How are all you EarthBox users doing this summer. I know you're out there...would love to see some pics. Here's 2 Bush Goliath tomato plants in an EB. Loaded but not yet turning red.
EarthBox Pics
This one's got 8 Nufar Hybrid basil plants ready for another cutting.
Rich
This one is 6 Cayenne Long Red Slim.
Rich
This one has 6 Purple Beauty bell pepper plants.
Rich
And finally this is a shot of 4 Grape tomato plants in 2 EB's. You can't see the EB's but they are under all that foliage.
Rich
Wow, I don't have earth boxes but sure am thinking about looking into them. Your plants are beautiful! I have a cherry tomato growing in just a regular large pot on the patio and have had to water it 3 times a day lately. I do have lots of tomatoes but my foliage is nothing compared to yours. Beauties! Thanks for sharing.
Gay Lynn
As always Ritch, everything looks gorgeous!
Nice going Rich! Your EB's are really doing well. Your peppers look great :).
Dave
Wow! Everything does look great, ritchh. Your plants are doing a lot better than mine. My pepper plants seem to be losing the blossoms and now starting to lose leaves. I also have a grape tomato and bush tomato in another EB. They're do really good if I can just keep the darn hornworms off of them. We picked the first three grapes tonight. They sure were delicious. Can't wait for more to ripen. I've got green beans in the third box. I've powdered them but it doesn't seem to deter the insects. I guess it's like a powdered doughnut to them. I've got three of the containers from Gardener's Supply that I don't have anything in yet. I guess it's a little laziness. I think that I'll grow more beans in them.
Monster plants! and they are very healthy looking too.
tmm
Rich,
How are your eggplants doing? I think you were asking around to see if anybody has grown eggplants in an EB in another thread. I don't have eggplants in an EB, but this year, I have japanese eggplants (ichiban) in regular round containers and they are doing really well. No BER or anything.. I think they will run out of room for roots soon though since I packed too many in one container.
tmm
Thanks everyone. As you can see with reasonable care EB's do indeed work very very well. It's been in the upper 90's here yesterday & today and I've watered most of my EB's and pots twice and am going out shortly for a third time. I'll come in wetter than the potting soil! Whether it's just luck or maybe one of the benefits of urban living, I have not seen a tomato horn worm in the past 5 years. Thanks for asking about the eggplant tmm99. I have 2 Dusky in an EB and 1 Rosa Bianca in a self watering pot. Picked 4 yesterday (3 Dusky and 1 Rosa Bianca). They are growing very well and I am having no problems with BER.
Rich
What is BER? And does someone have the link to the DIY EB building instructions that Josh? posted? Someone emailed me and I can't find the link again. it was josh.com or something like that. HELP ME PLEASE.
BER = Blossom End Rot
Rich
Ok. What's Blossom End Rot? And, I FOUND the link to the EB instructions: www.josho.com
The josho instructions were ok, but I prefered the instructions on this site: http://www.hometown.aol.com/jmalt31/myhomepage/Earthbox.PDF
Also, I have some information on my website, http://crux.baker.edu/ddenst01/web111a/project/index.html
I haven't quite finished my page with instructions on building an EB, but it gives you instructions on preparing it for your plants.
Rich, your EB plantings look nice and vigorous. I only have one EB and in it I have 4 Basil and 3 flowering plants that i forget the name of,(never grew them before). I used snippets of the basil on my first tomato sandwich today. It was very tasty, but the tomato was one I picked a couple of days ago as it was sunburned on one side. We had 14 days of record breaking heat, high 90s and triple digits,
My basil got off to a slow start as we had such a cool wet spring. Sure would like some of that cool back. Actually today is nice, not hot and even had a few drops of rain.
Here is my EB, DonnaS
Hi rutholive: The purple basil looks like it's coming along very nicely. I've grown Red Rubin, Purple Ruffles and another variety whose name escapes me over the years and always got exactly what you have in your picture, a green/purple speckled plant. It seems that the purple varieties always want to revert back to green. I was troubled with fusarium wilt on my basil for a number of years so now I only grow Nufar which is resistant to the fusarium. I really like sliced tomatoes with sliced red onion, a lot of fresh basil and a balsamic vinigrette dressing. My grape tomatoes have gone wild...went to Atlantic City for 3 days this past week and when I got home I picked at least 5-6 lbs. Thursday evening and another 3-4 lbs. today. I've picked about 15 tomatoes from the Bush Goliath EB this past week and I have 4 plants in ground that were labeled Early Girl when purchased but must have been mislabeled as they are producing 4-5" (maybe even bigger) fruit in great abundance. We have your heat wave now...93 today, 96 tomorrow and they say 102 on Tuesday & Wednesday with real feel temps up to 115. Oh well, I expect to be filling the EB's 2-3 times a day the entire week.
Rich
I'll toss a photos into the mix. Here are my butternut squash in an EB. Very few fruit so far.
Jet star tomatoes. Lots of fruit but none are ripe yet.
And cukes, Marketmore on the left and Holland on the right. Plenty of them so far. The Holland are new for me and I have been pleasantly surprised. They are a hothouse variety and look like the ones from the grocery that are individually wrapped. My only knucklehead move was to use such a short trellis instead of the 7 footers I have for everything else.
Rich, what sort of potting mix and fertilizer do you like to use in your earthbox? Your plants look great.
Escubed, very nice cucumbers. I will have to try them in an earthbox as I don't have much success in the ground.
Cowpea, this is my second summer with cukes in the EB and it works a treat. As I mentioned though, use a tall (at least 6') trellis. Cukes love to climb and the quality of the fruit will be excellent.
I plant Orient Express cukes in the ground. After amending the soil with compost, my own. I also use 9-4-3 organic fertilizer. This year I had very good luck with the cukes transplanting from gh starts. The first ones were ready about 10 days ago. I love cucumber sandwiches. I don't peel them if I manage to pick them at just over an inch in diameter, they are usually about 12" or so in lenghth, growing on a trellis as escubed mentioned.
Donna
Cowpea: I use Espoma Garden-tone 100% Organic 5-3-3 and mix 3 cups into the soil at planting time and not striped on top of the soil. This method can ONLY be used with a 100% Organic fertilizer which is naturally slow release. Mixing in that much chemical fertilizer will burn the plants beyond repair. The potting soil is mostly Miracle Grow as it is the most readily available in my area. The small amount of fertilizer in it is really negligable. For tomatoes I also mix in 2 cups of Dolomite (not hydrated lime) and 1 cup Gypsum (calcium sulfate). For peppers I just use the 1 cup Gypsum and no Dolomite.
Rich
escubed:
What is the mesh that supports your tomatoes - looks like the stuff that comes with christmas trees. The cukes look like they are on chicken wire - plastic or metal?
Hank
Hsottnek: What we used to call chicken wire is now "poultry fencing" and that's exactly what I used. I used a larger diameter this year for the new trellises. It works great. I also have butternut squash on a similar trellis.
escubed: Thanks for the info. I guess that some turkey complained about the term chicken wire and passed a bill for the change in name.
I assume then that what you have is all metal, and not plastic.
Best Wishes
I think the EBs are great to use. I have tried growing tomatos, squash,peas,beans cucumbers,corn and carrots. I think tomatos, beans and cucumbers have done the best. I have alot of carrot seedlings coming up and soon i will thin them. I built a small frame with plastic to go over the box and it acts like a mini greenhouse. The germination seems quicker.
All my EBs have a drip system going to them which waters the boxes every 12 hours. I built stands about 12 in tall for each and under each i have a bucket to catch the runoff of wich a water my other plants.
mm, any advice on how to set that up? I'd love to get it in place for the fall squash!
Thanks,
Chris
Hi,
i went to home depot and bought a Orbit Mdl #ht2 which screws onto your outside water bib. Attached to that is 1/2" black water line which can go out to 50 or 60ft if you want to. Then you attach 1/4 in line off of the 1/2 in line and attach Orbit #61230 multi-stream dripper ends. Then just put each line into the filler tube for each EB. I set my timer for 10min every 12 hrs. when it is hot but you should adjust yours to your conditions. If you control the individual ends you won't have any waste. The EB's look very good in the photo mine don,t those look very professional.
Good Luck
chris,
did you buy each of those EBs in your post? Just asking cause If so, I believe they cost around $30/per. There's a link to the DIY EBs. You can make the exact same thing for about $10/per box. When I find it in my favorites, i'll post the link to the instructions for you...Just in case you want to try DIY....after all, we're into conservation -- that includes our money!
Yes maam - I bought 10 at the same time, about 3 years ago. And it did break my heart to spend it... but I am lazy. And then I got silly with the fertilizer, I tried all this fancy bat guano, etc - with the shipping, I ended up spending as much as the darn EB's.
I would consider building another batch, but I'm already running out of good sunlight spots at the new casa. Heck, I was so busy with work this year, half of them went to seed or dried out (those pictures are from earlier this summer).
If things don't slow down, I will probably retire them for a season or two - maybe even sell them. I'm hoping that with mm1065's instructions for a self-watering solution, I may have an easier time keeping up next year. Wish me luck!
I love my EBs. I have 5 and if my hubby would let me use the deck like you did, VP, i'd be in heaven.
My cukes dried up though. Odd that they'd be doing fine and then, poof, gone.
Here're the ones I plan on building (actually, the DH, but he doesn't know it yet...).
http://www.josho.com/Earthbox.htm
http://www.myhudsonplace.com/diyearthboxes.html
I've seen Joshos plans, those are some pretty thorough writeups. I would love to try the home-built deeper ones, especially because I bet they are deep enough to do carrots and onions, which can be tricky in the regular EB's.
I have not looked at any home built EBs but i have started to add some small amounts of actual dirt to one of my boxes and i put in carrot seeds. they have germinated very quickly and i am beginning to thin them now. it will be interesting to see how they develope. i think the EB will be deep enough. if anyone has done this already please drop me a line
thanks, mike
Bump.
I'd like to hear how carrots have done in earthboxes. I think I saw a post by someone that said they didn't do so well in EB's. Anyone had a good crop of carrots in one ?