Container/EarthBox veggy growing results

Most of them did very vey well.

Regular containers: celebrity, better boy, early girl and ace tomatoes, fairy tale eggplant(miniature)
EBs: cucumbers, zucchini, anaheim peppers, thai peppers, shishito peppers, sweet million cherry tomatoes, sun sugar cherry tomatoes, unknown russian regular size tomatoes, snap peas and breen beans.

I planted 3 sweet million cherries in one EB and they did sooo well. I am still harvesting a good amount of tomatoes from these plants.

I guesss EB recommends 8 pepper plants per EB but I ended up planting 10 anaheim pepper plants, 2 shishito (they are very small plants) and one thai (this is small too) and they had no trouble (I had to water it twice a day all the way through summer though). Those anaheim peppers are like trees (ha! not really but the main stems are so very thick now and the plants are probably close to 3 feet tall.) and they keep on produing and it hasn't stopped.

I planted 2 zucchini plants in one EB (instead of 3 following a suggestion by Rich) and that was wise since they got too big.

I have Armenian, Diva and English cuke planted in EB also but they were all duds. I have probably gotten only 3 dozen cukes out of them all (4 plants total). I don't know what went wrong here.

I planted way too many green beans in one EB too but they did very good too although the leaf pigment was getting lighter and lighter in color so I assume it used up all the fertilizer in the EB before the end of the season.

For the regular container growing, Celebrity and Fairy tale eggplants did really great. I've got tons of fruit from both of them and I am still getting a few from each. Better Boy was a dud (good flavor but not enough fruit). I don't like Ace at all. I planted Ace and Early Girl very late but Early Girl has probably given me about 30 tomatoes so far and there are a few more left to go.

tmm

Nice writeup Tmm! This will be nice to have around for next year, especially if all the EB gardeners can post up results. Maybe we can all end up with less plants that flop. :)

I was looking over my posts last year - seems I got everything into the EB's mid-may after losing many to a late frost. Where not noted 'Direct Seed', I bought seedlings from local growers, or the Seeds of Change and Tasteful Garden website. All my EB's were done with organic fertilizer/amendments incorporated throughout soil (the exact mix is on another of our threads somewhere). My final EB crop was:

Box 1:
2 Zucchini, Black Beauty
2 squash, Early Prolific Straightneck
Direct seeded. Over crowded, squash need lots of support due to fast eb growth, mild to heavy rains wrecked the unsupported stems. Drinks the fastest early on, later beat by tomatoes. Will seperate next year, and try some in the ground.

Boxes 2,3,4:
2 Tomato, Viva Italia (plum)
2 Tomato, Yellow Candle (plum)
2 Tomato, San Marzano (plum - direct seeded)
All phenomenal, needing great support. Viva Italia & Yellows grew to be 6 feet plus, using round wire cages. San Marzanos bushed out, supported buy a rectangular cage around the whole EB. Started these guys deep (when transplanted) for extra support. BER was a problem on first round of all but Yellow, will use Messenger next season.

Boxes 5, 6, 7:
2 Corno di Toro pepper, 2 New Mexico (Joe E. Parker - direct seeded), 2 Serrano
2 Pablano, 3 Jalapeno, 1 Orange Habanero (Craig's Double Hot 10k - direct seeded)
6 Anaheim pepper
Virginia weather and these peppers go hand in hand. Unstoppable. If I eat one more pepper I will lose it. I'll cage & support them heavily next year, the rains can be tough when they're laden with fruit.

Boxes 8, 9 & 10:
6 Big leaf basil
6 Lemon Basil
1 Lime Basil & 5 (then 4, then 3) Purple Basil
Big leaf is great and easy to pick. Lemon basil was too quick to bolt, needed constant attention. Next year will replace Lemon with Mrs Burns Lemon Basil, an extremely fragrant and robust hierloom. Purple drove me insane; slow to grow, would occasionally wilt (to the point of total collapse) overnight, with none or some of the plant returning to life. Never stayed purple, faded & wilted no matter what light or fertilizer conditions. Purple may not be suited for my climate or green thumb.

My goodness - no posts from Tplant or Ritchh or the rest of the Earthbox GrandMasters? This can only mean one of two things:

1. They are planning gardens so massive that it requires all thier "strategery".

2. They had a much better New Years Eve party than I did. :)

If you guys had particular success or failures with your EB's, please let us know. I'll take experience over my guessing any day. :)

Chris

We're doin great! You can see some of my results at the tomato forum. I took some pics and posted there. Meanwhile I have loads of green tomatos and soon they will be ripe.I'll take more pics today. Flip is at least two weeks ahead of me. I gave him an earthbox and I am anxious to know how it is doing?

This is a picture of a Stupice tomato. It is loaded with tomatos. The sun was very bright and it was difficult to get some pictures but bear with me? The EBs really do their thing.

This is a Red Brandywine reaching for the sky. No tomatos yet but there will be. They always take the longest to bear tomatos. It's "All In The Family." LOL

A nice mix of peppers, six types to be exact. 4-Hot and 2-Sweet. They seem to love the earthboxes also. You can grow most anything in them.

Here we have Kelloggs Breakfast. I think that is the name. They are getting huge and the plant has a generous amount.

No matter what one does it seems like you just can't avoid BER. That's the black bottom on the tomato.

One great big advantage of growing in EBs is the fact that your plant does not touch the ground and does not have splash-back a primary cause of disease. You can see that my plants are very healthy with just a regular maintainence program. Also no weeding or over fertilizing and overwatering. Just lots of fun rewards.

Another plant but unknown because I lost the label at transplant. I guess I'll just call it "Whatever."

This is a Plumeria cutting called "Miami Rose" that was sent to me by a very generous DG'er. I designated it's own EB acompanied by two Marigolds to honor her. Well that's it for now. So now you know we're still doing our thing down here but really waiting for them to ripen so we can really show off!

Wow Tplant, thanks for the images - you're going to have a bumper crop shortly!

I've also had problems with BER on my plum tomatoes, although only on the first round of fruit. I don't care though, I'm still going to try some big hierlooms this year, maybe a brandywine or two - wish me luck. :)

Chris

Chris --- It seems that the plum tomatos are especially susceptable to BER. So much so that I stopped growing them. Until I find the type that can stand up to BER, I'll raise others. Last season I grew Enchantment a sweet juicy plum that I really enjoy but 75% were infected and 15% were eaten by the birds, so I decided to lay-off for awhile.