A gardening expert has showed how you don’t have to spend a fortune on soil when filling your garden beds and containers when planting.
Gardener Joe, known under his alias Joe’s Garden, often takes to his social media platforms to share his go-to tips and tricks for beginners to grow their own food and flowers.
If you’ve ever planted something, you might have noticed that the amount of soil you need quickly adds up into a larger sum, especially if you’re wanting to fill a garden bed or a large container.
To help, Joe has shared his money-saving method for filling large garden containers so that they won’t need as much soil or compost.
“Here’s how I fill up all my large containers and raised beds without having to break the bank on soil and compost,” he said at the start of the TikTok video.
He went on to explain: “Raised beds and large containers are a fantastic way to grow an abundance of fresh food at home. However they can get very expensive to fill with soil. That’s why I use a method called Hugelkultur.
Joe then showed how he started by lining his garden bed with cardbord in order to suppress the weeds from the ground. He then added a mixture of logs and twigs to fill up the space in the container. He then finished by adding organic materials such as straw on top, leaving just the top part in need of soil.
“This helps to dramatically reduce the volume of compost and soil needed, which allows you to grow an abundance of fresh food for a fraction of the price,” Joe said.
People went to the comments to thank the garden expert for his money-saving, however some also took the opportunity to ask questions about the method.
“Do you need to replace it all every year? or can you reuse it?,” one viewer asked, to which another viewer replied: “No. That’s perfect soil that can be used for years, and will get better over time due to the organic matter breaking down and turning into black gold.”
“We did this and it’s fantastic, the wood breaking down feeds the soil, you just have to top it off every year!,” a second person said.
Another viewer shared: “My fav idea is I use the new raised bed as this years compost pile. Over the year I’ll fill most of it and by next spring all you’ll need is a top up.”
