Growing with Earthbox

Of course you can still play the game. I thought by the way you explained yourself that you were unsure of the way to use E-box. As for the mix they suggest Jungle Growth, Pro-Mix, Miracle Gro (not the one with the moisture granules) Sam's Choice and any top quality container or potting mix. Don't forget the dolomite lime about 1-cup mixed into the soil. Most mixes contain a large amount of spagnum peat which tends to make the soil acidic thus the dolomite lime which disolves slowly compared to other types of lime. In no way did I mean to offend you and if it seemed that way I do sincerely apologize for I am not that type of a person! Now I understand why some write "Heh- Heh or Ha Ha" after some of their comments and if I knew your address I'd send you 2 doz. long stemmed roses.(Heh - Heh)

LOL!

I am using Miracle-Gro potting soil in my Earthboxes, but I ran across this potting soil for self-watering containers on the Gardener's Supply Web site and thought I'd post the link, should anyone need it:

http://www.gardeners.com/sell.asp?ProdGroupID=17082&cmCategoryID=5

LSweetpea - I was wondering awhile back about using that type of product in one of my E-boxes. Miracle-gro makes a similiar product and it is available at Lowes and Home Depot. Before I purchased it, I called customer service at e-box and glad I did. He told me not to use it for e-box because it would provide too much moisture. He did say it was an excellent product for hanging baskets and other containers. I did use it in my hanging baskets which would rapidly go dry during the day and require two heavy waterings per day. It worked so well that I now only watered once per day and not at all on cloudy days. By the way, my melons are now looking real healthy and their growth is remarkable. One other fact I noticed with e-box is when first transplanted, growth is very slow. I thought they would'nt make it but two weeks later it was as if they recieved a shot of adrenaline for the growth was spectacular. I noticed this with all my plantings. I guess this is natural! I would like to grow corn but we have a lot of squirrels here and I remember a similiar situation when I lived in New York and was surrounded with squirrels in my tall oak trees. The little con artists would hit my corn cobs at the crack of dawn. I had to give up or sleep outside, so this is why I decided against corn.
My pepper plants are something else. I kept some of my peppers and planted them elsewhere as a control to see how e-box would compare. The e-box growth was at least twice that of the others and have peppers on the plants. Eight plants and eight different species of peppers. If I didn't see it I would'nt believe it. Boy this is FUN!!!

I agree. I have tried to grow vegetables in the past, but was such a poor hand at it that I gave up. Now, I am seeing phenomenal growth in a relatively short time, and I am so pleased!

I planted corn and snap beans (pole type) in those 3-foot by 3-foot raised beds (wanted to save the other Earthboxes for more tomatoes). Both have already sprouted and are showing healthy growth.

I love the squirrels around here, but they had better leave my produce alone! LOL. The birds are already attacking my almost-ripe peaches.

Thanks for asking how we're doing Tplant. Being in Northern New Jersey it's still borderline early for most plantings (it was 47 last night). I have Romaine Lettuce and Broccoli planted in 2 Earthboxes for about 4 weeks now and they're doing just fine. Planted 2 more with Cayenne Peppers yesterday. Within the next 2 weeks I'll have 3 with Tomatoes (Jolly Elf, Sweet Million & Italian Gold), 3 with Cucumbers (Diva, Sweet Success & Cool Breeze), one more with Hot Peppers (Arledge Heirloom), plus about 8 other varities of chilis in self watering pots. I'll check in more often and let you know how everything is doing. Be aware however that I do not use the fertilized stripe opting instead (as per Earthbox's instruction sheet) to mix in 3 cups of organic fertilizer with the potting mix. I use Espoma 100% Organic 5-3-3 and augment it with Bone Meal and Kelp Meal to raise the P & K. Based on the performance of the Romaine and Broccoli it works well for me.

Hey TP,

My Earth Box Tomatoes are approx. 10 inches taller then the same in pots. And the flowers are open. Peppers are also way ahead of the others. Quite impressive! As you can see in the picture, EB's have filled a void for many people. More as they grow.....

Good to hear from both of you! Ritchh, Northern New Jersey? That's the home of the famous "Jersey Beefsteak" and I can hardly wait to see the results.
Fishfly66 -- Isn't it amazing that you can use e-box most anywhere that their is sun .

The tomato bushes are getting huge, but I don't see any tomatoes yet.

They sure look healthy. I grew the brandywine last season and it seems forever before you see tomatoes and then it will be three or four at a time. They will not be plentiful but they will be delicious. You will have to stake them for they love to sprawl. I got a late start this trip because of the moving and more so, the flu which I am still recuperating. (two months)
I did plant watermelon which I have melons the size of a softball, stringbeans, honeydew and cucumbers and of course mini-orange tomatoes and strawberries. I have tomatoe seedlings which I will try to set-up today.

Thanks Tplant. It is difficult to see in the picture, but I used two cone-shaped tomato cages and stuck them around each tomato plant in the Earthbox after the winds from a thunderstorm toppled them.

Now that you mention it, I can just make out the wire cage at the very top. Wish I could show you all my plants but my scanner is not yet set up. We are still emptying boxes from our recent move. The weather has been very dry so far and this is unusual for this time of year. This is where I can appreciate the e-boxes and their water reserve. I must top them off daily and am really amazed at the amount of water the plants drink-up. I want to set-up two more e-boxes that are still in their original shipping packs but I'm still not up to par healthwise.

Finally feeling well enough to do some serious work with my e-boxes what with my arthritis, post polio syndrome and two very long months of the flu. I still have a few tomato heirloom seedlings and although the chances are slim that they will produce fruit because of the late start and the coming heat and humidity, I will give it the old college try! Think I'll plant some marigolds in my old pots. Boy it feels good to feel good. Hope the rest of you are enjoying as much as I am!

Just got out of the shower after fertilizing all my plants and setting up two e-boxes with four tomato plants. I was very surprised to see how healthy my seedlings were as I neglected them because of my bout with the flu. They were at least 18in. tall and full. I planted Marianna's Peace and Dr. Carolyn in one box and Ceylon and Glory in another. Glory is a new breed from Seminis Garden. They are breeders and distributors of some real good hybrids. Glory is a mix of Brandywine and another tomatoe. (don't remember the name) but I bought the seeds from Tomatoe Growers Supply. Supposed to be as good or better than Brandywine. Maybe Carolyn knows more about this one. Still have some real nice healthy varities left such as Sunmaster,BHN-144,Tropic,Homestead ,Reisentraub to name a few. Can't just throw them away after raising them from seed! I'll plant them in my 20in. clay pots.

Here's my Calabrese broccoli a bit more than 6 weeks after the transplant. Can I do succession planting in earthbox, do you think? If I start more seed now, I could harvest the main heads and plant new seedlings in a few weeks...

Side view -

Nice looking Broccoli Eileen. It gives me some encouragement to try Broccoli in my EathBox.

Eileen! What great-looking, healthy plants! You go girl!

Thank you, thank you.... They have totally blown away the plants I put in the ground in my main garden. Those plants are 1/4 the size and are nowhere near making buds. These guys are thriving in earthbox.

My pepper plants seem to have a serious problem. It looks like BER. The peppers are rotting on the plants. It starts just before they are ready to pick! The blossom end turns brown and rots. All my other plants are doing fine in their own e-boxe
Can anyone tell me what is happening to my peppers?

Sorry to hear of your problems Tplant but at least I now know I am not alone. I have tried 3 times to grow bell peppers (I assume that's what you are growing) and had the same problem every time. I never have the problem with chilis or frying peppers. I've tried adding extra lime, gypsum (adds calcium without raising pH), using the fertilizer stripe, using 100% organic mixed with the soil all to no avail. I've asked this same question on a number of garden threads and have never gotten a satisfactory answer. My solution has been to grow all my bells in the ground and use the EarthBoxes for the chilis. If anyone else has a suggestion please post.

Your broccoli looks great Eileen. I have 8 plants in an Earthbox and will be picking the last 4 main heads tomorrow. I planted the EarthBox with bought seedlings the first week of April. Since broccoli is very unhappy in warm weather, your best bet for a second crop would be to start the seeds in late July or early August for a Fall crop. Here in New Jersey I've pick broccoli from the garden as late as the first week in December. It will take quite heavy frosts.

http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/spfiles/SP277Y.pdf
This article suggests that excess fertilization might be to blame for the blossom end rot of the bell peppers...

edited to say,
Thanks richh for the broccoli seeding info. I definitely want a second crop.

This message was edited May 30, 2004 8:17 PM

This message was edited May 30, 2004 8:18 PM

OK Ritchh. Now I know I'm not alone. My problem was with the bell type only. I grew eight varities altogeather. No problem with the others. I will grow bells in my pots.

eileenlamb-Your link very helpful. Thank You. I've made it part of my library.

In one of my earthboxes I am growing peppers. Eight varities and one of them is called CASA BELLA a sweet pepper. I do not have any hot peppers for my grandson is 15mos. old and very inquisetive and I certainly would not want him to put one in his mouth. I have never grown the casa bella so I didn't know what they looked like. Enjoying the taste of peppers, raw or cooked or pickled, I picked one and took a big bite. YEEEEEOOOOWWWW!!!!!! My mouth became an inferno and I thought my throat was on fire. The more I moved my tongue, the more it burned. The garden hose was at my feet . I picked it up and started to flush my mouth. The pain became unbearable. The water made it worse. In my agony I stumbled inside the house, went to the refrigerator and drank (painfully at first) a glass of milk. After a quart of milk the pain slowly, ever so slowly, decreased.
Looking up the internet - the pepper I ate was CASCABELLA
NOT CASA BELLA. Obviously a simple error when my ordeer was being filled. All this happened Memorial Day and I guarantee, one that I shall never forget.

This message was edited Jun 1, 2004 11:30 PM

Chiliplants.com lists Cascabella as follows:
"hot; 1.5 to 1.75 inches long by 0.5 to 0.75 inches wide; Short Wax Type; matures from pale yellow to orange to red; ; Uses: Pickling, Prolific; C.annuum."
I know that it wasn't funny to you but I have to admit I'm chuckling. I normally grow 8 to 10 different varities of chilis and using the Chiliplants.com rating system I start at hot...and usually grow many rated very hot or extremely hot. I must admit my wife and two sons don't go near them but come mid July when they start to ripen to a beautiful shade of red I eat them with just about everything.

Yeah and I ate a red one because I figured red would be the sweetest! I am laughing today but sure wasn't yesterday.

Now that my mouth has completely healed from my HOT PEPPER EPISODE I am back to my old self and I do mean old.(Joke) or is it?
Any way my cukes are huge and sweet. The skin is tough and I must peel them for the salad, those that make it inside. My daughter-in-law is going to make a special cucumber salad handed down generations in her family.
My cantaloupes are getting huge and should be ready any day for the vine that connects them is getting thinner and drier. When the vine is dried out or breaks off - that means it's yummy time.
The watermelons are really spreading out and taking a lot of space. they have tiny melons about 1/2 the size of a baseball.
The mini-orange tomates are the size of a ping-pong ball or a little smaller and are sprawling like mad. They are just starting to get a light yellow color and should turn to an orange color unless our ozone layer changes the color like it did to my Dr Carolyn's. They were a gold color instead of white. Betwixt the melon and the tomatoes, they are really space hogs.
I was going to grow more tomatoes but it has been brutally hot with no rain. We really are drying up. The lakes are down about two or more feet. I have unknown tomatoe plants growing in my old pots where I left the soil in them so I'll let them grow and see "wha happens"
Strawberries are doing well although I won't have anymore until November but that will be the main batch.
Somehow an eggplant seed was mixed with my pepper plants in the e-box. They are the small "Little Finger" variety and are plentiful. I consider this a BONUS.
Come Sunday I will plant corn and more melons in my three remaining e-boxes. I planted marigold in my small pots and spaced them around the boxes. Looks nice. Hope to hear from the rest of you.
P.S. I know that I would not have done as well with out the benefit of the earthboxes? We have been very dry for this time of year.

This message was edited Jun 5, 2004 7:55 PM

Tplant,
Glad to hear the hot peppers didn't do permanent damage! Now I know they make a cream for arthritis with the heat of hot pepper, so did taking it *internally* make you feel more spry? :)

I wonder: have you ever grown cucumber and melon close together before? The one time both were in my garden beside each other, the melons tasted cucumber-y. Maybe it was just a bad choice of melon or could they somehow cross polinate and the seeds inside the melon give off an unpleasant flavor?

Sounds like you have quite a harvest coming up! My broccoli is ready so I plan to pull them and put in watermelon I have started. I have yellow squash, zucchini, celery, herbs, hot peppers from Chile (Ursula's), and cucumbers in my boxes. Of course I'm a few zones behind you!

Eileen

Don't know about the crossing of cukes and melons pertaining to flavor as my melons are not quite ready but they are close togeather and the cucumber and melon are related so it is possible. I will move the cucumber today and hope it's not to late. That's another I owe you. Sure you wouldn't settle for roses?

As best as I've been able to ascertain cucumbers will not cross polinate with any other members of it's family. Squash and most pumpkins will while melons also will not. I also picked the last of the broccoli yesterday Eileen along with the last 3 romaine lettuce plants. Going to have a big dish of cappelini with oil & garlic & broccoli tonight. I had hoped to re-use the soil in the two EarthBoxes but the broccoli box was so full of roots it came out in large chunks so I wound up dumping it and starting off with new soil. In honor of Tplant (lol), I'm going to plant these two with some more chilis (Arledge Heirloom, Jamaican Red & Jamaican Gold.) The weather in NJ the past few weeks has been just awful (58 right now and cloudy with showers). While everything is growing fine it is definitely behind last year. This week the forecast finally is for warm weather so I hope things catch up. I have my EarthBoxes planted with cherry, grape & plum tomatoes, cayenne, hot portugal, Thai dragon and the above mentioned hot peppers, yellow squash, Nufar basil and 3 varieties of cucumbers.

Rich

Rich, Yes I looked around also for information about cucumbers & melons and you are right: apparently they can't cross pollinate. So, Tplant, don't hurt yourself moving those EB's around...apparently I just got a crop of bad melon that time.

I bought a bale of ProMix recently so when I yank the broccoli stumps I can reload the EB for the watermelon. Now do you folks just let those melon vines wander around on your patio/deck? Or do they climb a trellis?

I set an area aside for my melons. A 10x10 area. However Parks has a Bush melon which can be grown on a sunny patio.

My cucumbers all climb wire trellises made from 2"x4" mesh green vinyl coated fencing along with 6 ft. metal fence posts. All very inexpensive at Home Depot. I've used the same fencing to make cages that slip over an EarthBox for all my tomatoes and some at half height for the larger growing pepper plants such as cayenne and anything else prone to sprawl. I can see the New York skyline from my livingroom windows (I'm 7 miles due west of downtown Manhattan) and us city folks definitely have no spare room for sprawl.

Rich

Ritch -- One of the guys had the same problem - no space so he came up with an ingenius idea. Grow up! He used his wifes
(or his) pantyhose and cut them up to fit the melons inside and supported all on a sturdy trellis. As the melons grew the pantyhose expanded and VOILA - home grown melons. He also grew Sugar Baby watermelons. His wife had to hide her pantyhose!!!

Hmm, I think last year I wondered about making a support that would sit on the ground (not poke out of the EB) and surround EB. Rich, can you post a photo?

I'll try to bring a camera home from work and take one this weekend.

Rich

Hi Everyone -- Just ate two of my three cantaloupes that I picked from one of my e-boxes and they were deliciously juicy and sweet. This is the first time for growing cantaloupe and I am well pleased. I am replanting honeydew because they didn't take. I guess it was the jostling or I planted the seed to deep. The weather today has been cloudy with periods of light showers and that was the times I tried to get out in the garden. Shouldn't complain! We need the rain but it seems to stop everytime I go inside. Soon as I go back out it starts to spritzle again.

According to Fl. Dept. of Agric. they do not advise home gardeners to grow honeydew because they require professional care to be grown in Fl. so I guess I'll have to find something else to grow. Glad we have a long growing season.
Anyone have any suggestions as to what to grow in my new e-box? Take into consideration our hot and humid climate. I am now growing watermelons, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes,
peppers, eggplant and strawberries.

They look scraggly, but I don't care because tomatoes and bell peppers are popping out all over these plants (when I last looked, which was yesterday, June 18).

Are Brandywines supposed to be rather flattened and irregularly-shaped (not smooth and round like store-bought tomatoes)?

Jean