There are myriad benefits waiting for the gardener who chooses to use coconut soil. One of the most attractive benefits is that coco soil and coco coir are considered to be entirely renewable and sustainable.

In this article, we’ll go over what coconut soil is along with the medium’s background, uses, and benefits for your garden. Let’s jump in!

What is coconut soil?

Traditionally, coconut husks were considered waste products after their milk and meat had been harvested. Essentially, the entire shell of the coconut was trash. Then someone got the bright idea that coconut husks could have various applications in home products and gardening.

All the material between the coconut seed’s outer coating and the shell is called coconut coir, which consists of white or brown fibers. White coco coir is flexible but not too strong, and it comes from coconuts that aren’t ripe yet. Brown fibers come from ripe, mature coconuts, which are less flexible but much stronger.

How is coconut soil made?

Before coconut coir can be used in a garden, it has to be processed extensively. The brown and white fibers mentioned above have to be removed by soaking the husk in water. This softens and loosens the fibers. Depending on the manufacturer, the husks are soaked either in freshwater or tidal water.

Coconut fibers soak up a lot of water and retain it for a long time. Gardeners need to find out what kind of water the coco coir they buy has been soaked in before using it around plants. This is because all the salt from tidal water soaking will be retained in the coconut fibers. If that’s the case, all that salt will have to be flushed out. Many manufacturers do this as part of the process.

Once the fibers have been taken out of the water, they’re left to dry for a year or more. After it dries, it’s then turned into bales, similar to how hay is baled. Manufacturers then chop those bales and process them further into a variety of forms and sizes. In this case, the bales are progressively chopped and refined into dry fibers, chips, “croutons,” and ground coco coir, which looks like dark soil. That’s where the “coconut soil” term comes from.

What are the benefits of coconut soil?

Because coconut soil looks so much like regular gardening soil, it’s possible to have a hydroponic garden that looks just about the same as the soil garden you’re used to. The difference is that you’d have to make sure to water your coco garden with water that’s been enhanced with nutrients. (A downside to coconut soil is that it has zero nutrients of its own, unlike regular soil.)

The upside is that coconut soil retains moisture like nobody’s business. In fact, it’s incredibly effective at water retention and can take in up to 10 times its weight in water. This means the roots of your plants won’t ever become dehydrated. Additionally, your plant’s roots will have a lot of growing media to work through, which means coconut soil is perfect for promoting healthy roots.

Another benefit to coco gardening is that bugs don’t like it. It can, therefore, be used to help manage pests.

Coconut soil is sustainable. Many gardeners swear by peat moss, but that medium has some environmental concerns. Peat bogs take over a thousand years to form and therefore can’t be considered an immediate, renewable source for growing media. Unlike peat moss, coconut coir can be used more than once, since there is no shortage of coconut trees that don’t take a thousand years to grow.

Finally, if you’ve never undertaken a hydroponic gardening project, using coconut soil might be the perfect place for you to begin. You can learn hydroponic gardening basics without all the maintenance that real hydroponic gardening demands.

What’s coco gardening?

Suppose you’ve chosen to explore using coco coir as a growth medium for your plants. In that case, you’re engaging in coco gardening. As noted above, coconut coir can hold up to 10 times its weight in water, but it can also hold over 1,000 times more oxygen. Its increasing popularity in hydroponic and organic gardening is mainly due to its ability to retain water, as mentioned earlier, and oxygen (and plant nutrients once added).

Gardeners can use coconut soil in their compost, which allows it to become a significant growth medium for those working on urban farms and who do

If you choose to experiment with coco gardening, bear in mind that you should only use when it comes to purchasing plant nutrients. Other nutrients that are made specifically for other growth mediums can potentially harm or even kill your plants. (Remember how well coconut soil holds onto anything saturated with water.)

Finally, remember that if you’d like to start your own garden, using coconut soil is a great, environmentally friendly choice!

Did you know there are amazing backyard design apps that can provide incredible landscape design tips? Well, there are, and we’re going to discuss five of them here. If you’re ready to craft your own plant paradise, what are we waiting for?

Landscaper’s Companion – Plant & Gardening Guide

A great app to help you with landscaping your backyard is Landscaper’s Companion. With a database of more than 26,000 plants and 21,000 photos, it can help provide you with a ton of information when considering which plants would look best in your yard. Unfortunately, right now, it’s only available for the iPhone.

Home Outside

Another great app that can help you give your yard a makeover is Home Outside. It’s available for both iPhone and Android. Its interface is super simple to use, which opens up the world of landscape planning to just about anyone. With this app, you can choose from 29 different palettes and over 700 different elements to create your ideal backyard sanctuary.

Just a few of the exceptional features you’ll find within the Home Outside app are various tools including an import function that allows you to import images of your home from Google Maps. It also has a sketch tool, which allows you to draw free-form shapes and garden beds.

PRO Landscape Home

PRO Landscape Home, which is available for both iPhone and Android, is similar to Home Outside in that you can take photos and import them into the app. You can then use elements from the app’s library to edit the image and see how things would look in real life if you incorporated them into your designs.

Just some of those elements include photos of flowers, trees, and shrubs that you can place on top of pictures of your backyard. In addition, you can resize every element and create custom areas with pavement, mulch, or grass. This app has a free version, but the paid one comes with a more extensive library of elements that can provide an incredible amount of variety in your designs.

iScape app

The iScape app has a free and paid version, and it’s available on both the iPhone and Android. Many consider it one of the most accessible landscaping apps to use, although it’s similar to other apps on this list in terms of features. For instance, you can import photos and then place various elements on those photos to get an idea of what a space might look like with them included. It’s perfect for envisioning a space before spending time or money creating it.

Backyard & Gardening With Landscaping Designs

This landscape design app features an extensive database full of gardening and landscaping images that each have information on designs. You can look through pictures no matter if you’re looking to spruce up a small backyard or design a luxury one for your home. With that said, many think this app is better for creating inspiration rather thanapplying as a proper tool for design. That’s mainly because there’s not much to the app outside of its database of photos. However, if you are merely looking for inspiration, this app can help provide it.

Spruce up your backyard

Your backyard obviously needs to be spruced up and beautified — or you wouldn’t be reading this article! Maybe you want to redesign the entire layout, or perhaps you just want to see where you might best place a little flower garden. With the apps above, you can create designs and share them with family, friends, and the contractor you’ve been thinking of hiring.

Getting feedback before beginning a project is a pretty wise thing to do. We think it’s worth checking out one or more of these apps to get a pretty realistic picture of what the final results of your landscaping might be.

Sugar snaps are a crossbreed between garden peas and snow peas. They’re a variety with incredible versatility and can be used in their pods or shelled. When grown at home, sugar snap peas are significantly sweeter and juicier than store-bought peas. You can grow them organically without the use of toxic chemicals and pick them straight from the plant!

Growing sugar snap peas in containers isn’t hard as long as you water them well. Just remember that wherever you choose to place their containers, you should ensure that they’ve got a spot with a mix of both shade and sunlight. But, everything we’ve mentioned so far sounds like advice for someone who’s already growing sugar snap peas.

In case you haven’t, we’ve put together some advice about growing sugar snap peas in a container.

You’ll need the following

Tools

• Work gloves
• Garden trowel

Materials to have on hand

• Sugar snap pea seeds
• Legume inoculant
• Potting soil
• Fertilizer
• Large planting container (make sure it has drainage holes)
• Plastic screening

Get your container ready

Once you have all of your materials gathered and have your gloves and garden trowel, it’s time to get your container ready. First, you need to cut some plastic screening that’s just big enough to cover the hole in the bottom of your container. If you didn’t purchase plastic screening, you could also use pieces of a paper towel or a coffee filter.

Suppose you bought a container for your sugar snap peas that happens to be rather large. In that case, think about filling in the bottom one-third with soda bottles or other plastic containers, just as long as the flow of water isn’t impeded. Doing this can save you a bit of money on potting soil and make the entire container lighter, should you need to carry it from one location to another. Just ensure that you place plastic screening over the bottom third’s filler material before filling the remainder with potting soil.

Fill your container with potting mix

When you put potting soil into your container, try to make sure that you’ve got at least three inches remaining before reaching the rim. Some potting soil already have fertilizer added in, so you need to read the contents when purchasing. If the soil has fertilizer, then you can skip the next step. If it doesn’t, then you can add in an all-purpose fertilizer—just know that sugar snaps don’t need much.

Too much fertilizer can mess with the plant’s ability to produce normally. In fact, the plant will grow large pods with tiny seeds (or no seeds at all) inside them. Be careful, then, when mixing fertilizers with your potting soil. Finally, smooth the top of the dirt out but don’t press down and compact it.

Plant sugar snap peas

Before planting, consider using a legume inoculant to treat your pea seeds. Doing so can help your plants deliver a higher yield and keep them healthy. To help your seeds germinate faster, give them a good overnight soak in water. Afterward, put the seeds in a bag without drying them and then put the inoculant in and shake well.

Once all that’s done, sprinkle your seeds evenly onto the potting soil’s surface. Press them down into the dirt with the flat of your hand. Ensure there’s an additional inch of soil on top of them, but not much more than that. You want the seeds to germinate easily, and too much soil on top can hinder that process. Finally, water the container generously.

Set up a trellis for your peas

Sugar snap peas are climbing plants. You’ll therefore need a support system like a trellis to make sure your plant is stable as it grows. You can use the rail of your patio or deck as a sort of trellis. Alternatively, you can get some stakes and tie them together with twine. You should try to help your peas along by using wire ties to pin their tendrils to the trellis.

Keep on caring for the peas

As your peas begin to grow, keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. Additionally, sugar snaps should get a full six hours of sunlight every day. You won’t have to do much more than that since peas grow well all by themselves without your help.

Don’t be tempted to “feed” them anymore by putting additional fertilizer in the soil. Doing so at the very beginning is enough; peas naturally absorb a portion of their nitrogen needs directly from the atmosphere. Finally, you should harvest your sugar snaps as soon as they ripen. If you want the most tender, sweetest peas possible, then pick them when they’re still young and enjoy!

You can grow all your favorite herbs, fruits, and vegetables year-round by using the correct bulb or fixture. Several kinds of grow lights are available on the market, with each having its own strengths and weaknesses. If you’ve been wondering whether grow lights would be an excellent investment for your greenhouse, we’ve got the answers.

What are grow lights anyway?

Greenhouse grow lights are obviously artificial lights. Some are designed to shine with a light spectrum, which is like that of the sun. Others provide a light spectrum that’s customized to the specific plants in your greenhouse. With grow lights, you’re able to copy specific spectral outputs, colors, and temperatures of light. Plus, you can vary the overall intensity of the light these bulbs and fixtures put out.

Do grow lights actually work?

In short, yes. However, many feel that they work only when you choose the right kind of light. While all grow lights promise to mimic the sun and to provide the color spectrum and temperature necessary for proper photosynthesis, there are some who don’t completely buy into the marketing hype surrounding them.

What types of grow lights are on the market?

There are three different types of “traditional” lights that people use to grow plants.

• High-pressure sodium lights
• Fluorescent lights
• Metal halide lights

Today, advances in technology have brought LED lights into the grow light competitive arena. However, it’s the LED lights specifically that some greenhouse owners feel aren’t living up to the publicity surrounding them.

High-pressure sodium lights

For those growing fruit and flowers, these types of lights are the most popular by far. High-pressure sodium lights produce intense, bright light that contains most of the oranges and reds within the color spectrum.

A downside is that they also get incredibly hot. If you use these kinds of grow lights, you’ll need to ensure that your greenhouse is well ventilated and that you manage the overall temperature inside.

Fluorescent lights

If you’re working with plants that need lower light levels or are starting seedlings, then fluorescent lights are a perfect choice. Typically inexpensive, you can usually find these types of lights in many stores. Also, they’re easier to use than any of the other grow lights on this list.

Be that as it may, these kind of grow lights aren’t that great as primary light sources. Used as secondary lighting, however, fluorescent lights can be pretty effective.

Metal halide lights

Of all the lights we mention here, metal halide lights provide the light that is closest to that of the sun. They work with all types of plants and are rated with a lumen output of about 100 lm per watt. They last for up to 20,000 hours. That means you could run them almost continuously for around three years straight before having to replace them!

However, a particular downside is that these lights also become incredibly hot. Touching one after it’s been turned on for a while can result in significant burns.

Greenhouse LED grow lights

There are some substantial benefits to using LED grow lights, even though some people, as mentioned above, don’t feel the technology is quite up to the standards of traditional lighting. However, LED lights have the following going for them:

• They’re environmentally friendly in that the lights are mercury-free and don’t shatter like glass.
• They last five times longer than fluorescent bulbs and use half the electricity.
• They produce a full spectrum of light, just like fluorescent lights on this list.

The problem here is that any energy and cost savings you might realize by using LED lights are negated by their initial cost, which can be rather expensive. Another downside is that LED light is more direct and less diffuse than more traditional lighting systems.

Are grow lights a good investment?

It’s an undeniable fact that plants grown in greenhouses yield a greater harvest when they’re provided healthy amounts of photosynthetic light. You’ll wind up with more leafy greens and larger, juicier fruit when your plants receive the light they need.

With that said, when winter arrives, the amount of sunlight decreases. Many geographic locations see significant dips in photosynthetic light in the colder months. For those who want to grow and harvest year-round, a grow lighting system that can supplement natural sunlight is an investment that makes sense.