Newbie to the Container 2008 Experience

[earthbox13]

2008 Tomato Adventure

I thought I would post my experiences growing tomatoes in homemade watering containers (or something resembling EarthBoxes®). This whole process is actually my uncle’s fault. Every summer when I was in his area he always had a patch of tomatoes, and we would tour the garden. He told me the variety, flavor, history, his opinion and opinions others had of the tomatoes he grew. Needless to say, he peaked my interest in the process and culture of tomato growing.

I recently relocated to Colorado and am renting. I really wanted to start some tomatoes, but I did not want to dig up the backyard. As with all things tomato, I consulted my uncle for his wise opinion—he recommended I try to build something similar to an EarthBox. Luckily, the internet is filled with lots of interesting web pages on just this topic. After reading lots of forums and looking at many designs I just had to decide on a couple of items:

What materials was I going to use?
Size: how big of a container to use?
Soil: what was I going to fill it with?
How to support the plants?
What to plant?

I am a student and on a budget, so the materials had to be cheap, and this determined the size of the container I would use. I found 10 gallon khaki colored totes on sale at Target as well as some small rectangular containers to provide support to make the reservoir. Home Depot had the PVC and mesh and Wally World had the potting mix. My uncle provided me with the following tomato seeds: Black Cherry, Sun Gold, Rutgers, Aunt Gertie’s Gold. And then there is the Black from Tula seedling I brought out from Maine to New York to North Carolina and finally to Colorado. To support the plants I made cages out of concrete reinforcing wire (remesh) 10 gauge with 6” X 6” mesh. I only had a set of wire cutters, so, as a note of help: if you are going to make your own cages, invest in a small set of bolt cutters—I know I will next year. There was also a lot of drilling involved, and all I had was a battery powered drill and 2 sets of batteries. Unfortunately the batteries slowed me down. Drill a couple hundred holes, charge batteries, put other set of batteries in, drill a couple hundred more holes and call it a day because it took 18 hours for the batteries to charge.

The process is outlined in the PDF file labeled Maters1.
Basically:
Build containers
Assemble
Fill with soil soak the soil well, not soggy though.
Then I added 2 cups of hydrated lime per box, mixed it in, and then put a strip of granular fertilizer in.
Since my plants were leggy, I dug a trough to lay them in.
I filled the reservoir with just enough water and checked it daily using a wooden dowel by sticking it in the fill tube. If needed, I added water until it came out the drain hole I put in the side of each container approximately 4” from the bottom.

About mid-summer the plants looked like they needed a little help so I fed them some water soluble tomato fertilizer, the following week I gave them some phosphate, the next week they received Epsom salt and the forth week a little hydrated lime. They were fed by adding the above supplements to the water reservoir over a two month period. The difficult part was deciding how much to give each plant. I stayed with a small amount by trying to make a best guess from the directions listed on the packages. My biggest worry was overdoing it so I took baby steps since this was my first time going through this process.

I am definitely not saying this is the way to go about it, just that this is what I decided to do. Looking at the photos you can see the progress of the tomato patch. By late summer the Sun Gold and Black Cherry were over 8’ and the others were 5’ to 6’ high.

The Black from Tula produced almost 39lbs, Rutgers 30lbs, Aunt Gertie’s Gold did well producing some big tomatoes, however, some foliar condition claimed them towards the end of summer. I had more Sun Gold and Black Cherry than I knew what to do with.

In a nutshell, it was a positive experience, lots of fun, and I have made contact with a lot of helpful and interesting people. The most popular question is: what am I going to do next year? First is to build more containers over the winter. Second is to grow more varieties, and in this regard, I am well on my way. I would like to say thanks to all who have traded seeds with me.

I know there are many ways to go about this. Some would say, why fertilize if you don’t know what the plant really needs? Others might ask about soil moisture and monitoring it. These are all issues I hope to address in the coming years.

I had a lot of fun sharing the experience with friends and family. I would like to give a big thanks to all the Tomatovillian’s whose post have helped greatly throughout this process.

[akgardengirl]

You did good...nice looking bunch of tomatoes.
Sue

[rnewste]

earthbox 13,

Quite an accomplishment!! They look great. What potting mix did you use?

Also, you mentioned that you used hydrated Lime. I have read posts where experienced folks recommend against using hydrated Lime (because it is so fast reacting) and instead use dolomite Lime. Why did you select hydrated Lime?

Keep up the good work for next Season,

Ray

[newatthiskat]

Very good job! You got more from one plant than I did my whole garden. That solves it. I am going to build some containers this year! (translated means my husband will build some)
Kat

[earthbox13]

Thanks Sue, Ray and Kat.

I used Miracle-Gro Potting Mix. I can’t remember the source of the information but I read it was better at wicking than potting soil. I found the potting mix at a large chain store, 2 cubic feet for 6 dollars. I also came across several recipes to make your own and I plan to try some next year in the expansion project.
The Growing in Containers forum here has helped a lot, providing me with ideas and information.

I chose hydrated lime because I was having trouble finding dolomite and the plants definitely needed to be transplanted, so I was a little short on time. There was a PDF online for making EarthBoxes titled, Making a self watering container or Earthbox, in which they say, “For tomatoes, mix two cups of dolomite or hydrated lime into the top 3-4 inches of potting mix and re-smooth.” But I think I am definitely going to try dolomite next year. A couple weeks after transplant white dot appeared on the leaves. I was wondering if this could be excess calcium (see pictures). Whatever this was, it went away after a little more than a week and some light rain and I never saw it again.

Right now the hard part is deciding how many containers I can make this winter and still be able to get the wife's car in the garage.

Scott

[Rob]

My fault? My fault?So your going to put all the blame on me aa?Well I am not alone in this and while I may may be willing to accept that I might have had a small part in this ,there are others who may want to step up to the plate so to speak.Carolyn wrote the book I told you about and then Earl had to get me started with the taste and production of Earls faux.And Mark Korney was there to help supply me with plants and a whole bunch of tomatovillians that gave me seeds for free yeah yeah the first seeds are free! You will see!Best of luck Lad thanks for the great post!Your Uncle Rob

[rnewste]

Scott,

You can get the dolomite Lime at Home Depot.

Also, garden stores carry this brand:



Next season you may want to experiment in a few containers with the fertilizer strip placement. This "picture frame" pattern around the perimeter seems to work best for me:


Ray

[dokutaaguriin]

Very impressive growing! Congrats! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Jeff

[ContainerTed]

I found 40 lb bags of "garden lime" at Walmart for 3 bucks. Also, they had 20 lb bags of 10-10-10 Gen. Purp. fertilizer for 9 bucks.

[eddie46]

I may switch to containers. Very impressive plants.
Ed

[amideutch]

Scott, good stuff. We definitely need to document our regimens used so as to pass along to the other folks just starting out. Look out people, the container/tainer invasion has begun.Ami

[hasshoes]

Congrats-that totally rocks!

I am so trying those this year.

I like the pic of you looking tough in front of the maters, lol :-)

[ContainerTed]

Questions for those who have used these "Tainers".

How does mulch on top of the growing medium affect moisture levels especially plastic??


If this does affect the moisture, would varying the amount of the surface area covered by the mulch be a way to further control the moisture?

I would also assume that the amount of sun hitting the top of the container (soil area) might affect the rate of the wicking action. Anyone have thoughts on this????

OOOOOO !!!!! This is getting technical. I love it !!!!!

BTW I'm building 'tainers as fast as I can.

[earthbox13]

Ray and ContainerTed:
Thanks for the info on lime and fertilizer.


Ray, do you use Tomato-tone to make the “picture frame” around the perimeter?


ContainerTed, I did not use mulch for mine just a white plastic trash bag, however, I definitely saw a lot of moisture on the bags and the soil felt a pretty moist. As the plants grew and provided more shade the moisture disappeared and the soil on top was only damp. I am not sure if this was due to the shade provided by the plant or if the roots removed more and more water from the soil as they expanded throughout the soil, or maybe a combination of both.

For next year I am planning to get a temperature data logger to see how the soil temperature changes throughout the day and night cycle and compare black plastic to white plastic covers. A moisture meter is also in my future. I think one of the Aunt Gertie’s Gold had an issue with too much water.


I broke down one of the containers a few weeks ago and the roots were completely contained in the soil portion of the container, and there were a lot of roots. I could lift the soil out of the container just by grabbing the base of the plant. It looked a lot like Ray’s in his “Requiem for EarthTainer Serial #01 - Photos of a Root System You've Never Seen Before” post. There was a little bit of algae growth, just a light coating on the side facing the sun. Sorry no pictures, but I have 12 more to disassemble and will try to remember to take some pictures.


Hasshoes:
If I try to look tough in front of my wife she laughs. If I try to look tough in front of our cats they just ignore me. When I am trying to look tough in front of the tomato plants I can always think they are responding to me

[rnewste]

I do the "mulch thing" in two phases. First, in the Spring when you want the potting mix to warm up as quickly as possible, I leave the black mulch (trash bag) fully exposed to the Sun.

As things get warmer and I want to keep soil temps moderate, I cover over the black plastic with an inch layer of bark fines. This retards the Sun heating up the black plastic directly, and it looks pretty good from a WAF factor too.

Regarding the roots going everywhere, you saw the pictures in the above referenced post, and the way I am now trying to minimize this is to use landscape fabric as a bed liner.

I will be using Tomato-tone exclusively now, as results from my trials this year were quite compelling.

I will be releasing the plans to the new "EarthTainer II WaterMizer Edition" in a few weeks. It now uses a 5" diameter by 4" high wicking basket, to better control and parse out the moisture to the potting mix. Also included are instructions on how to easily retrofit existing EarthTainers to the new design in 15 minutes, or so.

Ray