Pros and Cons of the Earthtainer??

[gssgarden]

Good info Ray! Thanks!

What about peppers and eggplants?? Should i use the same size containers? Or can I down size to an 18 gallon for two plants? Or FOUR plants in the big ones??

thanks,

Greg

[amideutch]

Ami, you brought up a good point. How do the plants handle high winds? Do the topple over for you?
I remember a few of your pics a while back and you had them tied or supported by a fence, right?

Correct, All my containers on the fence line were tie wrapped to the fence and never had one blown over. The plants in the open green house which had only a roof were supported with Line suspended from the ceiling to each planter and used tomato clips to attach the plant to the line and never had one of those go down either. This year we had a storm and the container plants on my balcony did go down but the cages I had attached to the containers protected the plants and damage was minimal. But I did secure them to the side of the house after.

As there is more than 100+ pounds of mix and water anchoring the EarthTainer

My point exactly concerning the RGGS containers. There are no reservoirs in the container as the rain gutter is supplying the water and is not attached to the containers.

Ami

[rnewste]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

Good info Ray! Thanks!

What about peppers and eggplants?? Should i use the same size containers? Or can I down size to an 18 gallon for two plants? Or FOUR plants in the big ones??

thanks,

Greg

For your Peppers and Eggplants, I would recommend using the 18 gallon design, with 2 plants per 'Tainer.

Raybo

[ScottinAtlanta]

The big con that has stopped me from using the two Earthboxes in my garage is that you apparently have to water them every day.

[amideutch]

The big con that has stopped me from using the two Earthboxes in my garage is that you apparently have to water them every day.

There are auto-fill valves available that go down the fill tubes and are connected to your faucet.
Raybo uses them on his Tainers and they can be daisy chained. I believe the makers of Earthbox are the ones that market it.


Ami

[nancyruhl]

I have grown in home made earth boxes, global buckets, and the rain gutter system. The "earth boxes" and global buckets are attached to a watering system with weighted drippers at home. The rain gutter system is set up on the roof top garden at my church. They all work very well, but the rain gutter system was truly awesome. I think the watering was much more reliable because a level of water was always maintained. The drip system was just a guess as to how long the system needed to run to fill the reservoirs. As you can see, I had the gutter system hooked up to a rainbarrel. Lower was a backup system with city water attached for with the rain barrel went dry.

I feel the production was similar throughout all the systems. Production begins earlier in these system because the soil warms up much earlier in containers than in the garden, so I get a longer season. The flavor doesn't suffer, IMO.

I plan to grow pretty much only dwarfs in the global buckets this season, as this seems to be the best use for them.

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[nancyruhl]

Try again. This picture was taken around 6/30 of the roof garden

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[gssgarden]

How often does an earthtainer have to be watered? I realize it prob takes more in the beginning but during the growing season?

Do you feel, since it's constantly feeding the plant, you go through more water?

Greg

[luigiwu]

Greg, I would think any sub-irrigated planting system would be more water-efficient than top watering. In theory, you aren't losing it to the elements/evaporation. The plants will need what it needs, maybe a little less since the rootball is probably smaller in a container.

Nancy, I can't see your picture for whatever reason. What dwarfs do you like to grow/recommend? I am happy to find someone who also can appreciate the awesomeness of the RGGS. My global bucket plants really suffered/got super stressed as I wasn't around to give them a second watering during the hottest days of summer. I never ever have to worry about that with the RGGS.
BTW, for some reason I can't see your picture.

YAY for all sub-irrigated planting systems!

[Sun City Linda]

Scott - Yes, do check out the automatic watering system avail thru Earthbox. Pricely but everyone who uses them loves them.

[nancyruhl]

luigiwu, I am sorry that my picture will not post. It is very frustrating as I have followed the steps repeatedly and all I get is an X. I would love for you to see how well it grew by 6/30 when the picture was taken. We even got a late start because of construction of the system.

The dwarfs I grew were the earlier releases, Summertime Gold, Tasmanian Chocolate, and Rosella Purple. Not from the dwarf Project was Coastal Pride Orange which was truly awesome. To fill the rest of the buckets, I used some seed I saved from earlier growouts for the Dwarf Project that I thought were good, but have not been released. I have a couple of new ones to trial this year.

[nancyruhl]

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[Vespertino]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

The big con that has stopped me from using the two Earthboxes in my garage is that you apparently have to water them every day.

nevermind. I misread!

[Vespertino]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

How often does an earthtainer have to be watered? I realize it prob takes more in the beginning but during the growing season?

Do you feel, since it's constantly feeding the plant, you go through more water?

Greg

Small ones like the ones I had- 18 gallon- may need to be watered more often in high heat. But I went as long as going two weeks in-between watering. When it was over 100 degrees on my patio for weeks on end I was watering every day to every other day. But once the weather cooled down, it wasn't nearly as often and I'd bet that if you were using a 31 gallon container you'd be watering even less then that.

My 18 gallons were very susceptible to the ambient temperature swings and therefore used more water. Since my patio was small I couldn't fit the 31 gallon 'tainers I didn't have much choice for growing tomatoes, but I'd recommend the 31 gallon if you have the option- especially if you're in a hot climate.

[nancyruhl]

Since I cannot post a picture, I will link to the thread about how I set up the gutter garden.
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...661#post375661