Boca Bob's stackable strawberry/lettuce containers

Ok, some of you bought and used Boca Bob's stackable containers for strawberries and had them hooked up to a pole and all. I have 5 - 10 coming and am planning to stack them with a pole in the center so I can rotate them and fill each with strawberries, as we plant out our strawberries here sometime in October/November. So; can someone show me the link where they were discussed, I can't seem to find it. I know Jerry used a lot of them and had some posts with pics and descriptions on how to do this.
joy

Hey Joy, I have two stacks. For poles I used the top rail (pipe) from an old cyclone fence. They fit the holes in my stacks perfectly. One of the poles I clamped into the inside corner of a raised bed. I tapped it down into the soil until it was fairly stable probably 6" or so and then I secured it to the railroad ties. The second pole I inserted through a hole I drilled in the center of an 8" cedar stump that had been cut off at ground level when I cleared space for the garden. Like the other pole I drove this one down several inches into the ground after it passed through the stump. Both my systems are very stable as they should be because a 5 or 6 stack setup is quite heavy when filled with wet soil or growing medium. Also they need to be as straight up as possible so the weight of the unit goes straight down and not to the side.

At the time I set up my stackers, last season, I used straight coir. This past Spring for my tomatoes I used a soil mix containing 40% coir and 10% perlite. This worked well. When I change out the soil in my stackers I will go with the same mix as was used for my tomatoes. The top stack dries out very fast so beware.

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Thanks, been off line for a while. I am going to buy some rebar, and drive it into the ground, then cover that with a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, then slip the stackers over that, I will only stack 5, will that work? Did you use dolomite lime in the coir/perlite mixture and did you use 10-10-10 fertilizer? I was curious as to how much fert and dolomite per section. I was really pleased with the size of the stackers, they don't look that big in the pics and I can hardly wait to get my strawberries from the strawberry farm to plant them.
joy

Gezzzz!! Talking to yourself again huh, Joy. Or maybe your enter button got stuck. On fertilizing your stacks.....if you are still using Bob,s hydroponic type fertilizer, you can just pour it in the top pot and it will filter right on down through all five of your pots, fertilizing everything in the stack.

Jaywhacker: Yep, was so excited to be back online my finger must have pushed too hard on the enter button. LOL I'm going to be using Epsoma Holly Tone in both the stackers and EBs that have strawberries in them. I actually bought a PH/moisture/sunlight thingy that I stick in the medium to test it, wouldn't TPlant be proud of me for that? LOL Now, can I grow strawberries in the e-buckets? If so; how many plants per bucket?
joy

Joy......you might also consider planting 2 strawberry plants in each site on those stacker pots. It is a very efficient growing system and I have experimented and found that I could plant them much heavier than you might think. You will like them.

I already got a close up of them and they are much larger than I thought, and just beautiful, can hardly wait to use them. I have 5 stackers for myself and 5 for my sister. 2 per spot, hmmm, that would be 60 strawberry plants right there, and 5 EBs at 6 strawberrys per EB would be another 30, there you go, close to 100 right there. Now how many can I get in an ebucket?????

I'm getting a 4 ft piece of rebar and will put a 1 1/4" 4 ft piece of PVC pipe around that, that should hold them into place perfectly. Of course, will be using the usual coconut coir/perlite mixture and will be switching to Espoma Holly Tone for fertilizer this time round.
joy

Here's my post on how I built my stackers.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/985562/

Quix: You lost me with the directions there bud; but that shouldn't surprise you with it being me right? LOL Can't I just buy a piece of rebar and a 1 1/4" PVC pipe hammer them into the ground and just slip the stackers over the rebar which is inside the PVC pipe??? I was kind of wanting to keep this simple here.
joy

How high are you going to stack them? If only like 4, then yes, I'm sure 48 inch long, 3/4 rebar with pipe would be fine. I stacked mine 6 high, so I needed more support. If you plan on going higher, you'll need a little more support to keep them from falling over. This winter we've had quite the wind storms and I think I'm going to have to redo mine this year becuase the wind has made them lean.

The planter on the bottom was just something additional so I could put flowers to attract bees.

Qinx: Hmm, I was going to stack them 5 high for two stacks; but, now that you have given me that information I think I will stack them 3-4 high making either 4 or 3 stacks accordingly. I have 10 of them. I believe Boca Bob used PVC pipe to go over the rebar which gave it a tight fit, I will have to ask him.
joy

Ok people, where do I find 3/4" rebar?

joy

Joy, just use 3/4" iron pipe or steel conduit. Either is cheap at the big-box hardware stores.

DTR

DTR: I found some 1/2" rebar in either 4 ft or 10 ft lengths at Lowes and it is reasonable, tada, I will shop for the supplies this week and then have my friend put it all together for me!!!
joy

Joy............sometimes the outside diameter of PVC pile is slightly different from one and one fourth inch metal pipe. You might check before you buy the pipe.

Jaywhacker: I just got my delivery from the wholesale lumber company, their prices are so much better than Lowes and their delivery charge is very reasonable, now I can get my handyman started!!!! I had them cut a 20 ft piece of 1/2" rebar into 4 pieces, and am going to cover that with 1 1/4" PVC pipe, slap vaseline on the circle hole of each stacker and slip over the rebar/PVC pipe that my handyman will slam into the ground aforehand. LOL I missed strawberry season but can always plant flowers or lettuce instead.

I also decided to run more PVC pipe over my kiddie pool as it is 4ft 9 in across, making for a nice size kiddie pool to hold the grow bags of tomatoes. I can run twine from the above PVC pipes with clips attatched at the ends for my tomato plants, don't know exactly how far up I should punch the drain holes in the kiddie pool though, I'm going to mix up agloflash tomato fertilizer with water, 1 capful per gallon til the pool is full up to the drain holes. I figure I should be able to grow 10 tomatoes in that thing, what do you think?

On the stackers, I'm stacking one 4 high and the other two will be 3 high.
joy