Vertical "self contained" gardens.

OK, they are not "box's" but they are self contained containers and Maybe they fit in here better than on some other forums. Besides, I figure you'se guy's and gal's that try earth box's are free thinking and looking for new kinds of gardening experience. There are many advantages to growing vertically and space is only one of them.......but it can be a major consideration if you are limited on space and still wont to garden. Here is a picture of a 4x4 sq ft base allowing you to grow 116 plants. EZgro vertical systems are mounted on each corner (www.theezgro.com). With 5 pots mounted on each pole and 4 plant sites per pot........that gives you 80 plant sites. Sitting in the middle of the base platform are 4 little stack-a-pot systems that provide another 36 plant sites. A total of 116 plants on a 4x4 sq ft base!!! If you plant real large or bushy plants.......like the zinnias in the picture,,,,,, you will take up more than 4x4 sq ft of space but if you grow something like vegetables that fast harvest in 30 to 45 days, you can turn out a tremendous amount of vegetables in a growing season. And you can extend your season by rigging up some kind of protection in early spring and early fall.

I live on top of a ridge in rocky country and cant drive even carpet staples into the ground without hitting a rock and thats why I build above ground bases for my vertical systems. If you can drive a 1/2 in piece of electrical conduit about 12 to 16 inches into the ground in your yard, you dont need to build base's like I do. It makes things a lot simpler and sitting up a vertical system aint no step for a stepper.........even girls can do it!!

Here is a shot of two poles with sweet peas I planted in October. They are supposed to grow thru the winter here and flower in the spring.........we will see how that goes. The structures on the right are water beds with a green house cover set-up......another experiment. I am going to float some styrofoam seed starting blocks in there.........should work, huh?

Well, doggone it.......this is my first attempt at pictures and I forgot the picture for the above post.=(

Deer are bad here and a few years ago, I bought these two large dog pens to garden in. One pen has 80 plant sites on Verti-gro systems with automatic watering system and plenty of room to sit containers around in the pen. The other pen has containers with the leftover sunflower stalks......sweet peas planted so they can climb the old stalks. These pens cost about 200 bucks.......they are less expensive because you have to assemble them yourselves and that roll of fence wire is heavy.........a girl without a boy friend probably couldn't handle them. You can pick them up from Tractor Supply Co. if you have one locally.

Sweet peas starting to climb the fence and another sweet pea pole at the far end.This fence was only completed in late July so I got a late start on gardening in my new deer free area. I went nuts planting sweetpeas this year.........hoping the place stinks real purty this spring.

More sweet peas on the western wall.

Who says dichronda doesn't grow from trees??

Here is a link for a newer type of vertical grow system. It is a nice looking set-up for a patio or porch and doesn't look like it requires any work to set up except unpacking, stacking pots, adding mix and plant. It looks like it has a larger area down the middle to hold grow mix and roots from the plant sites grow into the middle. Should work good.

http://www.stackandgrow.com/

Wow! I am impressed. The dog fence was a stroke of genius, too. D in TN

Whoops!!! watch out for freight rates on stack and grow systems.

Devota.........those dog pens were absolutely necessary before I had the new fence built. Each pen is 6 ft high, 7 feet wide and 13 ft long. It is amazing how much you can grow in them too.

Today's vertical pic

BocaBob

wonder if we could do a co-op on those vertical Gro systems???? I don't know anything about how they get those started, but this would be wonderful and I would probably order a couple, cause I ordered 1 set of 3 or 4 pots a couple year ago from a catalog and the price choked me!!! A co-op would be gr8 if the co wold do 1 with us!!

These are from the picture above. Just picked ten minutes ago. Acouple a day keeps the winter blues away

BocaBob

It's cold down here 60 degrees right now

Running out of room to garden is no fun but someone pointed the way is UP so Okay. I
have a plan but I need advice on two fronts: coir of soiless mix? and drip or soaker?

The "wall" I am envisioning will stand a few inches out from a south facing garage wall.

I have drawn up plans for my “Vertical Wall Strawberry Patch.” The plan is to use four 6 foot posts, [4x4s] and attach 4 inch vinyl gutter to them. The “wall” should be 4 ½ feet tall and 9 feet long and sit on 2x4s that have been ripped diagonally and are attached to the four posts at 7 inch intervals so that the gutters lean out from the “wall” to get most of the sunshine available. It appears from the scale drawing that I might expect to have 5 or 6 rows facing south. Since drying out may be a serious problem I might think about lining the insides of the guttering with bubble wrap? Keeping the gutters watered may be a problem too. It sounds like coir might hold moisture better than peat.
I don't believe I can make it self sustaining in the "EB" sense but I have ready access to water and might enjoy the challange of a drip system. Below is my humble drawing. I hope it makes plain what I want to do. I appreciate any thoughts or advice. Devota

Here's my 2 cents:

I think coco coir may be a good choice for the soilless mix for obvious reasons ( I sell it ) LOL, plus it does hold water better than most mixes.

I would run a 1/2 inch poly pipe along the gutter with micro tubing feeding and watering the plants a few times a day from a pond pump in a garbage can on a timer.

BocaBob

Bob, Thanks! Please explain about the pond pump and the timer. My pond pumps are all submersible so I am assuming the timer would have to be as well? This is an exciting thought. I was trying to figure cubic feet needed for coir if that is what I decide to use. can't figure it out so that it sounds right. The gutters are 4 inches high by 4 inches wide but they are 6 inches wide at the top. Can't remember the equasion, [right like I paid attention in math class, LOL.]

CORRECTION duh. Not that the timer needs to be submersible but that it needs to be AC as apposed to DC?

Vertical gardening systems can be made from tires. There is information on this at www.tirecrafting.com. I can recommend both the book and the video. The owner, Paul Farber, is very nice about answering emails. It's not "self-contained" like an EB but he has some good ideas and the cost is very low. There are some good pictures on the site. It's hard to believe that some of the things there are made from tires.

katiebear

Got this off the internet :

First off, why would someone need to convert square feet to cubic feet? As an example, lets say you have a 12 square foot garden, and you want to buy topsoil for it. Since topsoil is sold by the cubic foot, how many cubic feet of topsoil do you need for a 12 square foot garden? I will use this for my example.

The formula for Square feet is:
length × width

The formula for Cubic feet is:
length × width × height

Since we know the Square feet of the garden, we now have the conversion to Cubic feet:
(cubic feet) = (square feet) × (height in feet)

So.... If you wanted the topsoil to be 3 inches thick, you would need:
12 × 0.25 = 3
You would need 3 cubic feet of topsoil

My Coco Coir when hydrated is about 2.5 cubic feet

BocaBob

Okay Bob, I think I have it. I think I will need nearly 4 cubic feet for 6 nine foot sections. It doesn't seem possible that there could be that much growing room there but that is the way I figure it.

About drip systems I will have to educate myself and I am looking forward to trying this. I have differing sizes of pumps and I suppose I will have to try them out. Of course I can see the need for drainage holes. Can I fertilize the plants at the sme time as they get watered or will that be too much for them. Lotsa ??? huh? Devota

Jay, all I want to know is, WHEN do you sleep??? You have been a busy guy and it all looks wonderful. I am in Brownwood (same climate) so I am going to try some of your tricks.

Devota,

Absolutely !!! That's what I do with my whole garden. Water and feed at the same time (with a water slouble fertilizer).

And yes, you need drainage holes or tilt the gutter alittle when you install it.

BocaBob

Girla........I sleep a lot.......have to at my age to maintain my good looks. Those pictures represent about 4 years of accumulating stuff........add a few new toys each year and pretty soon you have more toys than you have time to play with. A hernia about 3 years ago slowed me down some and reaction to a medication called Flomax caused me to get dizzy every time I kneeled down and stood up which aint good as there is a lot of bending and stooping to gardening. That is one reason I have played around with the vertical systems so much. Life is much better now that I have quit that Flomax stuff.

Yes, we are in about the same climate range but pay attention to whatever "micro-climate" you live in. Believe it or not, it can vary some in different parts of a large yard. The "low" areas can get frost bit while the "high" areas do not and Im talking about just a few inches. If you pull you shoes and socks off and go stand in front of your refrigerator and open the refrigerator door, you will feel the cold air from the fridge wash down and settle around your feet. The same thing can happen in your yard. Try not to garden in the lowest part of your yard.

In case you have checked into some of the info on these forums written by Tapla and some other very experienced gardners about container mixes, you will notice that they all talk a lot about using "bark fines". It took me quite a while to find out that an outfit called LANDSCAPERS PRIDE located at New Waverly Texas makes such a stuff. They make quite a few different mixes and the bark fines mix is the one called simply LANDSCAPE MIX. It containes only finely ground pine bark, does not contain large wood chunks or splinters or dirt. It aint cheap, costs $8.00 for 2 cu ft, but it is great stuff for adding to container mixes.Two nurseries handle it here.....I have never seen it in the big box stores. Here is a picture of a bag of it......the one on the right.

Girla......here is a pic of that LANDSCAPERS MIX.......the dime is just there to compare to how finely ground the bark is.

Hello out there.....did anybody read my question abouot a possible co-op for the vertical pots??? I think there would be lots of interest.....seeking feedback &/or ideas.........
Birdie

BirdieBlue

I'll make some phone calls

BocaBob

Jaywhacker: Your yard and mine have so much in common, as I have the same fence, never thought about using it for things to climb up them though, pretty nifty idea though. I have these two 4 armed planter stands finally in place in the back yard where I can put up the 2 topsy turvy's and 4 revolutionary planters, bloom master and homemade bloommaster, they will hold tomatoes and eggplants growing upside down and the bloom master will hold 30 pepper plants, the homemade bloommaster will hold 20 pickling cucumbers if everything goes as planned this Spring. I have a table much like yours too, only mine needs work to make it studier and doesn't have the half hoops on it, that is nice for being able to cover your plants if you gotta. I like your set up, will have to plant my peas and beans and climbing stuff close to the fence, that is a great idea. I'm glad you shared your pics with us.

Devota: That is a beautiful set up you have there also.

Amazing what creativity we have here isn't it?
joy112854

Joy, I am always amazed by how similar many our ideas are and how we "feed" off other's ideas. I saw on the Container Forum that someone had used a couple of gutters hanging on a wall as a lettuce bed, and from that my dream of having space for a strawberry bed was born. There you are using ideas from Jaywhacker. We all benefit from other's creativity and ingenuity. Don't you just love this forum? Devota

Devota: Yes, I do love this forum, actually, mine and Jaywhackers ideas both hit each of us at the same time I think. I had planned to get the upside down planters and bloommasters and hang them from planter stands which would not take up much space, but, his idea of using the wooden gate for the beans to crawl up is a fabulous idea, I never would have thought of that in a million years and here I have a 6 foot wooden privacy fence all round the back yard, can you imagine what I can do with all that? I'm going to take two pieces of 10 foot boards and put 2 pieces of 1 foot boards on the ends and probably a few more in the middle to reinforce it, then cover them with black garbage bags and set my EBs on them, I can do it in rows and makes it easier to water and tend them and then at the same time looks nice and gets them up off the ground too. I got that idea from Linda on the earthbox forum, her pics, she has like 1,500 EBs can you imagine, that's a bit much for me. 20-30 is plenty for me.
joy112854

"I'm going to take two pieces of 10 foot boards and put 2 pieces of 1 foot boards on the ends and probably a few more in the middle to reinforce it, then cover them with black garbage bags and set my EBs on them, "
WOW! Oh my! what a good thing that would be for disabled gardeners, Joy.
Just think anyone who had a fence of any kind could use that idea to make their EBs and containers the right height for wheel chair gardeners or just anyone who has trouble leaning over. I love it.

Devota: they would not be that expensive to make, and would get the EBs off the ground, and if you wanted to make them a little higher you could to accomadate anyone in a wheelchair. The thing is, you will have them all in a line like rows and easier to get to them altogether. Not my idea though, I copied it from someone else of course. LOL What got me going on that idea was the pallots I was going to use, were old and rotted, and I thought, well this won't be too expensive will take pics when it gets done ok?
joy112854

Joy, so exciting. Take pics for sure start to finish and start with the blank fence. I want an ongoing slide show, hear?

Devota: I'm new to this camera stuff too, not just gardening, ya know? LOL I'll get close ups and post them this Spring. TPlant is great at showing step by step pics, I'm not sure if I can do that.
joy112854

Joy, You know what they say, "without a picture, it didn't happen". (smile)

Jerry

My DH placed several concrete blocks side-by-side along our page fenceline. Then, he placed two long planks of scaffold boards on the block supports. Then, he lined my 5 EBs side-by-side on the scaffold boards. I was totally AGHAST, because no other DGer had EBs sitting up off the ground like this...

Fast forward to today....

Best setup I could have asked for. I would run home and sit on the scaffold bench in between my EBs. I had a canopy of Tomatos growing above my head, and could sit there in comfort and shade and examine my vines and leaves and fruits in up-close detail. Also, having them off the ground saved my back and my knees, and no bugs crawling on my EBs. Also, being off the ground offered air circulation below the boxes. Finally, my industrious DH took a handful of those old hard plastic vacuum cleaner extensions and stuck them down into my EB tubes. The extensions are all white. They looked strange at first and I wondered why I needed such long watering tubes...

Fast forward to the day when the Huge tomato vines would have covered hidden my black EB fill tubes. Now, I can always find and reach the extension Tubes! No problem!

Gymgirl, what a great setup. Do you rent out your DH? LOL D inTN

This is what my tomatoes looked like on the scaffolding.

Devota,
Catch me on the right day, and I'll pay for his ticket.!!

Beautiful plants and wonderful set-up

BocaBob

Great setup Gymgirl! Great hubby too! What kind of stakes are those you are using for your tomatoes?