worm castings in there and everything? But you’re going to have all that. Even if you don’t have worms, you’re going to have the microbes that were breaking everything down, which is to me almost just as good, if not just as good. So, see what I’m doing? Free soil, free pot, another free pepper plant. Now, what I’m really doing here is I’m trying to make a hole in the tote or I should say pockets in the broken down soil so I don’t have to tip it out, empty it, start all over. I don’t want to do that, and I do this all the time. This is refurbishing the soils. And make sure your totes and your flower pots have holes, drain holes on the bottom. See, there’s holes on the bottom. Big holes, little holes. This particular one doesn’t have really big holes, but that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Now, if you really want a lot of the roots to really take off, make bigger holes in your pot or use pots with bigger holes. But use what you’ve got. Now, I’ve told you when it comes to growing in totes, we can’t have too many plants in there, correct? You’re not going to put a bunch of squash and tomatoes and peppers in there because it won’t work. They’re going to be fighting for the nutrients. Oh, there’s earthworms in there and stuff and everything’s broken down. They’re not going to be fighting. They each have their own home. I could probably shove in there as many pots as I want that will fit in there. And each plant has its own container, its own home. What it’s going to be doing is sending its roots out, you know, the tiny feeder roots out from the bottom and grab the nutrients from all this that I’m putting in. Those are all just cut off brassica leaves with that had seed heads on and everything. And there’s some dried collared leaves going in there. It’s going to rob the nutrients on the bottom. It thinks it’s doing something it’s not supposed to do. Ooh, I’m going to put my roots out and look, I found all this great stuff I’m going to eat. Nobody’s going to know as that pepper plant sits there smiling away producing fruit thinking nobody knows what I’m doing. Of course I do because I planted it that way. But they can live in harmony together. Now you can mix and match any plant you want. I could even put celery in a pot if I wanted. Remember I told you celery gets such a big massive root system. It takes over even the biggest tote. So you don’t want to put celery in with anything. Though I did grow it with some onions. It still worked. But the point is celery just takes over everything. It won’t matter. It has its own container. And in fact, if something didn’t look good or you didn’t want it in there, you just lift the pot out and either replace it or don’t replace it. So now I’m just cutting all this up so it will break down faster. Do I have to? No. But the more you cut it up, the faster this green and brown matter will break up. So I’m just going to put it all in there and cover it. Now, keep in mind, we’ve talked about this. Nothing will break down on the top. It’ll turn brown. It’ll sit there. It won’t break down until it’s covered. Your microbes live in the soil. Your earthworms live in the soil. You’ve got to cut it up. This is an old squash plant that’s tired and done. There it goes in there. Powdery mildew and all. Even if there’s bugs on there, I don’t care. It’s all going to be under the soil. Or anything. You could cover this with leaves, stuff you rake up off the ground. As long as it’s under the soil, you will be perfect to grow in. Now, this method will work for you if you’re in the desert because I know a lot of people around me have told me they lost everything. They shouldn’t have, but they’re trying to grow in the ground. They’re not thinking about layering. These pots, when you put them in, you’ll see in a few minutes, they do so many double, triple, quadruple things. They’re not just sitting there. They’ve got all these duties they’re doing that they don’t even know. But we know, I know, and now you know. So now everything you saw me stuff in there is going to break down. Now water is life. So you’ve got to water it. Even if you’re not going to plant in it right now, which I am, you have to water it. Your microbes, your earthworms, everything living in there, even the little roly pulleys that are in there, those little tiny cell bugs, they all need water. So you’ve got to keep it watered. So, even if there was nothing in here, I would water it as if a plant was here. Now, I’m going to make a little concave here and a little concave there. I’m going to set my pots about an inch down so the roots can come through the bottom of these pots. Now, if you want, you can drop it halfway down. It doesn’t have to just be sitting an inch down. You can drop it four, five, six. You could drop it almost to the brim if you wanted to. So, you do that the way you want. But, let me tell you something. these pots. What do you see? Three homes for these plants. They’re going to harbor water underneath. So on the hottest day of 100°, 110, there’s going to be water under these pots. We’ll talk about that little one in a minute. So when you water your plants, you’re going to make sure you water the pots. You always water the pots that the plants are in because it’s going to seep down and then it’s going to slowly gravity is going to pull it down. Even when you think it’s not dripping anymore, it’s dripping into the soil underneath. So, if it gets dry on the top, it’s still going to be wet underneath. Now, the little pot when I’m doing, and I could put one, two, three, I could put probably three, four, five, 10 pots in there. I’m going to propagate at the same time because each one has their own home. It’s not going to matter. I’m going to take this geranium and I’m going to trim off some of the leaves. Now, it shouldn’t have been that big. Usually, I go, well, not usually. I do everything wrong. I do take large pieces and propagate it and it works. But normally I take smaller pieces. I leave only a couple leaves on there and I just shove it in a pot and hopefully remember to water it and everything goes good. But while you’re doing this in this fashion, you can be growing other things as well. And propagating is a great one. You don’t have to think about it. I wouldn’t do seeds right now because that’s more work. You have to keep going back, make sure it doesn’t dry out. But propagating is perfect. It too as it starts to grow and it will be forced into growing because of all the microbes and all the nutrients in there will send its roots out. But you can always lift it and move your plant that you propagated later. So there it goes in there. And I might come back later and put a whole bunch more little pots around there. It would be good if I can find some little pots and put them on the top around the peppers. That will work too. Even if it’s temporary. Do you want to know something? Half the time on my plants, 3/4 of the time I don’t mulch. Why? because I layer and it’s getting its water from underneath, not on top. And it works. Mulching is good. You should put wood chips or leaves or something on the top. I don’t use straw because it can get moldy and I don’t know where the straw came from. So, it’s if it’s got persistent herbicides in it, then it could kill your plant. Keep that in mind. You’re supposed to test straw before you use it. We don’t bother with straw. We had a problem once and we throw all straw away if it shows up here. We just simply don’t use it. Now, rocks work. That’s perfect for putting on top. And there it is. I’m actually going to be able to grow more plants in one container than I would if I planted them straight in there. Gary just came to get me. He said I didn’t answer my text. I didn’t see a text. Anyways, it is done right now. I’m going to give it a good water. I’m going to move this. I’ll put it with my gloves. I won’t forget to come get it later. Now, each one of these have their own pot. So when I water each one, I know the water’s going directly to the roots. They’re not leaving and going somewhere else. Cuz a lot of times we plant things and then the water leaves. You don’t know what the underground river is doing. Now I know they’ll get their water and then they’ll send the roots out the bottom later on. And I can still continue to throw leaves all the way around this and build the soil up around the pots. And this, why not try to propagate something while we’re going? That’s what I do. And this all started with one little piece I got somewhere off of somebody’s plant. And now I have so many of these beautiful purple kind of Martha Washington geraniums. And then there I just threw the Malibar spinach that came up in a pot. There’s no soil in there to speak of. But there’s holes on the bottom. So it will send its roots into that tote later. So I’m done. All right. I’m going in to have breakfast. I know he made tortillas cuz he came looking for me. And I got a job done for today. So, you have a wonderful day and don’t forget to eat what you grow. And hopefully we’ll come back on the garden tours and see these things starting to grow very quickly.

33 Comments
1
Hello
Thank YOU 😊 I started a garden this year. I have learned SO much from you!! God’s blessings to you and Gary as we all continue to learn from you!
Yes!! I also layer in untreated straw. It’s perfect and breaks down, beautifully as well.
I used your composting in place idea this spring and my sun gold tomato is gigantic. My bell peppers have too many flowers to count. The summer squash has many female flowers. Never seen anyone have better plants in their big garden beds. I'm doing nothing but containers from now on. Thanks so much.
Do you put any holes in the bottom of the tote?
Pots dry out quicker, than in the ground.
Is Gary watching the Little League World Series at Williamsport Virginia? Australia is in it and Hawaii too.
What makes the plants break down off the ground? I thought they had to be on the ground for worms/whatever else to get in there and break it down?
Ty so much for ur videos. I started using ur method of putting scraps in a pot and set pots with other plants on top and my plants have taken off like crazy. I have a mango tree that has put new leaves on top 4 different times this year since I started doing it. I love all of ur videos.
Believe it or not I saw my first bumble bee of the season yesterday. The doves that built a nest & laid eggs have disappeared along with their eggs🤔
Hi Robbie
❤❤❤Great pointers
Hi Robbie!
Thank you my dear friend, you are so inspiring, I’m 75, garden on my own, sometimes I think I will stop and just buy my food, a good friend reminded me last night, how much my garden gives me joy. You make it easier for me. Thank you my dear. Hugs from Australia. Sisters by your marriage to Gary, giggles, hugs to you both. I read somewhere those labels are edible, they can’t be, they last in compost for ages. I’m off to my garden right now, love love love you.
Such excellent growing advice. Even after gardening for decades I still find your videos have wonderful 'new' ideas. The free soil is one of them. Thank you Robbie.
Every gardener needs a Robbie. Blessings and love. Sherry 🥰 🙏❤
Love your videos they're always great lots of good information. God bless 🙏 you and yours 😊❤ 🙏 ❤
How much do I love MATT WALSH. THANK YOU.
It never ceases to amaze me how miraculously all this happens. I shared some of my compost with my friend and now she has a reseeded tomato plant and squash plant. 🌱
Thanks Robbie. ❤❤❤
I love your soil videos even though I have watched many of those. Thanks for educating me, I have started using your soil building method on my balcony and it works like a charm ❤
Robbie, been doing this w/ cans. Usually cut both ends & use as cylinder. Can sink into soil. Tuna cans work well w/ onions, beets. Thin tall cans (asparagus) I like for celery making compact stalks. Moisture from the bottom where roots are makes perfect sense. A fine-tuning tutorial. Thx.
I love how your method is no pressure. So go ahead and garden and learn from your garden!
You are a gardening inspiration. Just this morning I pulled old tomatoes out of the freezer. They had ice crystals and probably freezer burn. I buried them in an empty pot that I’m going to plant carrots in.
"I'm gonna do what I want". Love you Robbie.
Thank you Robbie!! I garden in North Texas and already moving my whole garden to totes, makes gardening much easier. And I try to imitate your system and it is working!!!
Thanks, Robbie. I will be harvesting my potatoes, which are in a composting storage bin. I will be using this method. I love ❤you
Great idea, Robbie. I plan on trying this method. I learned about totes and tulle from you. This sounds like another great idea!
Hey Robs! Sending this video to my sister who is just STARTING in gardening & bought 5 gallon buckets this season to start okra. I'd love if she could take some knowledge from you on the value of not just container gardening but layering!
She lives in a duplex; plenty of patio but limited space of 'good ground soil' (and then to compound the problem, is at the whim of Association landscapers who actually cut her baby okra plants down – that she'd put IN ground – BUT they left the weeds!) 🙄THANKFULLY she'd put some seeds in buckets or she'd have ZERO plants at this point!
THANK YOU for always being of service to people desiring to grow vegetables or whatever!
Love you!
🪴🍆🎋🌳
Excellent video. Very well explained. Thank you Robbie ❤
Love all your gardening ideas Robbie! Here in northern Ca, (Salinas) temperatures are only in the 60’s and low 70’s. It’s been a very slow season for my vegetables and fruit trees. I feel robbed of summer this year.
Great content as usual😊❤🇨🇦🙏
I am 77 years old, I have been gardening most of my life, and I have to tell you, Robbie‘s ideas are the best. Last year I tried what’s called SIPS sub irrigation planters, and they did not work as well as Robbie‘s technique. What was missing? The food, leaves, soil, Browns and greens that Robbie uses. I’m going back solely to Robbie‘s method. Thank you Robbie.