Frame It All’s Top Tips and Products for Patio Gardening

We’re hearing a lot of gardeners talk about patio gardening lately, and we couldn’t be more excited! Whether you live in a condo with a terrace or balcony, a house with a small patio or deck, or an apartment building where your only option is a rooftop, Frame It All products are a perfect way to enjoy gardening in your limited space. Let’s take a look at the products you can use to begin your own patio garden:

Raised Beds: Our eco-friendly, durable composite wood grain timbers are made from a blend of 60% recycled, post-consumer plastic and 40% natural fibers. These natural looking timbers are a great choice for patio gardening because they never rot, warp, or splinter. And because they are UV color protected, they will weather naturally over time, just like real wood, giving a nice look to your patio garden.

Veggie Walls: When you’re limited on space, you can maximize your “acreage” by installing a Veggie Wall to let plants grow up instead of out. Our Veggies Walls are made to fit the Raised Beds, and very easy to install. See our video below for easy instructions on installing a Veggie Wall.

Frame It All modular raised gardens can be easily assembled on almost any surface: tile, cement, wood, brick or composite decking. Here’s how you can create a patio garden with the products we’ve mentioned here—it couldn’t be easier!

• Select the spot on your patio which provides maximum sunshine.
• Check out our video below for special instructions on setting up a Frame it all Raised Bed on a rooftop or patio surface.
• Water regularly—container gardens tend to dry out because they can’t pull moisture from deeper soil. However, Frame it All Raised Beds have excellent drainage and water retention, so be sure to avoid over-watering.
• Looking to avoid a backache?  Double the wall height by stacking an additional Raised Bed on top! Here are some easy instructions:
  • Assemble the upper level timbers
  • Slide a Stacking Joint Stake through the bracket and into the joint below, at each end of the timbers, to lock them in place
  • Cover the top of each corner joint with the plastic caps.
  • Take your patio garden one step further with one of our Greenhouses. Adding a Greenhouse to your Raised Bed protects your young plants from weather extremes and prolongs the growing season—you’ll be able to plant earlier and harvest later. Our Deluxe Greenhouses are on sale right now for a great price!

For more information, check out our YouTube channel for more easy how-to videos! We’ll also be posting pictures of patio gardens from our customers and following their progress, so feel free to share. Happy Patio Gardening!

Here are the 3 top improvements we made to our Deluxe Greenhouse, all with your feedback in mind:

Easy setup. The new Deluxe Greenhouse is equipped with modular panels that slide together securely for easy assembly. This was a response to customer comments about difficulty in putting together the old greenhouse. At Frame it All, we want our products to be easy to use, so we worked a great deal on solutions to that issue.

Added strength and durability. The new Deluxe Greenhouse has fortified corners with steel braces, making it strong enough to withstand rough weather and keep your seedlings protected! Available in both in 4×4 and 4×8 sizes, the Deluxe Greenhouse fits perfectly into our Raised Beds for a durable, attractive addition to your yard.

Multi-season use. The Deluxe Greenhouse can effectively extend your planting season with features that allow it the maximum use.  Right now, your greenhouse will be essential to shield young plants from garden pests and unpredictable weather. When summer comes, slide out and store the window panels so plants can flourish and attain full height. Replace the windows in the fall, so your plants will be protected into the colder months.

Whatever the weather, the Deluxe Greenhouse can help you to have a nice, long growing season—even if you’re just starting now! And at our special price, these won’t last long—what are you waiting for? Get your garden started today with a Deluxe Greenhouse.

6 Easy Tips for Sustainable Living in Cities and Suburbs

Sustainable living is not just a catchword—it’s a way of life that we can all embrace, even if we’re suburban or city dwellers.  The EPA defines sustainability as a practice which “creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.”

Sustainable living ensures that both humans and the environment will continue to have the resources they require to exist, by conserving how we use those resources. And it’s not just for farms and rural areas with a lot of space and natural resources. It can be done anywhere, anytime, with these quick and easy tips!

For urban dwellers:

1. Walk or bike, don’t drive
2. Lower your thermostat and use blankets and clothes to stay warm in the winter
3. Grow your own produce with our Rooftop Gardens, perfect for apartment building rooftops in the city

For suburban dwellers:

1. Dry clothing on a clothes line instead of using a dryer
2. Use manual yard tools instead of electric or gas-powered devices
3. Conserve water through devices such as our Irrigation Systems that provides just enough water for your plants while saving you money and saving the environment water

Frame It All promotes sustainability through our eco-friendly products. This Earth Day, we invite you to join us on the path toward sustainable living. Gardeners are already well on their way, but if you’re new to this lifestyle, our products make it easy. Browse our helpful Know and Grow Guide to get started, or, if you already have a garden growing, try some new garden techniques.   And of course, don’t forget about one of the easiest ways to start a sustainable living: our composter. We’re here to help you celebrate Earth Day this year, with the products and resources for sustainable living!

As you can see, our playground border kits make it easy to install attractive, durable borders around your child’s play area. So if you’re looking to complete this project at home, you can find the right kit here. You’ll even see an easy way to measure your playground area so you’ll get the right size playground border kit.

Have fun!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all you gardeners!  

We hope you are spending plenty of time outside today planting some peas and potatoes to celebrate!  In the meantime, we thought it would be fun to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by sharing some info on the shamrock.  Also known as the “seamroy” by the Celts, this special plant originally symbolized the rebirth of spring in ancient Ireland, but soon became a symbol of national pride.  Saint Patrick himself pointed to the shamrock’s three leaves as symbolic of the Holy Trinity, adding more meaning to this tiny but important plant.  Today, the shamrock symbolizes abundance, prosperity, and luck.  Different from the four-leaf clover, whose “luckiness” due to its exclusivity, the shamrock is lucky because of its abundance.

We hope you enjoy St. Patrick’s Day in the garden. If you’re surrounded by lucky shamrocks, make sure to look for that four-leaf clover!

Frame it All’s Raised Garden Beds are the ideal tool for getting your garden started early.  Perfect for any surface, these garden beds prevent soggy soil because they heat up quickly and drain efficiently.  In a raised bed garden, your soil retains the perfect amount of moisture, so you can also add soil amendments such as compost and peat moss to enrich it in time for cool-season planting.

It might seem early to think about garden pests, but if you typically have a lot of rabbits and squirrels in your yard, you’ll want to check out our small animal barrier. It’s easy to add on to a raised bed, and will protect your seedlings from furry foragers.

There are so many different cool-season seeds, that you can begin your raised bed garden today and enjoy fresh vegetables within a matter of weeks. Spinach, lettuce, arugula, peas, cole crops (cabbage and broccoli are two examples of cole crops) and potatoes are all perfect for the cool season, and you can visit our General Gardening Info Chart to get more information on their specific needs.

If you decide to plant peas, they like to climb, so don’t forget to get a plant climbing wall. Our Veggie Walls are made to easily attach to our garden beds so that your plants can keep on climbing up in the spot they were first planted in.

Early spring is a wonderful time to be in the garden, so don’t wait! Start planting now, and enjoy the fruits of your labors even earlier in the season. Happy Early Spring Gardening!

With so many plants and seeds, it’s hard to limit your choices when you only have a little space. Many of you read our recent article on square foot gardening.  We’d like to tell you a little more about how to succeed in this technique with some great, easy-to-use Frame it All products.

Frame It All’s Garden Planting Grid will allow you to grow a wide array of seedlings and will save you precious space so that you can plant all of the varieties you can imagine!  The 4 x 4 Garden Planting Grid works perfectly with our Raised Garden Beds.  Once the quick setup is complete, you will have 16 one-foot square sections to plant the crops of your choice, so you can really make the most of each 4 x 4 area.  And you aren’t limited to one 4 x 4 area or one raised garden bed–if you have larger garden beds, simply add more grids.

Our Planting Grid provides the square sections required for square foot gardening. It also allows for benefits such as better crop variety, better ability to keep track of which seeds were planted where, and easier upkeep with no tools required.  You’ll love how easy it is to use! Check out our Garden Planting Grid, and get started on your new garden today. Happy gardening!

Square foot gardening consists of an open-bottomed box divided into sections.  Frame it All raised beds lend themselves very well to this technique: for best results, use a small raised bed like our Urban Raised Bed and top it with one of our planting grids. Each section of the grid separates out a 12-inch square of rich, uncompacted soil and produces a specific amount of plants based on the plant’s size.  These smaller beds are very adaptable, and because of their size, gardeners don’t have to worry about stepping on plants and compacting the soil.

Here are some benefits to Square Foot Gardening:

• Less Work:  you don’t need to loosen the soil, and there is less weeding due to living mulch created by close planting
• Lowers the Water Bill:  the rich soil will hold water well and you can water directly to the roots of the plants
• Better Accessibility: as you know, Frame it All raised beds can be stacked for less back-aching work
• Better Protection, Better Output: using our raised beds, planting grids, and matching cold frame/greenhouse covers, you’ll increase your output by using the square foot gardening technique and extending your gardening season
• Less Space Used:  raised beds use less space than a conventional row garden, and with this technique you can still have a great crop in your small yard or on your deck or patio
• More Crop Variety:  each grid space allows you to plant different crops

With a Frame it All raised bed and a planting grid, you can have a small garden that provides an abundant group of crops.  Try square foot gardening today!