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Old August 23, 2016   #12
schill93
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Nevada
Posts: 269
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmforcier View Post
Hey, how dedicated are you?
I have a feeling I'm not dedicated enough, but I'm intrigued by your question. I got to see this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by amideutch View Post
I never had any problems growing Indeterminate tomato varieties in 26 Quart Styrofoam Ice chests as you can see by my pictures. Plants can be supported by using the "Florida Weave technique" or suspending a over head cable above the plants and running twine down to the base of the plants attaching tomato clips to support.

As far as the insulation holding in the heat, every time you water the plant the aggregate will be cooled as it percolates down through the aggregate aerating it as well.

The foam sheeting I used I found in a store that sells laminate wood flooring and is put on the floor prior to putting the laminate down and comes in rolls. I used double sided carpet tape to attach to the container. And yes it did cut down the heat gain compared to a pot without the foam.

As Styrofoam Ice Chests are inexpensive go ahead and buy one and give it a test. Get yourself a soil thermometer and after planting a tomato in your favorite aggregate monitor the aggregate temperature during the day and see what you come up with.

Ami

Ami
A 26 Quart would be a little over 6 gallons. The ones I see in Walmart don't look that big but I never checked to see if they stated their size on them (Just eye balling them) Need to look elsewhere perhaps.

Funny you mention the laminate flooring underlay material. I was eyeing that about a month ago while at either Lowes or Home Depot. It's always on my mind I guess.

Yes, I bought a soil thermometer and tried it in both my 15 gal round top watered
containers (that are wrapped with the silver insulation) and then in my Earthboxes.
The Earthboxes were about 2 degrees higher in temperature. It showed soil at about 83 degrees vs round planters at 81 degrees.
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