What’s Soil Blocking? This Seeding Method Helps Gardeners Use Less Plastic and Peat

Spring means it’s time for gardeners to think about seedlings, those little baby plants all ready to get plunked into the ground. And a hands-on technique for growing them, called “soil blocking,” is capturing the attention of serious gardeners.

Among them is Christopher Hallett. He’s a farm manager at Growing Hope Urban Farm, a community garden center in Ypsilanti, Mich. Hallett started soil blocking a few years ago, and taught a class last week to six aspiring soil blockers in one of the facility’s outdoor greenhouses.

“Take your fingers and go, boom boom boom boom,” he says, demonstrating how to pack a mixture of peat moss, dirt, lime, perlite and other components into galvanized metal boxes equipped with a lever. The tool pushes out the packed soil blocks into neat rows, like an old-fashioned ice cube tray.