Wow! Beautiful! I see those are all sitting on dirt. Why do you need containers? Just a silly question.
Suzi

Suzi,

Not a silly question at all. For the past 10 years I had indeed grown tomato plants in the raised bed:

{{gwi:39849}}

As you can see from the comparative photos, the tomato plants in the EarthTainers are much further along at the same time of year. I attribute this to the early warming of the container grow media as compared with the dirt in the raised bed.

Raybo

Looking good as usual Ray. Those of us unlucky enough have weather one month behind schedule enjoy looking at someone's elses growth.

I figured you had a reason. Thanks for 'splaining! I wish you continued good luck with your "farm"

Suzi

Suzi,

There are a whole bunch of other reasons that I have switched to Container gardening, First, I can set the automated watering system and can travel for weeks at a time without having to worry about the plants getting watered. Second, the 'Tainers do not leak water so 100% is concentrated for the plant - not runoff. Next, no weeding, reduction in insect infestations, lower fertilizer use per plant, use of space on the deck for growing plants. Those reasons come to mind...

Raybo

I understand! My whole heart wants a real vineyard, and we have one in our sideyard in the dirt on a trellis with a drip system, but there is not enough space for more vines, so I have turned to containers also for the rest of the vineyard.

Should be about 80 vines Head Pruned (not on the trellis, and they will each have a 4' trunk with top canes like a tree), and placed on a drip system as well. They will each have their own 10-20 gallon root-pruning container eventually, but we are starting with 3 gallon this year.

I think I questioned you because I saw all that dirt, and I want it!! :-) Your farm looks great! Enjoy it!!
Suzi

I apologize. I posted on another thread that I once produced 20 ears of corn in a deck container and didn't think anyone would believe me. I see you outdid me by many! good job!

I, too, have just as good / better results growing in containers. The only drawback is having to purchase all the soil - and it can increase production costs by $$$. Now I grow mostly tropicals and have no choice but to grow in containers - the veggies are now planted in a small plot my landlords graciously let me use.

As a new EarthTainer gardener, tomatoes of course, I have had my eyes opened. With 100% of the water used by the EarthTainer going into the plant, the amount of water used is amazing. I also have an empty tainer(not planted) that uses NO water. I think I will start measuring the water I use so I can get a true picture of transpiration and growth use of water as the season warms. Al

Wow Raybo that looks great, your garden of "96" looks better than my wifes ever did, your earthtainers are fabulous and if I get half that result or even a quarter I will be ecstatic. This all started over my wife wanting to have a small garden and all the work we did every year and throughout the season, only to get a few tomatoes. Our yard and soil are not good for gardening but she wants to grow tomatoes like her dad used to when she was growing up and get that flavor. He really did a great job, he grew up on a farm and his idea of a garden was an acre of land, but boy did he do a lot of work to maintain it, and a lot of equipment including lawn mower tractor with many options. We live on a 1/3 rd acre lot in total including house in a development and I hate taking care of the yard. So last year I tried the Topsey Turvey (to get out of work), my wifeÂs garden patch did better but not much and not a lot of tomatoes from either. This year the race is on again but I am using earthtainers, She got the garden planted a few days before I got the 1st earthtainer planted (She actually did most of the work on the earthtainer). Container gardening appeals to me for all the reasons you mentioned, basicly more production, less work.

Thanks again for sharing on this forum and helping others,your garden pics are inspiring and give hope to us just starting. I took your advise on the other thread and only replaced the damaged plants with a smaller plant rootball. I figured this year is for learning.

Calistoga,

You seem like a "scientific" guy. Is there any possibility you could keep a log of the gallons of water you pour into the EarthTainer on a weekly basis, during the growing Season? I have "visions" of inserting mini-flowmeters in each feed line of the Automated Watering System to log each 'Tainer's weekly usage, then compare productivity of the different varieties. I just can't seem to locate small ones that could be adapted to 1/8 inch tubing.

One could even calculate "gallons of water used per pound of tomatoes harvested" type of metric. I would think U.C. Davis would be interested in this data, as commercial farmers could benefit on plant selection vs. water usage. It would also be interesting to track the gallonage used per week over the total growing Season and draw out the bell-curve over the life of the plants. Fun stuff.

Paul, sounds like you are fortunate to have an industrious wife!! My wife would NEVER think of attempting to construct EarthTainers. While the EarthTainer doe not solve all of the work in vegetable gardening, it does simplify weeding, fertilization, pest control, etc. so I can "work" the EarthTainer farm from here:

{{gwi:5497}}

Raybo

Thanks to Ray's leadership and research, my second-year Earthtainers are doing splendid despite a very rainy early May in Central Kentucky (and now a very dry 2 weeks without any).

Ray, those Goosecreek and NARX seeds have produced beautiful plants so far. One Goosecreek has 13 tomatoes on it and I'm a month behind you. I am amazed by one of the potato-leaf NARX.. check this out: {{gwi:39851}}From 060110

I've NEVER seen a tomato leaf so huge!!!

In this drought or whatever is going on for my city (rain is spotty here) the thought of measuring water intake daily occurred to me too. I can tell you in 24 hours the ET with the largest Goosecreek plants took a whole 2 gallons to top off while the others needed a gallon to a gallon and a half from 24 hours after the previous top-fill. I need to get that app for the iPad for spreadsheets to easily start logging in water use data daily.

Ben,

Astounding looking plants you are growing!!!

What fertilizer type and application are you using?

You are going to need the AWS system next year, I think.

Raybo

Raybo I have measured the output from one gallon per hour emitters and found them to be very accurate. With the time being known, the amount of water dispensed would be easy to calculate. My second EarthTainer, (not yet planted due to first planting being pulled out by unknown critter)I built in a float system, but have not connected it as yet. Scent from melon seemed to attract some animal. Next planting will incorporate a wire screen. I will keep a record of tomato EarthTainer's water use along with photo plant size and weight of tomatoes produced. Sounds interesting. Al

Thanks Ray, I'll take a pic of my mini 'farm' of Earthtainers so you can see how they look as a group.

I believe that one has a 50/50 OLD/New Tomato-Tone mix strip plus 1 cup of worm casts per tomato plant. I have not added any additional fertilizer since I set these out in late April. I plan to start adding some soluble fertilizer into the containers, but haven't figured out when to start on that.

I do get a good work out lifting buckets of water. Unfortunately the rain barrels can't be any closer. Our city water is overly chlorinated, so the rain water is the best thing for the Earthtainers. If I could figure out how to use the barrels in some kind of siphoning system of tubes with float valves and the cost wasn't great I'd do that.

Calistoga,

Good work! Keep us posted on your water usage.

Ben,

Here is a link to a YouTube video where two boys developed a self-watering siphon system for buckets. You would need to keep all of your 'Tainers on the same level for this to work, but it is something interesting (and simple) for you to consider using your rainwater.

http://www.globalbuckets.org/

Raybo

What beautiful plants in your farm. Why do you cut the tops off your tomatoes? Should I do that? I had to stand on a ladder to tie them to a bamboo pole--the wire things I bought at Lowe's were too short. I do believe there are blooms close to the top now. Is it too late to trim them, and is it better?

Thanks,
Jeane

Raybo,
Now that is last pic is my idea of gardening. Also the wife is a keeper. Thanks for your help!!

Ray, that watering system is genius! Thanks! I might be able to bury a hose from the rain barrels and come under the fence to a caching 'tainer to then distribute the water.. just hope the pressure down and then back up a bit will be enough to help keep that caching tainer filled. It should because the rain barrels are as high as 2 cinder blocks whereas my ETs are about 3/4ths of a cinder block high. They are all relatively at the same height.

I made a skirt for the front of my Earthtainers to block the sun and give a nicer look. It's $23 for a roll of this reed fencing at Home Depot. I used 4 t-posts @ $2.25 each and some wire I found somewhere to attach it to the posts. I used a pair of shears that you'd trim bushes with to cut the reef fencing. Easy {{gwi:39853}}From 060410

Ben,

Hats off to those Global Bucket kids. Nice to see teenagers making a contribution to mankind.

Their system should work OK for you, as your rainbarrel is higher than the 'Tainer "Farm". Water won't rush in, but should equalize nicely.

Good to see green from bottom to top this year. I recall you (and I) had a lot of yellowing on the bottom leaves this time last Season. So I can try to duplicate your grow media formula, can you confirm the components you used, and how you blended them? I think you make your own worm castings box, so I'll need to find a suitable worm castings commercial product to try.

thanks,

Raybo

Yeah those kids are smart as hell! I plan to get the tubing to make it happen just as they show in their videos. Not all teens sit around playing video games and texting I guess. ;) I grew up on a real farm and texting wasn't invented yet (and cell phones were too pricey for any farm kid to own). I just had video games, but they always took a back seat to school and working for my family.

Yup.. we both shared "The Yellowing" of our plants. So far so good with adding that sifted pine bark and more perlite. I cannot remember the initial proportion of peat to vermiculite to perlite that I used for my base soil medium, but I remember it was said the proportion that Miracle Gro uses in their non Moisture-control. The only reason I made my own (which was a lot of work) was because I had 5 Earthtainers to fill and it was cheaper in the long run and I didn't mind getting my hands dirty. I mixed this in the 3:2:1 ratio (soil medium:pine bark:more perlite) for this year's mix.

Anyhow you're probably asking about the fertilizer mixes, so for that I used 1 measuring cup of OLD Tomato-Tone + 1 cup of NEW Tomato-Tone for the fertilizer strip (in a 30ga ET). I blended those together and laid the strip. Then for EACH tomato hole I put in approximately 1 cup of my homebrew worm casts. My worm bins are very simple. Take two 5-gallon buckets, drill 3/8" holes randomly through the bottom of one bucket (50 holes or something). Fill this bucket with shredded paper (junk mail, paper bags from fast food and credit card offers are what I use). You will want to moisten the paper and squeeze the water out like a sponge, so it is just damp. This is the worm bedding. Add this and then next add worms and organic matter like banana peels (primarily my worm's major source of material). I use red wiggler worms provided by a class I took a few years ago at UK. Put this bucket inside the other bucket which will serve as the outer bucket to catch whatever drips from the worm's activity above. I use that worm leechate on my Blueberry bushes. Also get a lid for the worm bucket bin. The worms get enough oxygen by lifting the lid every now and then to toss in more organic waste for them to work the bacteria off of. I've gone weeks without lifting the lid.
The hardest part of the worm bin is collecting the casts 6-8 months later. I can describe that process if you want.

Here's what my bins look like: {{gwi:8195}}From 050509

Harvesting: {{gwi:39855}}From 022810

{{gwi:39858}}From 022810

Ut oh Ray.. look what happened overnight to the Earthtainer with the largest Goosecreek tomato plants!
{{gwi:39860}}From 061310

Disheartening! :(
I suspect fulsarium wilt. I have been having a fungal problem with the fruit trees and most recently the roses right next to them on the other side of the yard. We have had sudden and sporatic torrential downpours these last several days (after no rain since the beginning of May). I sprayed copper on the plants affected this afternoon, but the booming I am hearing behind me as I type this indicates more down-pouring of rain. Earthtainer #1 may just have casualties this year.

Should I wait and see if there is any recovery? This ET is not perfectly level.. the back side has sunk a little. Just not sure what is going on.

Can you lift up the lid enough to get your hand underneath the cover and take out a big handful of potting mix and squeeze it.

Is it overly wet?

That plant could be drowning. If the unit is tilted, part of your soil bench could be below the water line. I'd empty out the reservoir ASAP.