Greenhouse Soil & Compost
Healthy soil is the foundation of a productive Growing Dome, and dome soil behaves differently than outdoor garden soil: warmer year-round temperatures, controlled watering, and compressed seasonal cycles create unique demands on the biology. This category brings together writing on Growing Dome soil and composting: how to build and maintain healthy beds in an enclosed environment, composting strategies that work alongside a dome, managing salt buildup over time, the amendments that work best, and stories from owners on how their soil has evolved over the seasons. Explore content for new and longtime dome gardeners alike.
Do you Need Fertilizer in a Greenhouse?
April 20, 2026
Fertilizing in a greenhouse isn’t the same as outdoors. Discover how nutrients behave differently and when plants actually need support.
Sustainable Gardening: Why Crop Rotation Matters
July 15, 2025
By thoughtfully implementing crop rotation, you can significantly enhance the health and productivity of your Growing Dome garden. This essential permaculture practice not only minimizes soil depletion and deters pests and diseases but also contributes to a thriving, balanced ecosystem within your greenhouse.
Composting 101: How to Compost for a Thriving Garden
May 16, 2025
Composting is a valuable permaculture practice that transforms organic waste into a nutrient-rich resource for regenerating soil. While composting has challenges such as odor and pests, its benefits, including waste reduction, carbon sequestration, and soil improvement, are significant.
Boosting Your Garden with Paonia Soil Co.’s Soil Solutions
February 25, 2025
Paonia Soil Co. is a Colorado-based, family-owned manufacturer of fully mineralized, living, organic potting soils and soil conditioners. We’re passionate about cultivating a diverse soil food web and making it simple, successful, and profitable to use for growers, gardeners, and landscapers alike!
Natural Greenhouse Soil Rejuvenation with Mushrooms for Healthier Crops
February 20, 2025
Learn how mushrooms help with greenhouse soil rejuvenation, improve fertility, moisture retention, and enhance plant health for sustainable growing.
Vermiculture, Vermicomposting, and How to Do It
October 22, 2024
What’s the Difference Between Vermiculture and Vermicomposting? Vermiculture is the cultivation or farming of worms, whereas vermicomposting uses the worms to convert organic waste into nutrient-rich compost for plants. Both terms often overlap in their use and are a great way to reduce waste, improve soil health, and create a sustainable gardening practice. This blog…
Is Straw Bale Gardening the Best Gardening Method?
May 29, 2024
Creating a backyard garden is an exciting and fulfilling adventure, but filling raised garden beds can become expensive. Luckily there are a few types of gardening that will not only help to reduce costs but improve the quality of the soil over time!
How to Test and Amend Your Garden Soil
March 19, 2021
Any indoor growing space is more prone to dry soil and fertility loss simply because it is not getting as much water. The garden soil in a Growing Dome needs extra care to produce optimally year after year. This article will explain a simple process for every gardener to maintain healthy soil in the spring and summer and achieve ultimate success.
How to Improve Garden Soil Over the Winter
January 19, 2021
Nurture Your Soil to Keep Your Dome Greenhouse Garden Thriving All Year It is easy to forget that our garden’s soil is alive with organic matter even when there are not any plants growing in it. Soil provides moisture and nutrients to your plants. But to do so correctly, the soil requires a healthy level…
Hydrophobic Soil and How to Fix It
June 17, 2020
Healthy soil contains organic matter that retains moisture longer, even in extreme climates or weather conditions, unlike Hydrophobic soil, which is dry soil that does not want to take in water. This happens when the bacteria and fungal life in your soil die off from lack of moisture. There are many different degrees of hydrophobic soil and many ways to fix it.
Off The Vine
April 1, 2020
Optimize micronutrients by eating fruits and vegetables immediately after harvest. There are so many benefits to eating vegetables fresh from the earth. Taste, nutritional value and saving trips to the grocery store. Food travels hundreds, if not thousands, of miles before it makes it to the grocery store shelves and loses critical nutrients along the way.
Soil Composition
March 1, 2019
Blog: Soil composition is the most important, yet most misunderstood factor for many home growers. The health of your soil is crucial to the vitality of the plants you choose to grow in your greenhouse. But what is makes up soil composition? How does it differ from dirt?
Soil Amendment
March 1, 2019
Blog: If you want to ensure the longevity of your garden beds, soil amendment is crucial. Ideally, if you’re keeping up with cover cropping and crop rotation you won’t need to do soil amendment too often.
Vermiculture
October 24, 2017
We are experts these days. Please click here to see our latest article on vermicompost. We think you will like it even more! What is vermiculture? I wondered the same thing myself, because listening to garden podcasts and just talking to people about gardening in general I hear this term often. I know it is…
Soil Farmers
October 11, 2017
“We are grass farmers” is a quote from the famous Joel Salatin and I can’t seem to forget it. He explains that in order to grow great cattle, poultry, or pigs, you must have great food to give to them. (Sound familiar?) In order to grow that grass to feed those animals, you must have…
Greenhouse Mulching, Should You? Do You? If So Read This Article And Watch These Videos First!
June 1, 2015
Greenhouse Mulching You know you should be mulching, right? Or should you? This could be a contentious subject, so before you throw off your garden gloves, let me explain. There are a lot of opinions out there about mulching. Well, we just did a little greenhouse mulching experiment here at Growing Spaces in our 15′ Dome and…
Replenish Your Garden’s Footprint
February 15, 2013
Let’s start out by first acknowledging that gardening is an inherently Earth-friendly activity. The basic acts of turning the soil, sowing seeds, watering, and nurturing the plants literally consists of acting in a loving, gentle and kind way toward the Earth. Gardening is also eco-friendly in less direct but as conspicuous ways. The most obvious…
Testing the Foundation of Your Garden
January 26, 2012
From time to time, we receive questions about the soil in the gardening beds of the Growing Dome. The question of soil, like many things in gardening, can be a life-long pursuit or can be a spontaneous leap of faith. Examining the interactions between micro-organisms, fungi, minerals, biomass and more keeps laboratories at the most…
Adding Composted Leaves to the Soil
September 28, 2010
So Richard Miller, our resident Master Gardener here at Growing Spaces, and I finally made it to my Growing Dome for a little gardening evaluation. Turns out that my concerns about my gardening skills have a lot less to do with the results this year in my Dome, than the soil or rather in this…