FoxFarm Blog

Dirt Boy!

Thanks to the folks at Roseburg Hydroponics in Oregon for sending us a photo of young Isaiah hiding out in a pallet of Ocean Forest.  Don't try this at home!  (or if you do, send us a photo...)

Pamper Your Roses

Roses go wild this time of year. The trick is to keep them blooming all summer long. Here’s what we’re using in our own rose gardens this year:

American Pride is the time-release plant food that rose lovers swear by. It combines high-tech soluble nutrients and minerals with the long term benefits of natural ingredients like earthworm castings, bat guano, and cottonseed meal. If you want the best of both worlds, American Pride is for you.

Organic rose growers love our Peace of Mind and Happy Frog Rose Food. Both have the same great ingredients, including beneficial microbes, humic acid, and alfalfa meal, and Happy Frog comes in a handy new resealable pouch that makes it easy to store all season long. Scratch a little in and around your rose bushes and water well.

We believe in going easy when it comes to pest and disease control. It all starts with healthy plants, which is why we recommend a mulch of Happy Frog Soil Conditioner to encourage strong roots. A foliar feeding of Big Bloom liquid fertilizer can perk up plants that are feeling poorly, and a targeted spraying of Don’t Bug Me will control softbodied pests like aphid and whitefly. Most of all, we believe in getting to know your garden and preventing problems before they start. Pick off disease or infested leaves and throw them away, feed your plants well, and you’ll have bouquets of roses all summer long.

Green Gifts for Mother’s Day and Beyond

2007 is shaping up to be the year of going green. With Mother’s Day coming up tomorrow, many of us have been thinking about how to go green with our own gift giving. What can we buy for Mom that is eco-friendly, biodegradable, reusable, organic, seasonal, personal, and maybe even a little bit handmade? A container garden, of course.

It starts with the right container. Maybe Mom is a recycled wine barrel kind of gal. Or maybe her tastes run toward glazed Italian pottery. Or it could be that a terra-cotta pot painted by the grandchildren would become her most prized possession. Just make sure the container has holes for drainage in the bottom, and if it’s going on her patio, think about adding a set of “feet” to keep the pot elevated and prevent staining.

Fill the container with Ocean Forest or Happy Frog potting soil, and pick up a pouch of Happy Frog all-purpose organic fertilizer. Mix according to package directions, reseal the pouch, and save the rest for Mom so that she can continue to feed her plants every month or two.

Now comes the fun part. Choose plants that she will love. Maybe she’s a foodie who will flip out over an assortment of purple and green basils. If she’s a flower lover, go for snapdragons, bachelor buttons, and dwarf sweet peas. Or fill her home with the fragrance of assorted lavenders and scented geraniums, which she can transplant to the garden later in the year.

And don’t limit green gifts to Mother’s Day—Father’s Day, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays are all a good time to share a little horticultural love.

School Was Never THIS Cool!

And now we bring you Mrs. Ritter's kindergarten class at Jacoby Creek Elementary School in Arcata, CA.They've been growing wheat grass seeds in some Light Warrior Agro-Ponic Grow Medium that we donated.  And check out that grass--that's only two weeks' growth!  Looks like we've got some future gardeners in this class.