Specialty Gardening: Earth Boxes, 0 by ritchh

ritchh wrote:
Hi Tplant...how are you doing. It's been a while since I posted here. Folks, I have been using Earthboxes for 5 years and have grown tomatoes, bell & hot peppers, cucumbers, romaine, broccoli, summer squash, raddichio and basil in them with great success. I now have a total of 14. I have had some blossom end rot issues with full size tomatoes (not cherry, grape or plum) and bell peppers. The problem seems to crop up when, as it tends to do often here in New Jersey, spring turns into summer almost overnite and the plants go through a large growth spurt. I mix 2 cups of Espoma 5-3-3 100% organic along with 1/2 cup each of bone meal and kelp meal into the soil before planting along with 2 cups of dolomite and 1 cup of pellitized gypsum (adds extra calcium without affecting soil pH). This along with a few sprays of a commercial blossom end rot spray have pretty much solved the problem. I think that mixing the organic fertilizer into the soil works better than the fertilizer stripe at least for me. It is very easy in my area to double crop with them as lettuce, radishes and even broccoli can be planted in early april and be ready before the end of May after which I plant my chilli plants, basil which I have started earlier in pots or even summer squash from seed. I've attached a picture of last years cucumbers taken at the end of June. If you have a spare box give them a try...they grow beautifully in the Earthbox.