1000 Plant Heirloom Container Grow

[MileHighGuy]

Planting 33 Varieties of Heirloom Tomatoes this season.

Seeds are being ordered this week.

Here are my preliminary plans, any input would be awesome.

I'm buying 3 Cases of 400 5 Gallon Grow Bags for about $300.00 Total.

I was trying to calculate the cost of building Raised bed gardens and I couldn't justify the expense even If I built them all from pallets.

My soil is rocky, covered in weeds and slightly clay like. I may still consider amending and tilling the soil but I really feel like containers are the way to go for this first round.

My calculations.

5 Gallon Containers x 1000 = 5000 Gallons of soil

202 gallons per yard of soil so I need about 25 yards.

My local soil place will custom mix me a landscaping or planting mix to my liking for $25-$35 per yard depending on the final mix choice.

Thats about $750 plus $75 Delivery.

Let's figure $1,000 Dollars for the soil.

About $300 For the Containers

$300 For the seed varieties.

So Far, I'm liking the 5 Gallon Container Idea as it should also help conserve water.

If I can get my mix hot enough I will only be feeding with Aerated Earth Worm Compost Tea + some other simple organic nutrients. And I already have these supplies.

I have a Large workshop and lot's of indoor lights that I am going to start at least 250 of the plants indoors really early, hopefully seeds will be popping in about 2 weeks.

I'm going to build a deer fence in a huge square on my property and fill the inside with 33 rows of plants. I'll be covering the ground with Hay as a mulch to keep weeds out and also give the tomatoes something to rest on.

I have lot's of wind so I will let the plants just sprawl on the ground.

I'm in Colorado and the season is short, so getting everything started now is huge for me.

Does anyone think I'm crazy to use 5 Gallon Containers x 1000?

Any advice on my soil mix?

I've got LOT's more reading to do.

Thanks for reading!

[Zana]

I think you might want to go with slightly bigger for some of the larger, indeterminate varieties. Otherwise, soil might get depleted and dry out too quickly, as well as not be heavy enough to hold them in a wind. Letting them sprawl on the ground might work, but some staking might be better, especially if you're dealing with critters snacking - and that includes deer.

I have been known to have up to 160 pots/containers going at one time. Although I have grown tomatoes in 5 gallon pots, I try to reserve those ones for the determinate or the ones that are shorter ones/suitable for containers. I prefer the 7 to 10 gallon size, but also have some 20 to 50 gallon size that I'll put multiple plants in. The larger ones will end up holding the moisture longer....so unless you want to set up a self-watering system or an irrigation system, you're going to be out there hand watering or using a hose...allot....with those 5 gallon pots.

Just MHO. Hope that helps. But sounds like you've thought through the costs. Are you planning on marketing the produce? That seems like allot of plants/pots.

Zana

Zana

[augiedog55]

You might want to go to the container thread and look at the grow bag again thread. It 5 pages. Caroyln Phillips is growing alot of tomatoes in 5 gall. grow bags. You might get some ideas from that thread on where to start and what to do.

[recruiterg]

I'd also make sure you would be receiving a soil-less potting mix, not a mix intended to go in the ground.

I have tried sprawling. My advice would be to do the Florida Weave and perhaps reduce the number of plants to compensate for the cost of the staking system. You lose a ton of productivity letting them sprawl (my opinion only). Sprawling also takes up a much larger space...you can pack many more plants in if you stake.

[Zana]

Originally Posted by recruiterg

I'd also make sure you would be receiving a soil-less potting mix, not a mix intended to go in the ground.

I have tried sprawling. My advice would be to do the Florida Weave and perhaps reduce the number of plants to compensate for the cost of the staking system. You lose a ton of productivity letting them sprawl (my opinion only). Sprawling also takes up a much larger space...you can pack many more plants in if you stake.

Lots of good tips here. I agree with the space and productivity reduction with sprawling.

[MileHighGuy]

Thanks Everyone! I'll be looking at larger containers for some of the plants.... but not 100% sure yet. I don't mind watering twice daily.

I really don't like soilless mixes and don't want to add nutrients all the time but with 5 gallons I'm sure it would be fairly often anyhow.

Okay... now I'm thinking again. I love the input. I'll update my thoughts later today.

[Zana]

Check with landscape companies in new subdivisions or even new condo complexes....I scored about 50 20gal heavy black plastic pots when they planted all the new trees in our complex (brand new complex).....for FREE! They were just going to toss them in the recycle bin....go figure. Also check with places like ToysRUs that sell those round bins with rope handles for kids toys. I drilled holes in the ones I picked up for under $10 a piece....in fact found them at a local Home Hardware for $7 a piece and they're more like about 40gal and heavier plastic, so can leave them out all year round....and with the handles if you have to lift them when filled its easier...or at least drag them. LOL

Zana

[NisiNJ]

I have always seen it recommended that soilless mix, or at least sterile mix, be used in containers. I believe there is a chance of disease if you put garden soil in containers.
Also it is too heavy and cakes up? As for adding nutrients, you can add slow release fertilizer granules into the mix when you plant, or include the fertilizers in your water.

What types of containers are you planning on using? What are they made of?

[fortyonenorth]

+2 on the container mix. If you get the mix "right" you're going to solve most of your problems before they arise. Unless you're growing in a greenhouse, or in a climate with virtually no precipitation (in other words, growing in a situation where you are completely in control of the amount of irrigation) you're going to need a well-aerated substrate. Mixes comprised of significant portions of compost, topsoil and other amendments typical of in-ground production are going to be way too heavy for containers. That said, since you're using organic fertility, you'll want to add a small amount of humus or compost - I'd keep it at around 10% or less. In the past, I've used a 5-1-1 mix of pine bark fines, peat, and perlite. This year, I'm using a 8-1-1-1 mix of pine bark fines, peat/humus, Turface (a calcined clay product) and perlite. The exact recipe isn't of primary importance - it can be tweaked to suit your local conditions and availability of material.

[MileHighGuy]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

+2 on the container mix. If you get the mix "right" you're going to solve most of your problems before they arise. Unless you're growing in a greenhouse, or in a climate with virtually no precipitation (in other words, growing in a situation where you are completely in control of the amount of irrigation) you're going to need a well-aerated substrate. Mixes comprised of significant portions of compost, topsoil and other amendments typical of in-ground production are going to be way too heavy for containers. That said, since you're using organic fertility, you'll want to add a small amount of humus or compost - I'd keep it at around 10% or less. In the past, I've used a 5-1-1 mix of pine bark fines, peat, and perlite. This year, I'm using a 8-1-1-1 mix of pine bark fines, peat/humus, Turface (a calcined clay product) and perlite. The exact recipe isn't of primary importance - it can be tweaked to suit your local conditions and availability of material.

Thanks for the advice. I'll be Mixing the "Soil" with about 30-40% topsoil and then I will use lot's of bark and other organic amendments. So it will be mostly soilless. But all this talk has got me thinking....

Still no decisions... and I'm at work.

So tonight I'll post on here my Full Thoughts and share more insight as to how I will be selling the tomatoes and also feeding the tomatoes.

[Zana]

I do a mix depending upon how large a container, but mostly soilless mix, compost and lots of vermiculite.

[marketgal]

If you are going to use a top soil you are going to have to hand amend it. I too got compost mixed top soil from a company for my raised garden bed. They do not add enough compost for a container type situation. Top soil that will work in an open field will not work in a container. The roots are not able to hold the water very well and there can be problems with oxygen when you use plastic bags. You will have to lighten up the mix a lot to overcome these issues. Are you raising these to sell at market? If you are you will have a hard time watering that many plants twice a day and working a farmers market. Good luck.

[janezee]

The cost of deer fencing is not insignificant. 8' is necessary if you don't use electricity. Or 2 fences 2-4' apart.
They sure do love to jump!

[Petronius_II]

Not to be throwing too big a wet blanket on your plans, which are noble in intention to be sure...

I do hope you're factoring in labor somewhere in there, right at the very beginning.

Example: 1000 plants/60 = Any process that takes exactly 1 minute per plant, including moving on to the next plant = ~16 1/2 hours to perform the process on all of them. Leading to the next questions, how many times a week are you going to have to perform processes X, Y, and Z?

In the best case scenario, oodles and oodles of ripe tomatoes, at the very least you're going to have to hire somebody to help you with picking them. I'm sure many here can back me up on this: the most labor-intensive part of a successful smallish-scale gardening operation is harvesting.

The watering part of a grow-bag operation needs to be strategized well. Our smallish meetinghouse garden has used a moderately expensive (i.e. capital-intensive) drip irrigation system, which failed to keep up with last summer's heat wave, but which works surprisingly well in cooler weather. All along, I've favored a more traditional "raised-sunken" bed system, sometimes referred to as a "waffle bed," with shallow-trench irrigation. For each bed, you put the hose end in the highest part of the trench, fill up the trench and then turn down the water pressure until the amount soaking into the soil = the amount coming out of the house, and that's what I call "deep watering." Works amazingly well in warm dry climates for tomatoes: as the top layers of the soil dry (hopefully mulched plenty well enough they don't dry out all that quickly,) you're basically telling the plant roots, "there's still water down deeper, come and get it." So the roots do exactly that.

Each bed only needs deep watering once or twice a week, for maybe about 1-3 hours per watering, even in the driest of times, once the roots have reached a certain depth. Building the trenches and little mini-dykes that enclose the bed takes X amount of time, maybe twice as much as setting up a drip system. Keeping the trenches free of silt and debris blockage takes very little time. Weeding takes very little time if you pull up most of your weeds by hand as soon as you can in the spring. And maybe do some companion planting with a few fairly shallow-rooted buddies that the tomatoes will get along with; basil, for instance.

The point being, once your dykes and trenches are in place, watering consists of: moving the hose from bed to bed; turning it on' turning it down; turning it off. Easy as pie.

Jack Nicholson's garden in "The Missouri Breaks" was quite an inspiration to me-- but really, it's just one version of the way people have always grown things in the American West. Very similar to what I've described here.

Grow bags? Well, if they don't dry out too quickly in your climate, that just might work well for you. You would do well to ask around in Montrose, including calling up your USDA extension office, and see what others in your vicinity have experienced with grow bags.

[MileHighGuy]

Originally Posted by Petronius_II

Not to be throwing too big a wet blanket on your plans, which are noble in intention to be sure...

I do hope you're factoring in labor somewhere in there, right at the very beginning.

Example: 1000 plants/60 = Any process that takes exactly 1 minute per plant, including moving on to the next plant = ~16 1/2 hours to perform the process on all of them. Leading to the next questions, how many times a week are you going to have to perform processes X, Y, and Z?

In the best case scenario, oodles and oodles of ripe tomatoes, at the very least you're going to have to hire somebody to help you with picking them. I'm sure many here can back me up on this: the most labor-intensive part of a successful smallish-scale gardening operation is harvesting.

The watering part of a grow-bag operation needs to be strategized well. Our smallish meetinghouse garden has used a moderately expensive (i.e. capital-intensive) drip irrigation system, which failed to keep up with last summer's heat wave, but which works surprisingly well in cooler weather. All along, I've favored a more traditional "raised-sunken" bed system, sometimes referred to as a "waffle bed," with shallow-trench irrigation. For each bed, you put the hose end in the highest part of the trench, fill up the trench and then turn down the water pressure until the amount soaking into the soil = the amount coming out of the house, and that's what I call "deep watering." Works amazingly well in warm dry climates for tomatoes: as the top layers of the soil dry (hopefully mulched plenty well enough they don't dry out all that quickly,) you're basically telling the plant roots, "there's still water down deeper, come and get it." So the roots do exactly that.

Each bed only needs deep watering once or twice a week, for maybe about 1-3 hours per watering, even in the driest of times, once the roots have reached a certain depth. Building the trenches and little mini-dykes that enclose the bed takes X amount of time, maybe twice as much as setting up a drip system. Keeping the trenches free of silt and debris blockage takes very little time. Weeding takes very little time if you pull up most of your weeds by hand as soon as you can in the spring. And maybe do some companion planting with a few fairly shallow-rooted buddies that the tomatoes will get along with; basil, for instance.

The point being, once your dykes and trenches are in place, watering consists of: moving the hose from bed to bed; turning it on' turning it down; turning it off. Easy as pie.

Jack Nicholson's garden in "The Missouri Breaks" was quite an inspiration to me-- but really, it's just one version of the way people have always grown things in the American West. Very similar to what I've described here.

Grow bags? Well, if they don't dry out too quickly in your climate, that just might work well for you. You would do well to ask around in Montrose, including calling up your USDA extension office, and see what others in your vicinity have experienced with grow bags.

Come on man, give me some credit.

1000 plants are PLENTY, and I'll have lot's of work.

I'm prepared to hire help and do what I need to get the job done.

I will also be starting 250 plants early and the other later to stagger some of the work and lower the cost of starting all of them before the last frost indoors.

Watering, and harvesting are going to be planned out like a military strategy. I can't wait to start!