Earth Box

Has anyone tried one of these things?!?!?!?! if you haven't then y not? I bought 3 of them and can't believe how amazing they work! I finally went to the class at the research center in Ellenton, FL and they described how the whole thing works. its so simple! all you have to do is set it up, plant, and the only thing you have to worry about after that is making sure the box has water! and then harvest! its great!

I have six homemade "earthboxes" going right now. I have 8 tomatoes (2 per box) and 8 peppers (4 per box) and all are going crazy. I planted the first one three weeks ago with two Early Girl plants and they have already doubled in size, literally. I wouldn't plant tomatoes any other way. Earthbox's are great but making them yourself is easy and much cheaper.

I buy them direct from the research center and its not too bad of a price. (I could never afford them through my work though

Lots of Earthbox threads. Check the regular veggie forum. TPlant in FL has 22 of them and is documenting his melon harvest. Im using them for the first time this year and Im 100 percent sold on them. You do have to keep up with the water tho. You can also make earthbuckets for the tomatoes. I hear great things about them as well. .

Up under the date at the top of this page, type earthboxes into the search forums, you should get alot of reading material, and some eye candy too.

Questions:

When you make your own, what kind of soil/fertilizer/lyme do you use???

mimi

Same as with the EB's. They recommend Jungle Grow, which is available at lowes, or miracle grow potting MIX without the watersorb crystals. The main thing is not to put potting SOIL in the boxes. The fertilizer is just a straight cheap 10-10-10. You do need dolomite lime ( the pelitized kind, not powder. That used to be at lowes as well, they have something a little different but its still petlitize.

When I buy my EB's, I buy the ones without all the stuff and just use my own.

Really all you need is any kind of soil that is amended properly to wick water. Mix your own, adjust the ph, and make sure it is fertilized. Buying bags of mix can get expensive, especially if you have a lot of EBs.

You cant use soil at all or you will loose everything. But Im sure just about any kind of soiless mix will work. I wish I knew how to mix my own, and a place to store the ingredients. Its a good $8.50 to fill on EB. That adds up. Tmaple is sure right about that, at least that initial investment. You can reuse it for a good three to five years tho. If you have ever grown tomatos in one, you know you are paid back many times over.

I have a mixture of soil, compost, some peat,vermiculite, along with other things and I have never lost anything in my EBs. As long as the mixture will wick you'll be fine. If your not comfortable mixing your own, by all means use bagged mix, just keep in mind buying bagged is not the only alternative. MG and Shltz. have enough money already, they don't need more of yours.

Thanks!

I have three EB right now and am looking forward to adding more. This is a picture of my green beans. It's doing great and we did harvest (if you call 15 of them harvesting) a few a couple of days ago.

mimi

This is my tomato, bradywine, my first time growing this. Hopefully it'll do well and the heat/humidity will not affect it too much!

mimi

I did one box of beans as well, will do two next year. Takes me two pickings to make a meal with them, I like to eat them from the garden right to the pot. They are pretty if nothing else. Your tomatoes look like they are at about the 'take off' stage. I have spent more on the big thick 8 ft stakes to hold them up, than I did the EB. lol. I have the stakes all around the box, and could still use more. Cant wait to see them with fruit. Hope you post a picture.

Looks great mimianvy! I don't think you can really go wrong using EBs wheather they're purchased or homemade. I envy your long growing season. The thermometer in my garden read 52 degrees this morning. I think I actually saw my tomatoes shivering!

I have some melons planted in one. Here is my first watermelon, It is so cute. Im so afraid something is going to eat it before it gets ripe. Its so dry here, I leave water out so the critters wont eat the fruit for their water.

cantalope in same EB

I tried corn in one of mine and the darn bugs ate every bit of it. I couldn't believe it I was so mad. I have okra in another box and tomatos in the last two. so hopefuly everything works well!keep the pics coming! I love seeing other peoples triumphs with these boxes.

I am fixing to plant okra in at least two. Have some last tomatoes that need to get in one as well. Look forward to your pictures.
I just found out to my horror that I have pickle worms in the melons. I guess they are hard to get rid of and like squash and cukes too Will have some Sevin on them by tonight. I dont want to see another hole like that!

Here is a picture of one of my homemade EBs. Both plants are bush Early Girl and they are thriving.

My six EBs happily doing what they do best. The homemade cages/support for the tomatoes will be setup in the next week or two.

Next year Im going to be more prepared with the support. I really didnt realize how many branches these pups can make when they get going.

Yours look great. They are just about to have their roots find that water and kick in their rocket boosters. I have so many peppers. Im going to be more prepared with them next year too. Either dont plant them in the EB, or find something to do with them when they start going nuts.

All these tomatos were started at the same time. I wanted to do a bit of experimenting so I put a few in a 5 gallon bucket and others in the EB. There is such a difference in them. It's amazing.

I love those cute little watermelons...just adorable. I'm so bad. I went nuts ordering seeds from different places, knowing full well that I just didn't have the time to plant them this year. I hope they keep well.

This is another EB with tomatos. This one has the Japanese supersweet cherry tomato and heirloom lemon drop tomato.

mimianvy, You know you can make those 5 gallon pails into selfwatering containers, or EPs (EarthPails).

You will be able to plant again in August. Your seeds will do even better....not as many bugs in the fall garden.

Im working buckets for next year. They seem to work as well as the box. I will look up the directions and post the link. Its here on daves someplace.

make sure to post the link in here somewhere. I'm very curious. Wow I didn't know that so many people were into this with so much success! I'm very pleased. I would have never thought to use buckets! or watermelons in FL in them! This is exciting! I 'm going to try alot more things now

Here is a link to all the information anyone could want on building their own EBs.

http://www.seattleoil.com/Flyers/Earthbox.pdf

I didn't know the buckets can be turned into EB's... thats exciting. Thank you for the link. I just showed it to my husband and he's also excited and promised to make a few of the boxes.

Next thing on the "honey do list" is the watering system for these boxes. Just need to sell this to my hubby. :)

This is off the EB topic, but I notice everyone in this post is from FL (except me). My parents own a condo in New Smyrna Beach. Anyone close to there?

east or west coast?

Its on the east coast about 1/2 hour south of Daytona.

yeah... I'm on the West coast smack in the middle of Tampa and Ft. Meyers. you know where the terrorists who flew into the twin towers were trained? that was like 20 minutes from my house. woo hoooooooooo...... not.

I live on the west coast, an hour or so from Tampa. But I use to live in Palm Bay.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get the thread distracted with geography. I was just curious where everyone was from.

Back to self-watering planters. I was at my local nursery the other night and they were giving away (and I mean a real give away, no minimum purchase, no buy one get one, no tricks or anything) a free 4" tomato to every customer. I already had all the tomatoes I was planning to grow this year but I said what the heck and picked out a very nice Better Boy hybrid. Then I thought I would do an experiment trying to grow it completely organic (even though the seedling itself wasn't organic it will live the rest of its life organically). I want to see how it does using ONLY organic methods in a self watering container.

Total Investment: A couple of old buckets, a funnel, a piece of PVC tube, a trash bag, a $6 bag of certified organic potting mix, a free tomato plant, and an hour of time. Now all I need is some advice on organic fertilizers and methods. Any tips on the best methods and products would be greatly appreciated. Murphy offered no advice, but he was good company while I worked so I put him in the photo.

So did you make the ebucket up out of your head or did you follow some directions. deanna

I have an earlier post with a link to some very good information on making your own selfwatering planters(see post 5021366 above). I have used these ideas implementing some of my own modifications to suit personal needs or certain supplies already on hand.

My bradywine has a flower!!

And this is Vicki, the guard... she will lick you to death and offer you her toys if you come close to the tomatos! Honestly, I'll have to keep her away when they start to get ripe, she loves them!

mimianvy, bet you can't wait until your brandywine flower is a brandywine tomato:) Murphy is a lot like Vicki in the sense that instead of "guarding" he keeps people away from the garden using distraction techniques like offering toys or whichever stick he is chewing on at the time, or the dreaded tail wag. Luckily my garden is entirely fenced in so I don't have to play guard dog to the guard dog.

Aren't they just precious?

Last night I went to the EB web site and they have a forum there. I didn't know that. Alot of good stuff there also to read and look at. I wish we could get a site just for EB like they have for hydroponics and other stuff.

My DH put a fence around the 'maters' for support this morning.

Is what just precious, the dogs or the brandywines? I think both are. lol