EBs, Stackers and such north of the Mason-Dixon

Okay, so it is *finally* time to quit with the zone envy and start planting!!

This is my deck - the only space I have to work with for growing vegetables:


This message was edited Jun 8, 2009 7:56 PM

The peas (in an EB with coir) are up about 4"

The strawberries are looking good, but no fruit yet:

I started my herb garden today. I have basil, oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, chives, pineapple sage, chocolate mint, and apple mint:

I still have to plant beans, lettuce, spinach, scallions, and tomatoes. This week the highs are in the mid sixties, with the lows in the mid forties, so I may wait a bit on the tomatoes.

How about the rest of you northerners? How are your box gardens doing? We can't let those southerners put us to shame!

Those stackers are off to a good start, Jeannie. That herb stack is going to be nice and handy. Did you get saucers with your stackers? If you look in this photo at the table with 4 stacks of NJ stackers, I screwed the saucers to the table top, the bottom pot locks to the saucer and then I ran a 3/8 inch wooden dowel down thru the center of the pots to lock them all together. Otherwise, the strong winds in this area would blow mine over.

Keep the pictures coming!

Thanks Jay! No, I didn't get saucers with the stackers. My DH built the two stands. They are 2'x2' plywood (treated with water sealer), with a metal rod going up the middle, and a wing nut at the top. I threaded the stackers on the rod, then tightened down the wing nut. They aren't going anywhere! My DH also put casters on the bottom so I can roll them around easily.

I got up early and got my beans planted this morning before work!

Now that I look closer, I can see the casters. Looks solid.

Boy, you folks are having some weird spring weather. But surely things will start popping for you now. Things always start looking "up" when you grow in stackers anyway.:-)

Jeannie: We southerners can't put you to shame, it's getting summer time, we will have bugs to fight and heat stroke. LOL You will have a wonderful garden as your pictures show already. Keep us posted as to how you like those EB staking systems, they look nice.
joy

Thanks Joy! I am just hoping that there are some EB gardeners other than me up here in the cold north!

Guess you get to have reverse zone envy in a few months :)

Jeannie: And just think the northerners can grow Peonies, which I think are the prettiest flower in the world, we can't here. LOL
joy

And rhubarb!

Jeannie: I used to live in Ohio, rhubarb grew wild and mom made delicious rhubarb pies! I used to pick it right out of the garden and eat it too. My dad used to grow beef steak tomatoes, my favorite and what a flavor they had, nothing like the Florida tomatoes. LOL You can also grow nice apples and peaches that Floridians can't.
joy

Hey, there. Just wanted to mention that I'm north of that Mason/Dixon line as well. I have an EB garden on my roof in Chicago and it has done just fine. I have 12 boxes and this year, I'm growing 5 varieties of tomatoes, 3 varieties of peppers, 2 varieties of broccoli, 2 varieties of lettuce, 2 varieties of bush beans, zucchini, cucumbers, swiss chard and escarole. I'll try to post a picture but since this is my first post, I'm not sure how it'll work. Thanks for sharing...

Tyrus, that roof top garden looks wonderful!!

Do you just let the cucumbers & zucchinis trail all over the roof top, or do they climb up on the trellises?

I am thinking I don't have quite enough EBs for all the stuff I have left to plant...think I saw some for sale at my local garden shop. I wonder if I can sneak them home without my DH noticing??

TYRUS, YOU ROCK!!

I've been looking for a removeable trellis design, since I don't grow tomatoes year round. Your structure could be made portable by precutting the pieces and screwing the whole thing together when needed. I notice the cap on your wall. Is the trellis bolted to that wall for stability against the wind?

Could you post a close up of how you have it anchored/fastened together? Oh, and are those 1x1s for the vertical stakes? I could use horizontal bamboo rods in that frame for additional staking, since the indeterminates I grow get heavy enough to snap their (usually) 7-8 ft. stalks ^_^.

Thanks!

Linda

Thanks for the response. I will have my zucchini in the first box you see and it won't be trellised. The Romanescos I plant will be more of a bushy plant, rather than a vine but I've been thinking of building a "ladder" system for support. If I do build something, I'll post about it. The cucs are in the back on the left hand side and they will grow on the trellis set up above that box.

Linda - I posted another picture and I hope it helps. I used a square wooden cage method adapted from this website: http://www.mastergardeners.org/picks/tomato_staking.html. Basically, the EBs sit in a wooden channel and that allows me to fasten supports/trellises/wind barriers to the outside of the channels. The channels also "anchor" the boxes down as the weight of four boxes is spanned over 10 feet. The trellis can be made temporary. I used 1x2 cedar from Home Depot ($2.65 for 8' lengths), so it'll weather fine. I also use lengths of bamboo to support as the tomatoes grow - mine last year were about 6-7' high, depending on the variety. If you pre-drilled the holes, instead of using screws, you could just use bolts and wing nuts (an idea I've contemplated). If you use screws first, you could always retrofit the drilled holes at the end of the season - at least you'll have a guide. Let me know if you need a better picture. Thanks.

Tyrus--- nice setup. Very unique..

Gymgirl -- Why haven't you had a good season since 07?

Paw,
I wish I knew. My plants always end up diseased (BER), fallen over (no proper staking system YET!!!), and pest infested (stinkbugs). That very first year my tomatoes were the size of my fist and bigger, and healthy and delicious. Since then, nothing but stunted, hard marbles. I'm gonna take em down today, and try to salvage a few cuttings to root for the fall plantout.

I'm wondering if my stock is diseased. I did purchase all fresh seeds that first year I grew in '07. Afterwards, I was using seeds I saved myself. The Spring '08 season was pretty ok, too. But, since then, blah...

I now have all new fresh seeds again for the fall/spring, but our very short fall window here is more inclined toward growing rooted cuttings than starting seedlings in this June-July-August heat. I'll take cuttings of what seems to be healthiest, and baby the cuttings until plantout on August 1st. Early this morning I squashed every Stinkbug I could get my hands on. Thankfully, they were young ones that could'nt fly away. I think I got most all of them, so may not have to battle as much come August 1st. And, if I manage to keep the cutting healthy, they'll be stocky enough to withstand some stuff, maybe...

Also, tomorrow I'm getting with another DGer here who's gonna help me construct that Wooden Cage that Tyrus built on his rooftop in Chicago. We're doing it with bolts and wingnuts so I can take it down when I plant something else in the EBs (my mustards and collards) in the fall. I'm probably gonna grow the tomato cuttings in my 5-gallon eBuckets, on the opposite side of the yard. Maybe a new location will confuse the disease and the pests and they won't find the maters!

Any advice on beefing up my cuttings through the summer would be much appreciated. I did spend time yesterday reading up on my Zone 9a schedule for Houston, and gained much insight. I'll keep the cuttings in the cool, filtered shade. It gets bright light there, but not scorching sun. And, finally, I'm hooking up my drip irrigation system (yeah, I know -- I was almost the first one after you to get all the instructions AND the parts from Bob, but have not had opportunity to do so). But, this is a long weekend for me, so I'm hoping to gather all my materials, construct more eBuckets, hook the drippers, organize my pesticides/fungicides/sprays/holy water, etc...

Last time I looked at my tomato line, I was thinking this might be my last go-round with tomatoes.

I wistfully remember those wonderful, Black, indeterminates I was so proud of....

I need help and encouragement.

Thanks for asking, Paw.

Linda

I like to see others setups. Keep the pics coming.

Gymgirl - Hang in there. Are you doing anything different than what you did in '07 that could be causing some bad luck? Is the soil/mix different? Different varieties? Fertilizing differently?

We used to have stinkbugs everywhere. I laid down Sluggo for snails and was quite surprised to see a bunch of dead stinkbugs(and earwigs) as well. So apparently it works on more than just snails and slugs. I didn't know that. I haven't seen a stinkbug since. You might want to give it a try.

Thanks Ray! Been backtracking my brain, and all I come up with us either bad stock or bad seeds. But starting from fresh seeds next Spring. And have proper trellis in the works. Maybe didn't spray as much as I did in those 1st two seasons. In fact, haven't sprayed anything at all...hmmm.

Well if you don't support them to prevent the vines from bending, breaking or touching the ground and do not spray when white flies or stinkbugs (which we don't have down here) are around you will definetely have all kinds of problems but then again you have your plants on a board and cinder blocks so they don't touch the ground so it has to be lack of spraying and bugs. When the season ends for you dump your mix and wash EBs with 10% bleach and water. Try the coco coir it goes a lot further and the plants do very well.

I'm In the process of breaking EBs down This weekend. Will follow your prep instructions. On another note Paw, can you tell me the dimensions of your old, original EBs, please? Spent the day @ Bubba_MoCity's cutting out wood and pre-fabbing Tyrus's Wood cage trellis. We got up to how wide the original EBs are and even the EB rep couldn't find out for us. I remembered I kept asking how you could fill up an EB with only one bag of MG and I was using more. Do you have those dimensions? Linda

I don't understand your question as you have the original EBs at your disposal???

It was a trick question...

FYI, I beefed up my trellis system this past weekend and you may want to take a look. I always like the idea of a central stake to tie the vines to and I came up with a solution. I suspended a 6' stake from cross sections in the trellis system. I attached via ties. Easy application and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works. I'm not saying to do this, but if interested, I'll post my results.

BTW, I've used the sphagnum peat moss for subsequent plantings for a couple of years with no problem. You need to dig up the fertilizer and "freshen" the mix wiht some new mix/dolomite (or garden lime)/and add a new fert strip. Unless you have a mildew/fungus/disease problem, there's no reason to sanitize the box. If it works for you, please keep doing it but I'm not sure most of the time, you'll need to do that much work. Good luck this year....

Tyrus: Now that is a staking system if I have ever seen one, I think I will copy that next season, it will work really well on the tables instead of these cages I'm using now. Nice job.
joy

I managed to get my carrots and scallions planted this weekend, in between trips to the Upper Midwest Round Up and my nephew's graduation party. No pictures yet because they haven't come up yet!

I did both with home-made seed tape. That made the sowing very easy :)

Where do you get those planters with the bars ? I like those.

Scottie he made them. I cut out my pieces for his design this weekend.

Gymgirl: I could sure use you and your cutting talents around here for a short period, I can't cut a straight line if I had to.
joy

Joy, I'm a beginner with a new set of tools. Hooked up with a DGer who's taken me under wing so I can learn how to use my tools and make the simple garden projects I've been longing to make. Hope to put the trellis together Thursday.

Next up: A compost sifter!

Gymgirl: I've thought about a composter; but have not made a decision yet; although, in Florida, compost is a necessity with our soils and the heat. I'm contemplating making the picture in my mind of what I want for a cucumber trellis. I would make it like a tee-pee and use wooden sticks with bird netting strung across, that would allow me to train the cukes to climb up the hill and then down the hill again. I would not put the boxes right up against the fence though, I would leave walking room to go behind the boxes and water them from that direction, with the drain hole in theback also. With the corn, I'm going to use totes filled to the brim with potting mix next time, and have the drain holes up front. I also am looking at building a staking system that attatches to the tables and run across the table for the EBs on the tables and I will use Boca Bob's lay flat coir bags for my melons, cukes too, if they keep staying yellow and round.
joy

Scottie he made them. I cut out my pieces for his design this weekend.


O Ok Thank you ) I love them

Joy I'm making a sifter, not a composter. Its a piece of hardware cloth sandwiched between a wooden frame. I'll "sift" my homemade compost through 2 catch the rocks, twigs, and branches my DDH has tossed in. Also catch any compost not totally broken down yet. Filled my root crop bed with this fine compost and grew beautiful carrots, beets, and turnips.

Gymgirl: I've seen compost sifters; but never had any idea you could make one yourself, how ingenious. I've thought about a composter especially for the flower beds here in Florida, the hot weather just eats away at the soil and the more organic material you put in the beds the better so, it might be a worthwhile investment actually. I was thinking on the tumbler type of composter, what do you think?
joy

I have beans popping up!

I think you should rush over to the Soil and Composting forum and read up on it first! Search for posts I've made in the worms and coffee grinds discussions. Then you can decide whether to spend $$ on a composter or simply start one in a corner of your yard for free! U just expanded my compost bin 2 5x5' in March and the worms are huge, happy, and healthy! I've got my neighbor saving his grass clippings 4 me, and I get 5-gallon buckets of used coffee grinds @ my job where there's a complimentary employee coffee bar! I'm making compost for FREE. Can't beat free. Lookie!

Gymgirl: I'd be afraid of attracting rodents if I just had a bin. That is the reason for the tumbler or composter that is enclosed. My corn is ready, time to shuck corn this weekend.
joy