1. Beautiful Wood

Cedar is beautiful and smells great. Plus, there are so many grain and color variations in cedar that every box we build is unique. This combination makes a beautiful complimentary piece to gardens. And the smell….often the wonderful smell of cedar is the first comment folks make when walking into our workshop.

2. Natural and Durable

We love that cedar is a natural product. Many pressure-treated wood products are actually treated with chemicals, some of which could find their way into adjacent soil. Cedar doesn’t require this type of pressure treatment for its durability. Cedar is known to have longevity in outdoor conditions. It is durable and thrives in damp climates (perfect for a garden!). It’s lightweight but stable with a high decay resistance.

3. Stays Cool

Cedar won’t overheat the soil and roots of your plants on hot summer days. Cedar stays cooler than many other garden box materials as it doesn’t absorb much heat, even on very hot days. That is a benefit to Idahoans with our hot summers!

4. Natural Repellent

Cedar is a natural repellent to pests. The oil and natural chemicals in cedar wood is known to control ants, moths, mosquitoes, and termites. Cedar has even been known to repel mice and snakes. Cedar oil is actually sold as a natural pest control solution. And, it doesn’t negatively impact pollinators, which is so important to the growth of our plants.

5. Sustainable Harvesting

Cedar is able to be harvested using sustainable practices. Our suppliers are certified in using sustainable methods for managing and harvesting cedar. They support sustainable forestry practices on forestland they manage, and promote it on other lands.   We appreciate these practices and work hard ourselves to use byproducts from our building in ways that eliminates almost all of our waste.  This, to us, is a big win for everyone.

We hope you see the value in investing in 100% cedar raised garden boxes. Reach out to us with any questions, to talk about cedar or our products, or to place your order today!

The post Why We Use Cedar Wood first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

Silver Saw Wood Products is a local, family run business that values the community we work and live in. We want to feature other local community members to share the great people serving the Treasure Valley! Read on to learn about a local podcaster diving into the craft beer scene.

Tell me about MT Cans?

Tom and I are good friends that like to get together and drink craft beer, home brew, and talk about beer. We wanted to share our thoughts and beer adventures with other people like us. That’s why we started a craft beer podcast, MT Cans.

What do you love about the Treasure Valley?

The things we love about the Treasure Valley are the great golf courses and of course the great beer.

What’s something we should know about you?

We are two normal guys with normal jobs who love craft beer. We have had great conversations with the Loose Screw owner, Idawild Brewing, Boise Beer Buddies, and several beer related podcasts. This year we plan to have several more guests on the show.

What’s one thing everyone should know about Silver Saw Woods?

I was lucky enough to get one of the first garden beds that they built. It is three years old and still looks great! I asked for delivery and help moving it through my fence to the backyard. The silver-haired gentleman showed up with a smile and was happy to help. Since then, we got a couple of the flower boxes and we always get the same friendly service.

Contact MT Cans

Download MT Cans podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or contact MT Cans by email at MTCANS2022@GMAIL.COM or Instagram and Facebook @mt_cans.

The post Local Feature: MT Cans first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

I didn’t grow up gardening. My family didn’t garden and it wasn’t encouraged in my youth. I happened upon growing my own plants after stomach issues had me rethinking the food I was eating. Once I started growing a few of my own vegetables, I was hooked! I didn’t start small with just a few plants….not my style. Instead, I somehow managed to plant a little bit of every vegetable I thought I could grow into a newly cleared spot in our backyard. By the end of that first summer, I was overwhelmed trying to figure out why the tomato plants weren’t producing fruit, keeping animals out of the garden after they successfully ate all my beans, and running out to water daily so the plants wouldn’t die. Still, I produced enough to find it worth my while. Soon, I started learning about vegetables that complement each other, how much heat and/or cold many types of vegetable plants liked, and the need for regular watering and feeding, among many other things. I learned so many lessons my first couple of years, and continue to do so many years later.

Raised Garden Boxes

Four years ago, we moved from our large piece of property into a house closer to town with an average size backyard surrounded by fences on all sides. As excited as we were to live with the conveniences of being closer to town, I was quite unsure how my gardening adventures would continue. Enter a wonderful company, Gold Feather Gardens. Jamie Brennan, Founder and CEO, was just starting her kitchen garden consulting business, using raised garden boxes in her garden designs, and I loved this, new-to-me, idea of gardening vertically to use less ground space. As it turns out, our much smaller yard combined with my continued desire to grow a wide variety of vegetables ended up to be a perfect fit for us.

Mike loved the idea, too, and promptly started learning about building raised garden boxes. While designing our garden space, Mike did a great job researching and through many iterations working on different sizes and shapes, we finally decided on a variety that worked for our garden space. Once constructed and installed, we added trellises to help with the vertical growth (and therefore much more growing space) of our smaller footprint in the back corner of our yard.

Working with Gold Feather Gardens combined with all our planning and research paid off! Our garden exploded with so many vegetables that first year and we were inspired to do more. After sharing our raised garden box growing success with many interested neighbors and family members, we started building garden boxes for them. Word got out and people noticed the quality of the product we were building. We slowly expanded by selling our garden boxes to customers all throughout the Treasure Valley area and selling to a few D&B Supply stores.

Today, we continue to grow our business organically and still operate as a family-run shop. We now sell our raised garden boxes at all the D&B Supply stores, North End Organic Nursery (NEON), and through many garden landscape contractors who also recognize the value of incorporating garden boxes into their yard designs. We continue to share success stories, now coming from our customers’ garden successes.

Backyard gardening is now our livelihood, and we are so grateful our path led us here. For more information on our raised garden boxes, submit an order request or contact us today!

The post Our Journey to Garden Boxes first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

Utensils:

• 1 wide mouth jar with a net or other covering to allow airflow (you can buy the tops in the picture at D&B Supply or other local establishments).

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp sprouting beans
  • I started with lentils and mung beans. I found these to be the easiest growers, but don’t hesitate to experiment with other beans.

Instructions:

• Add about 2 teaspoons of beans to the jar
• Fill the jar with water and soak the beans overnight
• Drain completely then leave on the counter
• Rinse with water 1–2 times daily, completely draining each time
• Continue with this process for 3–6 days until the beans have sprouted and grown to your desired size (I prefer about 3-4″)

If you leave the jar on the counter, the sprouts will continue to grow. When they have grown to about 3-4”, I like to put them in the refrigerator. The bean sprouts will last up to a week in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

The post Winter Recipe: Bean Sprouts first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

We are now offering three types of trellises.

Trellises are becoming popular and for very good reasons. Trellises provide additional growing space for your garden (think up rather than out), are a beautiful addition to the landscape by providing depth and height to the garden, create a defined space in an otherwise open area, and can even be used as a privacy fence when the plants are in full bloom on the trellis.

The first trellis is a freestanding cedar trellis, 2’ wide x 5’ tall. This trellis is often used against a fence or the side of a house or other structure. It creates definition to the existing landscape while providing a practical use for wandering plants like cucumbers and tomatoes.

The second trellis is a 3’x5’x1.5’ cedar garden box with a 3’ wide x 5’ tall attached cedar trellis. This box is used within the garden or against a fence, providing some privacy, if needed. Beans, peas, and other taller vegetables like this setup. And, you have space in front of these plants to grow shorter vegetables, like beets, radishes, carrots, and kale.

The third cedar trellis is 3’ wide x 3’ tall and is attached to one of our smaller, 3’x1.5’x1.5’ cedar garden boxes. This box has a bottom and has been used by some of our customers to define their patio and outdoor living area. We often see flowers or herbs grown in these boxes.

New 3’x3’x1.5’ cedar garden box size

With many requests for a 3’x3’x1.5’ box, we are adding it to our standard size offering! This box is a great size to hold garlic, mint, herbs, and green leafy vegetables, just to name a few. It also works well with a cold box cover for those winter gardeners. (Ask us about our cold box covers!)

Are you interested in more information regarding our cedar garden boxes, including pricing and ordering? Contact us to discuss more!

The post New Product Offerings first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

Here are a few Silver Saw highlights from the year!

Boise Urban Garden School

We worked with Boise Urban Garden School (BUGS) in 2022 by building boxes for their preschool garden space. They developed a beautiful space used to help youngsters learn more about gardening and the importance of growing their own food.

Shade City Brewfest

This summer, we were connected with Shade City Brewfest, Lost Grove, and Gravity Payments to create a living wall for the brew fest at the Idaho Botanical Gardens. The living wall was a fun project because it was a change of pace in the shop and allowed us to build something so different from our standard cedar garden boxes. We also brought in our son to help us with the strategy and build, making this a true family project! In addition to great beer and other fun beverages from local vendors, Shade City Brewfest focused on sustainability, environmental impact, and waste reduction, which mirrors so many of our interests. It was so fun to be involved in their first annual event.

Vacationing in Stanley

One of our favorite places to vacation in Idaho is in the Stanley area. We had the opportunity to break from building cedar garden boxes a few times this year to camp around hot springs and lakes, fly fish the local rivers, and hike several trails…..always an adventure! We feel so fortunate to be able to escape into the mountains and enjoy so many of the great activities Idaho has to offer.

Retail Customer Highlights

D&B Supply

We thank D&B Supply for the opportunity to be represented in all 15 of their stores this year. It has been a wonderful experience working with all the corporate and store staff who really understand and share the value of Silver Saw Wood Products. The nursery staff at these stores are so knowledgeable and helpful with many of my garden needs! And, their plant offerings throughout the spring and summer have been my go-to.

North End Organic Nursery

Cedar garden boxes at North End Organic Nursery (NEON)? Yes! At Silver Saw Wood Products, we’ve loved our first year working with NEON and are so happy to have many sizes of our garden boxes at their store. We are so proud to have our boxes in local stores like NEON to be able to share them with even more of the community! NEON’s seed selection is the largest and most diverse I’ve seen in the Treasure Valley. And, their store is packed with great organic solutions for gardening. I even found my lady bugs there to help with my aphids invasion a few years ago.

The post Highlights of 2022 first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

When I first found garden boxes, I was skeptical about getting the variety and the yield I wanted. I thought this small space couldn’t possibly do what I wanted. Oh, was I wrong! Planting for vertical growth changed everything for me.

Top reasons why I fell in love with raised garden boxes:

1. Less garden space needed
2. Control over the soil
3. Flexible garden space
4. Year-round gardening

Let’s dive into the details…

Less Garden Space Needed

The yield is fantastic for this small space. I wasn’t looking for the same size yield as my last garden so I was surprised at how much I could actually grow. When growing vertically, you are adding additional space to your garden. So, when growing melons, for example, you can leave inches rather than feet between the plants as the wandering plants will grow up the trellises rather than spread across the ground. In my humble estimation, I’ve tripled the size of my garden in raised garden boxes vs. the ground footprint I’d need for comparable growth.

Control Over the Soil

Another great benefit is I control exactly what dirt and fertilizers go into these boxes. This gives me control of what goes into my fruits and vegetables, and ultimately what goes into my family’s bodies!

Flexible Garden Space

My raised garden boxes fit within my existing yard so I can grow what I’d like without having to change the landscape design. I have an open space where I put a group of garden boxes, some connected by trellises to provide that vertical growth. I also utilize the smaller spaces throughout my yard where I want to place small planter boxes for herbs, “space invader plants“, and flowers to attract more bees.

Year-Round Gardening

Using raised garden boxes incentivizes me to extend the green and beauty of the garden by gardening year-round. I can have better control over the temperature of the soil by using box covers at night when the temperature drops lower than the plants like and using the trellises to provide natural shade. I love the look of the raised garden boxes in my yard with the beautiful, simple trellises going from box to box. Walking through any garden is always relaxing, so add in greenery covered trellises to walk under and it feels like a garden wonderland!

For all these reasons, raised garden boxes have been a great choice for me and I can’t believe I haven’t tried them until now!

The post Why I Chose Raised Garden Boxes first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

First, I check the irrigation in the box to make sure everything is I good working order. Most repairs are as simple as popping off and replacing a new hose or replacing an end cap that has popped off.

Next, I loosen up the soil by running a hand rake through it, then add more soil, if needed. Normally, I try to keep my soil level 3-4” from the top. You can see this one needs soil.

I then mix in a good, general organic fertilizer with the soil. I prefer to use a liquid seaweed here as it provides so many good nutrients.

Then, I let the box sit for a couple of weeks while I design my next season of planting.

I read a lot of garden books, but my go to is one my kids gave me several years ago. I’ve recently seen this and other great gardening books at some D&B Supply stores.

Among other things, it provides advice on what NOT to plant after certain vegetables. Some veggies just don’t get along well with others and require different amounts of shade and nutrients. I’ve learned the value of this over the years.

Before I start planting, I check the box to see if it needs any maintenance. This one needs a coat of raw linseed oil, so I’ll take care of that, too, while the bed is resting. The oil provides a nice protective coating on the boxes to help them better withstand weathering over time and keeps their pretty cedar coloring.

It doesn’t take a great deal of time, just a little patience to prepare for a successful fall garden.

The post Fall Preparation first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

Year one: I ordered garlic online from an out-of-state supplier + planted late (early February) = Fail!

Year two: I spoke with the great folks at North End Organic Nursery (NEON) + bought two wonderful varieties from them + planted 3 months earlier (early November) = Success!

Thanks, NEON!

I just harvested the early variety and am so excited to taste them in a few weeks. For now, I will be drying and storing the harvested garlic in a cold place (tough in the Idaho heat, but I have a plan!). I will cure the garlic for three to four weeks by hanging it in a cool place inside the house. Then, it will be ready to use for cooking as well as drying to make spice blends!

Does anyone have good garlic recipes? Message us with your ideas and we will share them out!

The post Growing Garlic first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.

Although I love having mint in my garden, I battle its ever growing wandering tendencies. 

I’ve learned so much since then about these and other “space invaders”: asparagus, horseradish, and strawberries are among my favorites. Fresh strawberries for dessert during the summer, asparagus available at my fingertips, and oh, the punch of great horseradish! I love having access to these plants and don’t want to give that up. Nor do I want to commit my entire garden area to these plants.

The most practical solution is simply giving them a home of their own.

Using smaller containers, like garden boxes, I have provided these plants with their own little home.  Using 2’x2’ garden boxes, one for each type of plant, I give them the gift of spreading and filling up their own space. These perennial plants continue to expand year after year and offer an abundance of great food in return…a win/win.

The post Space Invaders first appeared on Silver Saw Wood Products.