Bareroot Plants are the Best Plants

Strawberries…one of the best plants to grow from bareroots

What is a bareroot plant?

Bareroot plants are perennials (grow back year after year) that are dug up from my gardens and shipped without any soil. This happens during the fall and early spring while the plants are dormant and not actively growing.

Benefits of bareroot plants

Plants are grown in living, healthy soils in my garden where they do not suffer from being root bound. Root systems are large and healthy, resulting in more resilient plants. They will have less transplant shock than potted plants.

One of my favorite reasons for growing bareroots is that no plastic pots are needed! Plants are started in reusable trays, transplanted out to the garden beds where they grow for a few years. Then they’re dug up and transplanted to their new homes. I can reduce my use of plastic by hundreds of pots every year!

Another of my favorite reasons for bareroots plants are that they require little potting soil and less water than potted plants. Reducing my use of potting soil helps reduce my consumption of peat moss and the fossil fuels that go into creating potting soil and then trucking it around the country. Growing plants in well mulched garden beds helps to retain moisture and they need very little irrigation.

Things to consider

While the benefits of bareroot plants are numerous, the one big drawback is timing. Bareroots have a short window of time to be dug up and transplanted. Potted plants will generally be ok to hang out on your porch for a week or so, but not bareroots. Once you receive the plants, they need to go into the ground as soon as possible.

Rooting Elderberry Cuttings

Elderberries are really easy to root and buying cuttings (or making your own) is a very economical way to produce more plants!

You’ll need a few supplies:

potting mix and pot or prepared garden bed

rooting hormone - you can buy this at a garden supply center or use honey or willow water

glass jar and non-chlorinated water (you can use well water or distilled, or let chlorinated tap water sit for 24 hours before using)

Once you’ve received your cuttings, you’ll notice that one end is cut at an angle and the other is a horizontal cut. The angled cut will be the end that is planted (the rooting end).

There are two ways to root cuttings - in water or in soil. Rooting in water tends to be quicker, but rooting in soil is less work.

To root in water, simply put your cuttings in a jar (wide mouth quart jars work well) and fill the jar with non-chlorinated water. I set the jar in my kitchen windowsill (it gets indirect light) and it helps to remind me to change the water daily.

To root in a pot, fill your pot with soil and push the cuttings in until they are about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way covered. They root best at about 40*, so the corner of an unheated garage or basement will work well. You can tent them with a plastic bag to help keep them from drying out too fast. Once the weather has warmed up, I move them outside to a shaded spot and keep them well watered.

To root in place in the garden, simply push the angled end of the cutting about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way into the soil. I’ve found it best to root them in a well prepared, weed free garden bed. Keep them well watered throughout their first growing season.

Cuttings can take 8 - 10 weeks to begin to root. While I have had great success with rooting cuttings, not every single cutting will develop root growth and thrive. It’s not unusual for me to loose a couple throughout the first growing season.

Elderberries spend their first two or three years developing their root systems, but after that you’ll notice fast growth. Elderberries do well along the edge of woods and need an area 8 to 10 ft wide and about 12 ft tall. You can take cuttings from 2nd and 3rd year growth.

Processing Tomatoes - the Freezing Method

So, your garden produce is rolling in and covering your kitchen counters! It’s an exciting time, but also overwhelming. Maybe you want to dip your toes into trying canning or another kind of preserving? Maybe you want to save some of this bounty for winter but you definitely don’t have time right now.

I’ve been canning and preserving for years (pretty much as long as I’ve been gardening). It’s a fun thing to do and I love it, but I really don’t love canning during the hottest part of the summer. Some things, like green beans or corn, I really don’t have much choice about the timing. When it’s ready, it needs canned.

But tomatoes on the other hand - I can totally buy myself some time to deal with them!

If you’ve ever canned tomatoes or made tomato sauce, you know how much water they hold! There are specific paste varieties that help to minimize this (Roma and Amish Paste are a few varieties that do well in WV). However, it still takes hours and hours to cook them down into something resembling sauce.

Freezing helps to eliminate some of this work, right off the bat! It also allows you to temporarily preserve them until your plants are done producing, then you can have one big day of sauce making, instead of having to deal with it over and over again throughout the summer.

So, without further ado, here is how I handle my tomato harvest!

Invest in some gallon bags (or a gallon ice cream container, really anything that holds some volume will work). I simply wash, cut out the stem and throw in a freezer bag! For small tomatoes, I leave them whole and for larger ones I halve or quarter since that allows more to fit in the bag.

Toss in the freezer and forget about until you have a moment to deal with them (or start running out of room). This year, I started running out of freezer space pretty quickly. Having used this method in years past, I realized how much volume was reduced when they thawed out. So, after freezing, I’ve been partially thawing back out and letting them drain in a colander until a lot of the water has dripped out.

Seeds and skins are also really easy to remove at this point, if that’s something you want to do. Personally, I don’t worry too much about seeds or skins in the sauce, but I know some people want to remove them.

I then put them back into a freezer bag and then back into the freezer. I’ll follow this system until the end of the growing season, when all of my tomatoes have been harvested. One day this fall I’ll gather up all of the bags, thaw them all out and begin making sauce. Getting rid of this much water will be a game changer for sauce making day!

See!!! Same bag of tomatoes after thawing out and refreezing! Over half of the volume was reduced, allowing me to fit so many more tomatoes into my limited freezer space!

This trick has saved my sanity for many summers and I hope it helps take some stress off of you, as well!

Tell Me About YOUR Garden!

I want to know about you!

You’ve listened to me ramble on about my gardening experiences and why I love it and I’m so curious to know what you love about gardening!

I’ve put together a really simple survey that I’d love to get your feedback on. This will help me grow this business in a way that includes everyone’s interests. I’ll be able to provide you with more detailed information that is relevant to you and your garden!

Why Sam's Plants

Ready for a glimpse of what motivates me to do this work?

I do what I do because I love plants and I love having my hands in the soil. I love being able to provide (some) of my own food and creating my own teas and tinctures from plants in my backyard. I’ve always disliked going to the grocery store, and I find raising my own food to be very fulfilling, on so many levels.

I find joy in a morning spent in the garden pulling weeds and an afternoon spent harvesting tomatoes and herbs. Seeding trays and potting up plants is a type of meditation and connection that I haven’t found during any other activity.

Taking such small seeds during the depths of winter and applying soil, water and light and watching the plants grow brings such a joy and inspiration to my life. I love being able to share that with other people. I love helping people discover unique plants and the ones they remember from their grandparent’s gardens.

Gardening connects us to the previous generations and the future generations, plants can be divided and seeds can be shared and go on to grow and grace everyone’s gardens and flower beds.

I’m so honored that you’ve found your way to my little business. I’m so excited to be able to send more plants to your gardens! I’ll be selling bareroots soon and if you’d like more information about what exactly this means, please click here.

Behind the Scenes at Sam's Plants

Today, I’m going to give you a little peak behind the curtain of what goes into running a plant nursery.

One reason I love this work is that it is very seasonal. Late winter and early spring will find me seeding trays. As the seedlings grow, they get transplanted into bigger pots or out into the gardens. Spring will find me tending plants in the greenhouse and getting ready for sales.

Summer time, after most sales are over, I start working in earnest on my own garden beds. Plants that I want to grow out for seed or for fall sales are planted and mulched. I harvest lots of medicinal herbs and dry them throughout the summer.

Fall finds me digging plants for bareroot sales, harvesting seed and doing the final harvests of produce. I also rake leaves and use them for garden mulch, give the compost piles a turn and start to enjoy the cooler temperatures.

Winter tasks include cleaning up the greenhouse and garden beds, ordering seeds for spring and flipping through seed catalogs looking for unique plants that peak my interest.

I love finding new to me perennial vegetables, unique flowers and researching all kinds of permaculture and nursery techniques to try out. Every year, I gain a little more knowledge in how this all works and I get to experiment and see what works for me and my greenhouse and gardens.

Every winter, I declare that this will be the year I stay organized throughout the coming seasons! And every year, I mean well and give it my best, but by June, things are chaotic and I have a hard time finding things I need. I generally pick a day for getting organized and cleaning up in July and that sets me up well for the rest of the season. Organization is an ongoing battle, especially keeping track of seed and plant inventory.

Visit my About Me page to learn more about me and my business. I also have an IG highlights from the last two years where I talk about all of the plants that I have during my spring sales. 

Welcome to Sam's Plants

Hello and welcome! I’m so happy you’re here!

I’ve been hooked on growing my own food ever since my neighbor taught me to can peaches when I was 13. My love of homesteading and gardening followed me through my teenage years and to college, where I managed to garden in rentals, always dreaming of my own, permanent space. In 2011, I finally had a place of my own and was thrilled to have a garden that I felt like I could really invest in. Despite some major shortcomings (lack of sun and full of rocks), I was thrilled! A space of my own!

Lilac bloom in early spring

I started trying to source unique, heirloom vegetable varieties and realized I couldn’t find them at any of the local nurseries and had sticker shock when it came to purchasing lots of plants online. That led me down the road of seed starting. I did that for a few years, sharing seedlings with friends and neighbors and I realized I had a knack for it.

Ladybug on wormwood

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seed + soil + water + sun = plants + food + medicine + joy

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In 2018, I started Sam’s Plants, built a small greenhouse and started a Facebook page. I’m thrilled to be able to offer the unique and amazing plants I was always looking for and I’m so glad to have found lots of other people with the same interests! I have enjoyed meeting so many other plant enthusiasts - getting to talk with everyone about gardens and their plants has been inspiring and exciting.

Greenhouse in early spring

If you want real time updates and beautiful pictures of plants, follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I do garden tours and plant updates and share tips and tricks on keeping plants happy and healthy!

Bareroot Plant Sale

As many of you know, for the past two years I have run a retail plant nursery and I can’t thank you enough for your support!

In addition to the spring sales, I will be offering bare roots for sale in the fall!

1. Ordering online! Check back here as I update the shop portion of this website. I’ll be able to ship all over the country and if you’re local to Morgantown, WV we can still meet up to exchange plants.

2. New and exciting plant varieties for sale! I’ll be offering lots and lots of perennials - edibles, medicinals, flowers and berry bushes. Hard to find and unique varieties will be taking center stage.

3. Reducing my carbon footprint! The plant nursery business uses lots of plastics and fossil fuels. Offering bare root plants removes the need for plastic pots and a heated greenhouse.

Not sure what a bare root plant is? Or why you would want to buy one (or many)?

Bare root plants are grown in place in the garden during the summer and once they go dormant in the fall, the roots are dug up and shipped to you to be planted in your garden. They’ll come up in the spring, happy in their new spot. The benefits to this type of growing are many. As mentioned earlier, no plastic pots are needed. This results in healthier (no root bound) plants, reduced transplant shock and less costly shipping charges since no soil is being mailed.

You’ll receive labeled plants, packed in moist sawdust. Simply plant them as soon as they arrive and you’ll be rewarded in the spring with happy plants!

I’m so excited to continue to offer wonderful plants to you! Your support means the world!

You can click here, or on the Plants for Sale button at the top right of your screen to see a few of the plants I’ll be offering this fall. The list is not complete and they’re listed as sold out until I complete inventory.