A few pic's of my grow bag garden

Jetstar · June 1, 2018

A few days ago I got the last plants planted in my grow bag garden here are a few pics. My garden has 5 tomato plants 2 Black Seaman, 1 Jet Star, 1 Big Boy & a Sweet 100 in addition I have 5 pepper plants 2 Cubanelle, 2 Shish!to, 1 North Star bell pepper. 2 bags have Blue Lake pole beans 1 bag of Contender bush beans plus 1 bag with 2 straight 8 cukes. A bag of leaf lettuce, 1 bag with 2 types of radish and a bag with Detroit red beets and 2 bags with Snowbird peas and for the wife 1 bag with Scarlet Runner beans. This is the 1st year I started from seed all the tomatoes, peppers & cukes under grow lights all the rest were direct sown in the grow bags.

Worth1 · June 1, 2018

Looks nice.

Worth

Jetstar · June 1, 2018

Thanks this is my 5th yr doing a grow bag garden on my back porch, and the first year starting my plants indoors under grow lights.

jhp · June 5, 2018

Hi Jetstar,
Your garden looks fantastic! Are those fabric grocery bags? I haven't tried growing in grow bags. I plant in raised beds mostly, some earth boxes, and some pots. I gave my niece a plant to grow on her fire escape and she was looking at grow bags and wanted my opinion. Since I haven't used them, I came to tville. Any tips, pros, or cons?

Thanks,
Jen

Jetstar · June 5, 2018

Thanks for the kind words jhp I use grow bags because I have such limited space. when I was a kid we had a huge 2 acre garden and large fruit cellar that was filled every fall with canned veggies along with potatoes, cabbage,winter squash and such. The only advice I offer to those who want to try doing a grow bag garden is that you have to supply the needed fertilizers each plant variety needs on a regular basis beans are about the only veggie I can think of that just doesn't need much for supplements as long as the ph of the potting mix is good there fine. But tomatoes & peppers need the right fertilizers about every 2 weeks after the first month even potting mix that claims it will provide fertilizer for 3 months is pretty much done after 2 or 3 weeks when your growing tomatoes & peppers.

jhp · June 5, 2018

Thanks Jetstar.

IronPete · July 16, 2018

Hi Jet;
Beautiful garden! I have limited space too and have been using a variety of containers but no bags yet. I have a few questions. How big are those bags? How much soil went into each? I notice each is in a tray and that the trays are both full of water and also have some green stuff in them. Do you keep them (the trays) filled with water? Is the green stuff fertilizer or something that is taking advantage of the water to grow there incidentally? The plants look great so what you are doing certainly works! Thanks, Pete

Jetstar · July 17, 2018

IronPete all my bags are either 7gal. or 4gal. bags the large bags are used for my tomatoes (There all indeterminate) most all other plants are using the smaller bags. No soil went into the grow bags I use potting mix for every bag its a far superior medium for grow bags. The reason I use planter trays? Well I wanted to keep things well contained on my patio and still be able to isolate a plant if necessary, when I 1st started my grow bag garden6yrs ago I used kiddie pools and I didn't like my backyard filled with toddler pools of various sized and colored pools. Plus the damage my lawn sustained as the pools left areas of dead grass where the pools had been, was just not what I wanted year after year making my backyard look like a pig sty. As the plants have matured I water them twice a day, the green stuff is algae and it does no damage it happens every year. Hope this helps.

IronPete · July 19, 2018

Hey Jet, I don't know if you have Dollarama down there in Wisconsin but I was able to get 'raised beds' made of a felt material that are 3' in diameter and 8-9" tall for $3.50 CAN. They folded out and when full looked pretty attractive too. Not sure what you could use for the planter trays but they are working well for me. Your garden sure looks great so no need for them but I am just mentioning them for both interest and for other people who may be reading this. I would post pics but it seems to want you to have them online and to link to a URL. I am not on facebook or anything so I don't really have a way to do that.

Pete

Salsacharley · July 19, 2018

Jetstar, do you water from the top or bottom of your grow bags?

TexasTomat0 · July 19, 2018

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronPete

Hey Jet, I don't know if you have Dollarama down there in Wisconsin but I was able to get 'raised beds' made of a felt material that are 3' in diameter and 8-9" tall for $3.50 CAN. They folded out and when full looked pretty attractive too. Not sure what you could use for the planter trays but they are working well for me. Your garden sure looks great so no need for them but I am just mentioning them for both interest and for other people who may be reading this. I would post pics but it seems to want you to have them online and to link to a URL. I am not on facebook or anything so I don't really have a way to do that.

Pete

Pete - there is an app called Tapatalk that you can download and login to your Tville account. I use it on my phone and it makes uploading pictures a breeze.

Jetstar · July 19, 2018

Salsacharley, I water from the bottom, IronPete could you provide a link for the
Dollarama 'raised beds' made of a felt material that are 3' in diameter and 8-9" tall for $3.50 CAN. I'd like to see them?

JRinPA · July 20, 2018

Ironpete, let's see these things!

On windows7/firefox that I use there are two buttons underneath the typing field: Post Quick Reply on left, Go Advanced on right. Click Go Advanced, then you get a preview and below that a button for Manage Attachments, which brings up a 2nd mini window to upload with. That's how you upload directly to tomatoville.com. Might need to resize down in quality first, but I just try to shoot in 3MP so it only about 800K to start and I don't resize first.

I was stumped by this latest forum software for a long time. I think a popup blocker may have been killing that attachment window for a while.

July 16, 2018	#7
IronPete Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Charlottetown, PEI, Canada Posts: 302	Hi Jet; Beautiful garden! I have limited space too and have been using a variety of containers but no bags yet. I have a few questions. How big are those bags? How much soil went into each? I notice each is in a tray and that the trays are both full of water and also have some green stuff in them. Do you keep them (the trays) filled with water? Is the green stuff fertilizer or something that is taking advantage of the water to grow there incidentally? The plants look great so what you are doing certainly works! Thanks, Pete __________________ Thanks; Iron Pete "We can agree to disagree."

July 19, 2018	#9
IronPete Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Charlottetown, PEI, Canada Posts: 302	Hey Jet, I don't know if you have Dollarama down there in Wisconsin but I was able to get 'raised beds' made of a felt material that are 3' in diameter and 8-9" tall for $3.50 CAN. They folded out and when full looked pretty attractive too. Not sure what you could use for the planter trays but they are working well for me. Your garden sure looks great so no need for them but I am just mentioning them for both interest and for other people who may be reading this. I would post pics but it seems to want you to have them online and to link to a URL. I am not on facebook or anything so I don't really have a way to do that. Pete __________________ Thanks; Iron Pete "We can agree to disagree."

June 1, 2018	#2
Worth1 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Den of Drunken Fools Posts: 38,539	Looks nice. Worth

June 1, 2018	#3
Jetstar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: N.E. Wisconsin Posts: 308	Thanks this is my 5th yr doing a grow bag garden on my back porch, and the first year starting my plants indoors under grow lights.

June 5, 2018	#4
jhp Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2006 Location: Danbury, CT Posts: 492	Hi Jetstar, Your garden looks fantastic! Are those fabric grocery bags? I haven't tried growing in grow bags. I plant in raised beds mostly, some earth boxes, and some pots. I gave my niece a plant to grow on her fire escape and she was looking at grow bags and wanted my opinion. Since I haven't used them, I came to tville. Any tips, pros, or cons? Thanks, Jen

July 17, 2018	#8
Jetstar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: N.E. Wisconsin Posts: 308	IronPete all my bags are either 7gal. or 4gal. bags the large bags are used for my tomatoes (There all indeterminate) most all other plants are using the smaller bags. No soil went into the grow bags I use potting mix for every bag its a far superior medium for grow bags. The reason I use planter trays? Well I wanted to keep things well contained on my patio and still be able to isolate a plant if necessary, when I 1st started my grow bag garden6yrs ago I used kiddie pools and I didn't like my backyard filled with toddler pools of various sized and colored pools. Plus the damage my lawn sustained as the pools left areas of dead grass where the pools had been, was just not what I wanted year after year making my backyard look like a pig sty. As the plants have matured I water them twice a day, the green stuff is algae and it does no damage it happens every year. Hope this helps.

July 19, 2018	#10
Salsacharley Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: New Mexico Posts: 2,052	Jetstar, do you water from the top or bottom of your grow bags?

July 20, 2018	#13
JRinPA Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: SE PA Posts: 972	Ironpete, let's see these things! On windows7/firefox that I use there are two buttons underneath the typing field: Post Quick Reply on left, Go Advanced on right. Click Go Advanced, then you get a preview and below that a button for Manage Attachments, which brings up a 2nd mini window to upload with. That's how you upload directly to tomatoville.com. Might need to resize down in quality first, but I just try to shoot in 3MP so it only about 800K to start and I don't resize first. I was stumped by this latest forum software for a long time. I think a popup blocker may have been killing that attachment window for a while.