My homemade grow pots and my "Driveway Garden"

My garden is adjacent to my concrete driveway and placed on sand and concrete pavers I installed in 2009 at the end of a perennial bed.

I made my own 20" grow pots from the underlay they put under pond liners to keep them from rocks, roots etc..I sewed a cylinder, serged the top for color and mitered the bottom to make the pot stand up with a squarish bottom. They are shaped like the reusable shopping bags but are much larger. I put some of them on 20" drip pots that are 1 inch tall. I wanted to put all of them on the drip pots but by the time I thought of it the bags were full and too heavy. They hold the moisture at just the right amount and air prune the roots.

I also put the peppers in 14" pots and put them pallet boxes with the floor left on-- this keeps them a proper moisture from water left in the bottom. One box holds 15 pepper pots.

In the other boxes I i built in 2009 I have spaghetti squash, cucumbers, yellow crookneck and zucchini and herbs. For tomatoes the bags have the advantage of being deeper than the 12" boxes I built. Last year I grew Pole beans in some of the bags and plan to do that next year gain. I ran out of time and bags.

At the end of the year I plan to toss the soil in one of my compost piles to renew the soil with all those wonderful leaves and grass clippings and kitchen scraps. I have done this every year with my Potato grow bags. I am on a every other year renewal cycle and this make a very good grow medium.I also can store the bags flat in my shed. This way they don't have to go thru the ravages of winter and are out of the way of the snow plowman. I have had my potato bags for 5 years and they are holding up well. It took me a weekend to set up. fill and plant the bags. So it is doable every year and much less hard on my back and knees than planting in the ground. I filled the bags at the compost in the back yard on my garden cart standing up straight.

All this is in a 13ft x 10 ft area by my driveway in the front of my house. This is where the 100 year old maples don't shade it. I have wonderful shade trees in my back yard so it is only good for greens, beans, potatoes and the odd tomato.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2014 11:14 PM

Great idea. What are you using for thread?

It;s just amazing what gardeners will do in order to garden! How ingenious! I'm sure you can grow a lot of stuff in just this area. You were certainly creative in planning this area.

Before I got the empty lot next door to mine, mu only sunny area was the front of the house. I lines my front porch with 7 earth boxes & grew everything there.
Jo-Ann

I use Bonded #33 Nylon Thread - Black from Amazon. #33 is strong but of Machine weight and works better in my bobbin than heavy duty. I Have a Viking Lily that had a triple straight stitch that reinforces itself. In the Surger I use just plain surger thread because this is just for looks ( I like red). In the seams the surging will provide some reinforcement. I looked at my commercial grow bags and they are just surged and not reinforced; so I figure my bags are way stronger.

Very nice job you did there!

One suggestion to keep your bags from tilting: I made a platform out of reclaimed cedar fence pickets. Basically, I lined up some 6' pickets side by side on top of some 2x4s, and screwed them into some 2x4s pieces on each end. I spaced a couple more 2x4 pieces evenly in the middle section so the platform wouldn't sag. Then, I flipped it over and used some shims to level it off where I placed it (even water distribution).

The black bags look really nice sitting on the cedar platform, and they don't fall over.

The lumber was entirely free, from the scrap pile at my local lumber yard...

Nice garden. For many years I had a wonderfully productive city yarden that was about fifteen feet deep from the street curb back. Vegetables and flowers spilled into the street. I experimented with new plants and methods each year. I've a bigger garden now but what I learned from a small space still applies. After all, do you ever have enough garden space?

Well said, Laurel!