How to grow moss

Update: A lot of you are coming over from Pinterest. Welcome to my humble little blog! Be sure to check out the rest of my blog for more ideas on how to "save money" and "make stuff". If you like it, you can share my blog or subscribe. If you decide to plant any moss (or make anything else you find on my blog), I would love to hear about it! Leave me a comment, or send me a picture. It would make me feel so proud!

When I first wrote this blog, I had just planted the moss, and I didn't know how it was going to work out. That's why the link from Pinterest says "Two Ways to Grow Moss". If you read to the end, you'll see that it's really one way to actually grow moss, and two ways that don't work at all. On to the original blog:

My dad is building an outdoor model train set. It has a mountain with a waterfall that flows into a river, then into a pond. It's pretty cool. He put mulch in there, but I guess with the big, old trees that they have, it dropped leaves all over and they stuck to the mulch, so that wasn't working there. I've been dying to try planting moss, so that is what we will try to do.  Moss already grows well in their yard because it's shady and the soil is poor quality.

Have you seen this perfect picture of moss and thought it must be so easy to grow moss? Look at that perfect outline! It's so thick and lush! It kind of looks like they cut this out of the ground and glued it on to the bricks... I think I even see dirt stuck to the back... Suspicious.

Our first attempt to grow moss was about two months ago. We used a recipe that called for two cups buttermilk, two cups water and about a cup of moss. Blend it up, pour it out, grow moss.  Nothing happened. We also transplanted some moss. That is thriving nicely, but there isn't a lot of it. This is what it looked like before we got started on our second try.

I found a new recipe that is so disgusting and so smelly, that I feel something is bound to start growing.

1 cup flour
2 cups buttermilk
2 packages of active dry yeast (5 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 - 1 1/2 cups of dried and chopped/crumbled moss

Once you've done that, mix it all in a bucket, and leave the bucket outside in the sun for about three days (it's going to smell) After that, liberally brush a moist, shady place with the smelly mixture.

When you harvest your moss, you need to keep in mind that if you are trying to grow moss in dirt, harvest moss that is growing in dirt, and if you are trying to grow moss on rocks or concrete, harvest your moss from those places.

Yum!

Have you ever smelled buttermilk? It is so disgusting. And chunky. I can't imagine why anyone would put this in food. I used a blender, but I probably didn't need to. I should have just chopped up the moss and stirred it in the bucket. It would have been faster, since I used three quarts of buttermilk and the corresponding amount of the rest of the recipe. The dirt in the moss turns the mixture brown and it looks a bit like a chocolate milkshake.

But it does not smell like one.

This is a couple of hours in the bucket. It is bubbling away and luring many flies to a yeasty, buttermilky death.

This is what it looked like after 24 hours.

After 48 hours and a rainshower.

Here it is in the sun. I wonder if the neighbors will complain. I hope it's OK if it's rained on.

After 72 hours.

If I smelled the most wonderful food in the world, but I saw the corpses of those who had been eating the same food lying around, I don't care how good it looked, I wouldn't eat it. I guess flies don't feel the same way. I think we put a significant dent in the fly population.

Since my parents already have so much moss growing, and they're planning to plant grass in this spot, I can scrape up as much moss as I want in order to transplant it. I used a small shovel to scrape it up. But you might as well use a large shovel. Try to get the largest pieces possible. I dug up two bucketfuls.

See? They really do have a lot of moss in their yard.


This is where I dug up the moss. But if you want to keep your moss, you can spread out the places where you dig and it will grow back faster.


Then, just spread it out like so. Get it good and wet, but don't spray too hard with the hose. Keep watering it until it is well-established.

On the third day, I spread the buttermilk goo around the outside of the tracks and the bald spot near "Paris Mountain".

This goes on nice and thick, and smells a bit like beer.

If you have a lot of moss that you can dig up and transplant, I think that's the easiest way to go.

I will let you know in six to eight weeks if the goo method worked!

Update: Two weeks in, and the moss we transplanted looks like it has always been there. I don't see any sprouts yet from the yeast mixture, but it's quite early still.

Update #2: It has been two months since we spread the messy moss mix, and we haven't seen any new moss sprouting from it. There are a lot of different types of moss, though. So maybe it works with some kinds and it doesn't work with other kinds. I don't know what variety moss we have.  If you have tried this, or another method, will you let me know in the comments? Especially if you've had success.

The transplanted moss has taken root and looks great! I am very happy with that method.

Container gardening

I am always going to Lowe's and browsing the plants. I just love plants. Then I see one that I love and I want to take it home with me and plant it. At our last house, this resulted in strange looking garden.  I finally figured out that you have to plan a garden, and it won't look good if you plant plants one at a time. But I still like to buy them one at a time. So: container gardening!

Place your pots at different heights. Put some on the ground, some on tables or plant stands. Hang some on a shepherds hook, or from a tree, or a hook on an overhang. Have a tall plant, such as my honeysuckle growing on a trellis.

Don't go too wild with your colors. I am gradually collecting green pots in all different colors. Choose what colors you want your flowers to be, and stay within that range of colors. I like interesting leaves. That's why I picked this parsley shrub on the left, and whatever that yellow plant and purple plant are below. I'm sure one of you can tell me what those are.  

These plant stands came from a yard sale! They are much sturdier than the ones I paid full price for.

My favorite plants are ones that smell good. I have gardenias in another part of my yard. I wanted to plant honeysuckle all over that little hill you can see in the background above, but I read how it would spread out and take over everything, so I decided to keep it contained in a pot. It still tries to get out, but I beat it back. It didn't grow any flowers this first year, but I am hopeful for next year. Mint also smells good. We have some in the pot below the hummingbird feeder. It's good to put in tea and lemonade. 

A great spot for coffee in the morning!

The Best Tomato Plant

Meet my little garden. Our yard isn't too big, so we just have this small garden. Didn't my husband do a nice job with those bricks? We have tomatoes, lettuce, and three kinds of peppers. You see my lettuce in the middle going to seed. Only two of the lettuce plants got big enough to pick. The others were always small until they started growing UP and getting flowers, which means they have "gone to seed" (growing seeds) and won't taste as good. I've harvested one small green pepper, and two jalapeno peppers. We've picked about eight tomatoes so far from four tomato plants. Three had been partially eaten before we got to them. The others have unsightly cracks.

We've never had good luck with gardens.

But we have one grape tomato plant. An amazing grape tomato plant. It's the tall one on the left. It's about my height. It has given us so many tomatoes! And they have not been eaten by bugs or animals at all. Look at these big bunches! They are like grapes! All season long, we have been getting more and more.

It's called the Tami G Hybrid tomato. You should write that down and find it for your garden next year.

Here's all my beautiful grape tomatoes alongside my ugly, split tomatoes.

Those are from just one grape tomato plant.

Have you had any really great plants in your garden?