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A guy planted two potatoes in an Amazon shipping box to prove a point. Mission accomplished.

You should see how many potatoes he got out of this experiment.

The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni/YouTube

Can you grow vegetables in a cardboard box?

In the era of supermarkets and wholesale clubs, growing your own food isn't a necessity for most Americans. But that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to try.

A household garden can be a great way to reduce your grocery bill and increase your intake of nutrient-dense foods. It can also be a good source of exercise and a hobby that gets you outside in the sunshine and fresh air more often. However, not everyone has a yard where they can grow a garden or much outdoor space at all where they live. You can plant things in containers, but that requires some upfront investment in planters.

 container garden, growing plants in containers, growing vegetables, homegrown, produce Potted plants and herbs can thrive in a container garden.Photo credit: Canva

Or does it? Gardener James Prigioni set out to see if an Amazon shipping box would hold up as a planter for potatoes. He took a basic single-walled Amazon box, lined it with dried leaves to help with moisture retention, added four to five inches of soil (his own homegrown soil he makes), added three dark red seed potatoes, covered them with more soil, added a fertilizer, then watered them.

He also planted a second, smaller Amazon box with two white seed potatoes, following the same steps.

Two weeks later, he had potato plants growing out of the soil. Ten days after that, the boxes were filled with lush plants.

  - YouTube  www.youtube.com  

Prigioni explained how to "hill" potato plants when they grow tall enough, which helps encourage more tuber growth and protect the growing potatoes from sunlight. Hilling also helps support the plants as they grow taller so they don't flop over. He also added some mulch to help keep the plants cooler as the summer grew hotter.

After hilling, Prigioni only needed to keep up with watering. Both varieties of potatoes flowered, which let him know the tubers were forming. The red potato leaves developed some pest issues, but not bad enough to need intervention, while the white potato plants were unaffected. "It goes to show how variety selection can make a big difference in the garden," he explained.

The visible plants have to start dying before you harvest potatoes, and Prigioni checked in with the boxes themselves when they got to that point.

 vegetable garden, growing potatoes, grow potatoes in a cardboard box, Amazon box, farming Freshly harvested potatoes are so satisfying.Photo credit: Canva

"I am pleasantly surprised with how well the boxes held up," he said, especially for being single-walled boxes. The smaller box was completely intact, while the larger box had begun to split in one corner but not enough to affect the plants' growth. "This thing was completely free to grow in, so you can't beat that," he pointed out.

Prigioni predicted that the red potatoes grown in the larger box would be more productive. As he cut open the box and pulled potatoes from the larger box, they just kept coming, ultimately yielding several dozen potatoes of various sizes. The smaller box did have a smaller yield, but still impressive just from two potatoes planted in an Amazon box.

People often think they don't have room to grow their own food, which is why Prigioni put these potato boxes on his patio. "A lot of people have an area like this," he said.

"I will never look at cardboard boxes the same," Prigioni added. "There are so many uses for them in the garden and it's just a great free resource we have around, especially if you're ordering stuff from Amazon all the time."

 cardboard box, container garden, amazon box, growing vegetables, gardening Do you see a box or do you see a planter?Photo credit: Canva

People loved watching Prigioni's experiment and shared their own joy—and success—in growing potatoes in a similar fashion:

"I have been growing potatoes in every box I can find for several years now. I have had excellent success. I honestly think potatoes prefer cardboard. And yes, most of my boxes were from Amazon."

"I live in an upstairs apartment with a little deck and I have a container garden with containers on every single stair leading to the deck. I grow potatoes in a laundry basket. It's amazing how much food I can get from this type of garden!! Grateful."

"I literally got up and grabbed the empty boxes by our front door, the potatoes that have started to sprout, and soil i had inside and started my planting at 1am. Lol. I will take them outside today and finish. Thank you James!"

"I grew potatoes and tomatoes on my tiny balcony in Germany (in buckets and cardboard boxes). Now I have a big garden here in America. I so love to grow my own food."

"I grew sweet potatoes in cardboard boxes. It’s so much fun."

Next time you're stuck with an Amazon box that you don't have a use for, consider whether you could use it as a planter for potatoes or some other edible harvest. Gardening doesn't have to be fancy to be effective.

You can find more of gardening experiments on The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni.

This article originally appeared in April.

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Chaos gardening: The Internet’s favorite “messy” trend that’s transforming backyards everywhere

Ditch the rules! Embrace the wild! Let beauty remain untamed.

TikTok: @TR and @calnaturalgardens

Chaos gardening returns fun to gardening

Get ready to throw out everything you knew about gardening—even if it’s very little—because there’s a new trend in town that’s pure, unadulterated genius. Do you ever walk by a neighbor’s garden, one that’s been planned and pruned to perfection, with its neatly symmetrical flower beds and lushness that rivals Eden? Well, it’s time to say goodbye to the green-eyed monster and hello to your green thumb: TikTok’s latest viral gardening wisdom is taking the Internet by storm as novices and experts alike are discovering that sometimes, the best plan is… to have no plan at all. And science agrees.

Somewhere along the way, between the obsessively manicured lawns and hyper-maintained front yards (with their timed sprinklers, expensive bonsai trees, and cute yet passive aggressive “NO DOGS ALLOWED” signs), we lost the plot on gardening. Sure, hedges trimmed into precise geometric shapes and meticulously spaced flowers that resemble math puzzles are nice to look at, but the moment we started ruthlessly pulling, hacking, and destroying anything that dared grow where it wasn’t explicitly invited, a line was crossed. So, here’s a radical idea for gardening: take a step back, put down the pesticides, and let nature decide. This trust exercise could be the key to unlocking the thriving, biodiverse haven of your dreams.


 
 @meggrowsplants Chaos gardening results 💚 I started chaos gardening when I was working a full time job with a one hour commute each way. I had absolutely no time to garden, but I still wanted to grow my own food. I went outside and made a last ditch effort and just threw all of the seeds I had out into my garden beds and called it a season. And it was one of the best things I ever did! I think chaos gardening appeals to alot of people, because most people are in the exact same boat. Not everyone has time to become an “expert” in gardening, but they still want the amazing experience of growing food. The overwhelm of gardening information out there, and (the sometimes very aggressive) “dos and donts” can actually be discouraging to new gardeners. Chaos gardening is definitely something that has been integrated into my personal gardening style, even though this is now my job! I love the low effort, low maintenance, fun and carefree aspect to it- and you can grow lots of food this way as well. I find that it’s an encouraging way to garden. No rules, no stress, just experimentation and fun in your garden. Do you want to try chaos gardening? 🪴 #chaosgardening #chaosgardener #chaosgarden #gardening #growyourownfood #growfood #growingfood #gardeninspiration #gardendesign #gardentok ♬ original sound - MegGrowsPlants 
 
 

"Chaos gardening, I also call it intuitive gardening or instinctive gardening, is just taking the stress out of gardening and putting the fun back in there, which is how gardening is supposed to be in my opinion,” says North Carolina resident, Meagan Lloyd (@meggrowsplants), one of the faces behind TikTok’s massively viral “chaos gardening” movement.

Consumed with her full-time job, Lloyd said she had “absolutely no time” for gardening but still wanted to grow her own food. So, one day she gathered up all of her seeds and tossed them into the garden. “And it was one of the best things I’ve ever done!” she remarks.


 
 @calnaturalgardens Chaos garden update 🥰 #chaosgardening #viral #fyp #fypage #foryourpage #fypシ #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #fypシ゚viral #fypシ゚ #foryoupage #fypシ #fyppp #garden #gardening #longbeach #california ♬ Loving Me - Janine 
 
 

She’s not alone in the chaos. Another creator, Melanie (@calnaturalgardens) loves her chaos garden, which boasts over 25 different types of flowers and plants—a buzzy local attraction frequented by the birds and bees all day long. With the success of her garden, she even started offering seasonal flower bouquet subscriptions in Long Beach, California, where one can buy gorgeous bunches of cosmos, purple innocence, strawflowers, and other colorful blooms that “highlight the beauty and diversity of native plants that are otherwise overlooked in the floral industry.”

Meanwhile, almost nothing can match the joy of user @TR’s chaos gardening reveal, where she pans over flower beds that have blossomed into meadows full of brilliant, wiry gems—dahlias, zinnias, and snapdragons—that dance in the wind.

The Internet is absolutely here for it, by the way. “I prefer this over boring front lawns,” one commenter shared. “Honestly, it’s giving Secret Garden vibes and I love it,” said another. Others are seeing their own amazing results, writing, "I've been doing this for years and my garden is THRIVING 🌱" and "Best gardening hack ever! So much less work and so many more flowers 🌸🌼🌺.”


 
 @tayyluuh The results from last year’s chaos garden were unmatched! What flower are you wanting in your cut flower garden this year?! #chaosgardening #garden #wildflower #pnw ♬ BLOOM - Doechii 
 
 


 

What’s going on here (and why are scientists getting so excited?)

 

The point of chaos gardening isn’t to be lazy (although it’s certainly a welcomed perk!); it’s about creating resilient ecosystem powerhouses that mimic nature’s ebbs, flows, and beautiful imperfections. Think about it: out in the wild, plants don’t grow in perfect rows—winds carry seeds wherever they please, creating beautiful “messes” of diverse plantings that naturally suppress weeds and create microclimates that benefit all surrounding plants. Still can’t picture it? Well, all you need to do is watch the opening number from The Sound of Music. Here, the hills are alive with something else, too: the beauty of chaos gardening.

Russell Taylor, VP of Live Earth Products, puts it perfectly: "Chaos gardening goes beyond just a gardening technique; it's a philosophy. It promotes embracing unpredictability and enjoying the natural evolution of the garden."

The trend is already on the move. Beyond the 13 billion views it’s gained on TikTok, in 2023, chaos gardening was featured in the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show.

Stephanie Rose, author of Garden Alchemy and The Regenerative Garden, describes chaos gardening as an act of rebellion: it's about "taking back the land and gardens from what has been structured and high maintenance, like thirsty, manicured lawns and very landscaped environments," she said.

The best part? Anyone can start a chaos garden. You don’t need a degree in horticulture or to spend hours researching cross-pollination. "Not only does chaos gardening save time and money, but it's also great for beginners who want to enjoy a garden but don't know where to start," says Brian Shaunfield, a Lowe's store manager.

So, take that as an invitation to put down that grid-lined notebook and ditch the measuring tape. Maybe it’s time to try embracing a little chaos.

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I accidentally discovered the perfect houseplant for people who murder houseplants

I thought I had a fake plant for months and cared for it accordingly.

Photo by Annie Reneau

Get yourself one of these babies if you can't keep plants alive.

Confession: I am a houseplant serial killer.

I don't want to be a plant murderer. I adore plants. Greenery is my thing. I'd have a whole house full of lush houseplants if I had any shade of green thumb, but sadly, I do not.

People who know this about me have tried to gift me plants that are supposedly low-maintenance. I can't count how many times I've heard, "Trust me, you can't kill it!" while someone hands me a beautiful plant that I absolutely, positively can and will kill. Yes, even succulents. Even cactus. I can kill anything that grows in dirt. I'm exceptionally skilled at it, in fact.

As a result of this regrettable reality, I have just a few real plants in my home that have miraculously survived my deadly presence over the years. The rest of my plants are fake to satisfy my desire for greenery without triggering my murder shame, which leads me to how I accidentally discovered the perfect houseplant for plant killers like myself.

bird's nest snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, Hahnii, houseplants, low maintenance plantsWhen I got this plant, it had such perfect leaves, I genuinely thought it was fake.Photo by Annie Reneau

I bought this cute little fake plant some months back thinking it was a fairly realistic dupe. The green color was a little bright, but the dappled effect helped offset the boldness of it. It sat on the shelf in my kitchen next to the window, and I'd occasionally take it down to dust it.

But one time when I took it down, I noticed that the tip of one of the leaves seemed to have a little imperfection in it.

"Huh," I thought. "They really made this thing look real, didn't they? Impressive."

bird's nest snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, Hahnii, houseplants, low maintenance plantsMy "fake" plant started drying up on one leaf after months of neglect. Photo by Annie Reneau

Then I pulled back the bottom leaves and saw that there seemed to be real dirt in the pot.

"Huh," I thought. "That's…odd. Why would they bother to use real dirt for a fake plant?"

Then I noticed that there was some dry-looking light brown stuff at the base of the leaves.

"Huh," I thought. "Now, wait a minute…"

bird's nest snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, Hahnii, houseplants, low maintenance plants, fake plantFake plants don't look like this, but I'd never bothered to look underneath the leaves.Photo by Annie Reneau

I ran my fingers over the leaves, which felt waxy and fake and looked nearly perfect. There was no way this was a real plant. I'd had it for months—I don't know how many, but at least two. I had never watered it. Not once. It had remained the same that whole time. The leaves felt like plastic. The green was so very green.

That imperfection at the leaf tip didn't convince me at first because I figured maybe I just hadn't noticed it before. And I didn't want to break off a leaf to check for sure because 1) I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good fake plant and 2) As a bona fide plant murderer, surely my breaking off a leaf would be a bad omen of some sort if it were real.

I took a photo and did a Google image search, and that's when I discovered that what I thought was a fake plant was, in fact, real. A genuine, living plant in real dirt. Barely affected by the months of my outright neglect. Impressive and hardy, despite my absolute best accidental attempt to kill it.

bird's nest snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, Hahnii, houseplants, low maintenance plantsBird's Nest Snake Plants are the best plants for plant killers.Photo credit: Canva

The Bird's Nest Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata "Hahnii")

Yes, I know, I know. I'm an idiot when it comes to plants. You can see why I kill them so often. But the Bird's Nest Snake Plant is seriously the best plant I've ever had. This is the plant everyone should have been giving me, saying I couldn't kill it. Now that I've started watering it very, very occasionally, it's even started to grow a bit. It's almost like it just sat there in a dormant state for months, not dying but not growing, waiting for me to notice that it was real (part of me wonders if maybe I loved it enough for it to become real—The Velveteen Houseplant, if you will).

Snake plants are succulents, but unlike most succulents, they don't require a lot of sunlight. They do just fine in indirect light, which is why my shelf next to the window seems to work well for mine. Like other succulents, they require little water and the soil should be allowed to dry out completely between waterings.

bird's nest snake plant, Sansevieria trifasciata, Hahnii, houseplants, low maintenance plantsI thought both of these plants were fake, so they sat here together sharing the neglect.Photo by Annie Reneau

In fact—and this is the best part—they "thrive on neglect." They are drought tolerant and more prone to overwatering than underwatering. Though the recommended watering schedules is every 2-4 weeks, if you forget for longer than that, it's probably not going to hurt it. That was 100% my experience, and yet, it's still as beautifully green as any well-watered normal plant. And it's a good plant for air purifying to boot.

If, like mine, your murderous tendencies are a result of neglect and not overzealous watering, the Bird's Nest Snake Plant might just be your perfect plant, fellow plant killers. You don't even have to know it's real to keep it alive, apparently, which is exactly the kind of plant I need.

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Gardener tests whether you can regrow scraps from store-bought veggies to make a full garden

He put viral videos to the test in a real garden with some impressive results.

Photo credit: Canva

People try to extend the lives of their veggies by regrowing in the kitchen, but does it work in a garden?

The way plants provide food for humans and animals alike is one of the coolest things about our planet. And the way humans are honing the art of agriculture, learning to farm and garden most effectively (and hopefully sustainably) to feed the masses is one of the coolest things about humans.

Home gardening has long been a supplementary source of food for families around the world, and there's no shortage of books, websites, classes, video tutorials, and more to teach people how to do it. As many beginners find when they get started, gardening is a bit more complicated than simply putting some seeds in the ground and waiting for them to grow. You have soil composition, sunlight exposure, watering schedules, hardiness zones, pests, and other considerations that differ for each plant.

But in some ways, growing food can be less complicated than we might think, as we see demonstrated in viral videos like this one:

@creative_explained

Every day we throw out food scraps, when so much of it can be used in other ways, even regrowing food! 🤩🌱 . #upcycle #savemoney #regrow #kitchenscraps #garden #gardening #plants #plantsofinstagram #gardenlife #lifehack #hacks #diy #recycle #sustainableliving #howto #plantstagram #creativeexplained #magic #organicgardening #instadaily #tiktokstar #plantfood

Regrowing vegetables from portions of store-bought veggies seems like something that might work or might not, or that might only work a little bit for a little while. Even if you can get some romaine lettuce to sprout from a stub in your kitchen, does that mean you could plant it in a garden and have it grow into a full-fledged plant? Is it really that simple?

James Prigioni explored the question, "What happens when you regrow veggies from the store?" on his gardening channel in a video that's been watched nearly 5 million times. For 135 days, Prigioni grew onions, carrots, beets, ginger, tomatoes and more to see how the store-bought stubs would fare in a real garden. Here are the results:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

He started by soaking the veggie scraps in water in a glass cake pan, then planted them in a raised bed with soil. He covered the bed with a shade cloth for two weeks to avoid them budding plants from getting too much direct sunlight. After just two weeks, there was already new green growth coming from everything he planted except the lettuce and cabbage.

In hindsight, he said, he could have spouted the lettuce and cabbage in water first, but he really wanted to see what would happen if he just planted then as is. The one whole onion he planted turned into five onions. The beet top that survived grew into funky-shaped but much larger beet that tasted god. The carrot tops grew some long, thin carrots expanding out from the center. The potato he dropped in the ground whole turned into a harvest of over a dozen potatoes. The tomato top, which included some seeds, turned into a large tomato plant, and so did the ginger. The garlic grew greens, but because of the season, it didn't grow into bulbs.

Vegetables GIFGiphy

With a couple of exceptions, the experiment was a rousing success. Apparently, you can grow a lot more vegetables from vegetables than people may realize. The one thing he recommends is to buy organic veggies if you're going to try planting scraps, as non-organic produce sometimes has sprout inhibitors on it that might interfere with your experiment.

People in the comments are sharing their own experiences with growing veggies from veggies:

"Last year, I bought a 1.5 lbs bag of purple baby potatoes in my local ShopRite. I couldn’t find purple potato seeds, so I decided to take a chance. There were 22 baby potatoes and all of them had eyes with some growth protruding, so I knew they would take off. Sure enough, I got an excellent crop out of those 22 baby potatoes. We enjoyed them until the end of year and then somehow forgot about them. When in March I realized we had still about ten pounds of potatoes, they had already started to sprout. In April, I planted some and the rest donated to the community garden. Both – us and the community gardeners – enjoyed huge crop of delicious purple potatoes. In the past, I occasionally planted store-bought potatoes when they were sprouting, but this was the first time I deliberately purchased a bag of potatoes just for planting. I am glad I did."

potatoes, growing potatoesIt's surprisingly simple to grow potatoes from potato parts.Photo credit: Canva

"As a child of a potato farmer, if you cut that potato in 3rds so that each had a sprout, you end up with 3 plants."

"My Mom was a farmer's daughter from the Depression Era and taught me to grow potatoes from the eyes or sprouts. You simply cut them, making sure each cut has an eye, and plant them into the soil. I did this and ended up with more than I needed. My mom and I canned potatoes for days. One of my best memories."

"I love how easy tomatoes are to grow. We planted some tomatoes and when they grew our dog started going over, picking one off, walking a few steps and eating it. After she passed, tomato plants started growing all over the yard. It was like a little gift from her."

"I'm 69, when I was a little kid, my elderly neighbors, threw all their scraps, from veggies in a certain spot of the garden, they would get food from there, it amazed me, I thought that was so cool!"

"Have been doing the same kind of replanting...onions, carrots, tomatoes, beets, and now cilantro, pak chop, etc. When I clear out the fridge...anything that looks like it will regrow goes in the raised bed. It is fun."

You can follow The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni on YouTube.

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