Show your verticals

Here's mine:

georgia collards in this one

Romaine in this one

Romaine seedlings just transplanted in this one

carrots direct seeded in this one

There's that bean pole viewed from inside the screened pool

strawberries in a Hydro-stacker

English Peas in a NJ Stacking Planter

Romaine direct seeded in this stack

Here's mine!

I've got radishes, bok choy, lettuce, snap peas planted in here just today.

At last! A peek into Pugsley's garden. You must have been working all day. I know I was, and so happy to get stuff into their containers. Okay. Here is my strawberry verticals, [already posted on my thread.]

Oooo! Nice,Devota! Yep, I was working all day yesterday. I love being tired at the end of the day from getting dirty.

I've only got about 92 more growbags to fill and figure out what to plant inside them. LOL! Well, I might not use them all this year. But I'm working on it.

Getting ready to direct seed some melons today and see how it goes. I hope it is not too early for them, shouldn't be now I hope.

I planted cukes and beans yesterday, too, direct seeded into the growbags.

I took a photo from the window of the new "Garden District" apartment looking out over my grow pole garden. There is a wide variety of plants in the poles, ranging from Brussels sprouts to onions to petunias to dianthus to alyssum, etc, and one lonsome sunflower which voluntered in the top pot right in the center of the picture.

From the opposite end of the grow pole garden, you can see the "Garden District" apartment I am adding to my Mobile Home. I have now added on to both sides of my Mobile Home in order to have room for everyone when they visit. Im labeling one side for "In-Laws" and the other side for "Outlaws." My son lives in the outlaw side.......naturally.:-)

Here is a photo of the sunflower that voluntarily popped up in the top pot of this grow pole. It is sharing space in the pot with Walla Walla onions and a couple of Bijou sweet peas. I recently harvested bok Choi and radishes from the two empty pots and that is chard in the second pot from the bottom. Time to replant......decisions, decisions, decisions. But as Shakespear once said, "A carpenter's work is from sun to sun, but a gardeners work is never done." Sigh.

Way cool, Jay.

Have yourself some fun, Devota. Plant a medium size sunflower (5 to 6 ft size) in your top pot. It will grow without interfering with your strawberries. Add an extension to the pole of your grow pole to support the sunflower and leterrip. LOL.

Last summer, my son, who knows from nothing about gardening, was helping me put seeds in the grow poles and garden. He planted sunflowers in the top pot of one pole. At first I got mad......then I got to thinking......what the heck.....lets see what it will do. They grew about 4 foot high on top; of a five foot pole and were waving proudly up there well above my 6 foot high privacy fence. The people driving down the road must have wondered about that.:-)

Jay, you are an inspiration to grow pole wanadooos

Signs of life in the Big Bubba stacker!

The 100 plant bean pole

Romaine almost ready to pick

Thats the way to plant them suckers, Pugzley! Plant them thick and pull and eat (or transplant) the thinnings as you go. Boy those are big pots! You have got a heck of a garden going there. You can create a lot of transplants by planting thick in one pole. It can be sort of like an incubator creating more plants to expand your garden. In your case, you better be careful though........looks like you got a lot to handle all ready.

This message was edited Mar 26, 2009 8:00 PM

Bob..........just out of curiosity.......how many times a year in your climate do you think you can harvest a crop of fast growers from one grow pole? About how long from transplant to harvest on the Romaine? And that is without sneaking out there to talk to them in the middle of the night cause most of us dont do that. Well..........at least I dont.

Hi Jay,

I'd say for example, romaine takes about 60 days so one could harvest 5 times a year down here taking July and august off due to heat. I have romaine ready to harvest continuously. I plant seeds about every 3 weeks. Some are direct seeded and some transplants. This pick is direct seeded

That bean pole above only takes 45 days to harvest, so how about 6 times a year. And don't forget cukes. real fast growing

Thanks JayWhacker. I just went outside to check my plants for the 100th time today, the other 99 times they were fine. But a herd of aphids decided to swoop down and attack my lettuces! That meant war, so I got out my stylet oil and machine gunned them to death. It sure doesn't take them long to wrinkle up a leaf, does it? I'm starting to hate them as much as those spider mites I know are coming in July.

Bob, I can only grow outdoors here from mid Feb. though mid December. :) If I had sun on my property, that is.

This is going to be an interesting year of gardening with all this grow poling going on. Only a bunch of coco-nuts would grow stuff on a pole no how.:-)

Jay and Bob, I gotta comment/question for youse guys....I have one 15 inch stacker for my lettuces. Hubby and I went to Lowe's to buy a 4' piece of rebar and some sort of screw collar from the electrical dept. that Bob used but didn't remember what it was.....to make my stacker go up on a pole.

Hubby was pissy, he was ready to leave, and we tried a million different combos and couldn't find a fit for a collar, or a pole or a rebar to fit....We left the store mad at each other with hubby continually yelling "why do they have to be on a pole for them to grow???? Why not just sit them on the ground, it doesn't make sense?" and me yelling " I don't know, but ALL my friends do it this way!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

My stackers are still on the ground, I still can't find solid information on a pole/collar that will work, and hubby won't discuss it any more. Why this is so hard for me, I don't know. And I am a little curious as to why being on a pole is better, other than the need to not bend down to care for them. Help you guys, I want poles like yours!

Karen: I agree, I'd like to see step by step instructions on that one myself, Oh Jaywhacker and Jerry where are you?
joy

Karen.......I aint gonna get in no family arguments........been there, done that, but not any more.

But might help a little. The collar clamp thingy Bob uses is called a ground rod clamp. If you go out to the electrical pole or the side of the house where your electrical meter is located, you will find the top of a copper bar that has been driven into the ground. That bar is about 6 feet long and driven into the ground to make a good contact for "grounding" your electrical system. A bare copper wire coming from your meter base, or transformer pole is clamped to that grounding rod with with a ground clamp. A washer dropped on top of the grounding clamp will provide a smoother surface for the bottom pot to sit on. Actually, anything that can be firmly clamped or screwed to the re-bar will work. Bob just happened to think of the grounding rod clamp to use.

LOL, Thanks Jay! We got over it pretty quick and actually laughed about it on the way home, but hubby could care less about gardening anyway and just didn't see the need to have the stacker "up"....I'll try that. I'm at least going to stick rebar into the little guy to keep it from blowing over.... Just got through thinning my lettuce out of it and stacking properly.

Ok, I searched for strawberries and found you guys!
I never heard of or saw these grow pole things before.
I am very interested! How long have you been growing stuff this way?
I can see many pros(mainly space) but are there any cons?
At the moment, I am only looking for a solution to grow strawberries, but I can see how
this could become a new way to grow other things for me.

chris

Anyone have a link for where to buy these?
I have googled plant poles, but there are thousands.
Hmmm, maybe hydro stacker...I saw that somewhere in the thread.

Here's a link:

www.instagarden.com

That's Boca Bob's website and where I got mine.

I haven't found any cons to these as yet, all my stuff I have in them are direct seeded and just babies, but after seeing the success of others here using them is what made me decide to buy some. I have a really small planting area, so I can get a lot more plants in here now.

I guess one con would be it costs a little bit up front to buy them, but they last for many years, so after awhile they'll pay for themselves. I don't plan on ever stopping gardening so I think it was a good investment.

Cris.......Stacked containers....what I call grow poles.......have been used for years to grow strawberries in huge commercial gardens. By growing vertically, they can grow on one acre what a dirt farm might take ten acres to do....and with better control of water/fertilizer, less ground deseases, etc etc. Instagardens is the first one to offer different versions of vertical growing systems to home gardeners by becoming a distributor for different systems. He also uses them himself and can help us with tips learned from experience. Join the new wave of gardeners...........and you might as well become a coco-nut too while you are at it. :-)

Thanks for the link. I did find something under hydro stacker and yes they are quite a large $investment. I think I would like to start with just the stackers like on Bobs site. I think they were about $16 each and I think I would want 10. I would do 2 stacks of 5 high. I can handle the watering part myself.
I was looking at the 6 compartment 4"x4". Would this be big enough to grow strawberry plants in?
Jay, I skimmed over something about coco-nuts, LOL. Might be interesting, gotta just get the berries growin first.

Hey Bob, did you ever think of having a co-op? D-mail me if your interested. I need mine now, but is an interesting idea for the future.

chris

Cris........Looks like you are interested in the veggy producer stacking pots. Ten of those would give you 60 plant sites since each pot gives you 6 plant sites each. That is a whole garden right there! And each stack will sit on just a 2x2 foot area! Dont sell these vertical stacker,s short.....you can grow some large plants in them. I have grown tomato's in mine as well as large bushy zinnia,s and pot marigolds and my pots are not as large as the veggy producers. And you are right about not having to have an automatic watering system to begin with. With the variable spring weather, I have my automatic watering system turned off and I just walk around stabbing the pots with a moisture meter and adding water where necessary.

The reference to coco-nuts apply,s to many of the "nuts"on these forums using the cocanut coir grow mix sold by instagarden. Some one dubbed us the coca-nuts. Instagarden has demonstrated success with the stacked containers, cocanut coir grow mix and their fertilizer and it might be a good idea to follow their lead and gain from their experience as you start out.

The attached photo is strawberries growing in the little 12 inch NJ stackers. There is a red one hiding in there! My first of the season. Come to think of it........my first strawberry ever.

This message was edited Mar 27, 2009 6:35 PM

Jay,

Thank you for saving Karen's marriage. I forgot what they were called when Karen called. Ground rod clamp, I won't forget ever again.

Yeah Bob........touchy situation. I've still got scars on my head from mixing into family arguments but for the sake of the vertical growing industry, I gave it my best try. I just hope it doesn't become a regular thing, this "marriage canceling," its too emotional disturbing.

Jay, LOL you are too funny. D