More of a bump here, but...
I have my first fruitset!!!
A little teeny tiny BB sized fruit on my sungold :)

I built 4 EarthTainers for a friend of mine who lives in a condo in Los Altos. No space in the yard to set them up, so we put them on a concrete ledge facing the Sun on April 17:

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Four days later, they seem to be taking off:

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He is planting Snow Peas in the fourth one. Loading them up with potting mix was a real challenge as the ledge is 6 feet above ground level. But sunny space in California is always at a premium.

Raybo

Nice Ray, you are a machine!

A few of my Tainer toms are getting leaf curl. I used the new version of Tomato Tome and used the recommended by Raybo amount of Actinovate. The plants where transplanted as 4 inch seedlings on 3/30.

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Is the leaf curl going to wipe out my plants?

whipsnade,

What size wicking basket did you use? Also, what is all that white residue around the base of the 'Tainers on the concrete? I like your use of the sun-shade on them!!

Raybo

Raybo, the white stuff is just the dry concrete. The rest of it is wet.
The wicker was a roll that was 6'x16'. I cut it into pieces that were around 18"x6' and wrapped it around 3 sides of each Tainer. The north facing side has a rubber bungee type cord holding it together. I was worried that it might let in to much sunlight so I cut another piece 30"x20" and put it cross ways on the south side. I bought the roll from Home Depot for around $27. It fit the 5 tainers just right and there is enough left that you could make it work for another one although you would have to be a little creative with the last one

I finished EarthTainer® #5 and added mulch Friday, as Raybo suggested. They are looking pretty snazzy now. I have some leftover stockade fence, but not sure if I have enough to go all along the front of my 5 ETs. I attached the cages with the wire rope clamps to the mounting spikes. The system is extremely sturdy with extra length to boot! Since the larger tomato cages are hard to find in these parts I'm thankful for the extra length by using the threaded rods. I'm hopeful I won't need to find a supplementary method to increase cage height. Time will tell. I'll comment that the job of building an EarthTainer is considerably longer if you do it this way. You can buy a 72" threaded rod for $2.99 at Lowes, but you have to make 3 cuts in each one, then mess with the quarter-inch nuts to fit on the cut pieces, then cut the wooden blocks and round them off to screw into the bottom for extra support at the bottom of the ET and then lots of screwing the bits together onto the aeration bench. I think there is some savings by not needing as many wire rope clamps if you do threaded rods for attachable support.

I've already got an Early Girl Hybrid tomato forming too!

Score! I found old Tomato-Tone at a Southern States location that has not been remodeled like the one in my immediate vicinity and they still had 7 bags of the old stuff (and the new stuff too). The cashier didn't know what I was talking about with the formulation change, but as soon as I pointed it out, he said he could see why I was buying all they had of the old stuff. Unfortunately I am ET'd out with what I built and don't have the necessary spouse approval to build another to test the old Tomato-Tone versus the new stuff and old Garden-Tone in the others. Wish I had found this old stuff weeks ago. Too late now. There's next year I guess.

Below are some tainers made from 27 gallon bins from Home Depot. They were much more solid than other bins like the rubbermaid ones and were $10.

I used anoter bin's inverted bottom on the first one with a doubled up glad food container (4" tall) for the wicking basket. As there weren't any Glamos cages, I decided to use cattle panel for trellises and ended up making subsequent ones using the cutout cover and 7 glad food containers with cables ties for the base. Approx $16 materials for each box. :) I'm not sure if doing this with a rubbermaid tainer would be sturdy enough. This setup was surprisingly sturdy but we'll see how they hold up for the end of the gardening season.

Nice Bleedenver! I just built two SWC with the exact same containers. I agree that they are nice, and the price can't be beat. I used the cut out from the lid to make the bench and 3" sections of 4" PVC (6 of them) to support it. So far so good. I love the shape of them too. Wider than the Rubbermaid.

Ben (my old friend),

How about selling me all those extra bags of "Old" Tomato-tone you have??

Better yet, I'll send you TWO bags of the "New" Tomato-tone for each bag of the "Old" Tomato-tone that you send me!!

...not a bad deal, eh?

Raybo

Lol Ray.. your discussion on the Tomato-Tone is what made me obsess about checking everywhere to find it in the first place (your photo showing the quantity of tomatoes helped). You dunno how many hardware\feed stores I hit looking for the old formula! I can't give it up now, especially after all the grief I put my wife through explaining why the old stuff was preferred over the new stuff we saw (I'd never hear the end of it). I hope you can understand. Tell ya what... there is one more of these stores in the next town over from where I work. I'll drive down next Saturday (they have crappy hours for the white collar worker) and scope it out (and clean them out if they have the goods). Your name is all over that location. Interestingly the bags I bought today.. some are really faded like they hung around a VERY long time. That's what I am hoping for at that last location I've not been to yet. I wish they had Sunday hours.. I'd check it out tomorrow if I could.

Thanks Structure,

I was wondering if anyone else was buying those containers for that. :) I was thinking about using 4" PVC to support the "bench" also but ended up using more of the glad containers which I was already using for the wicking basket.

How did you cut the cover? I ended up using a woodburning pen with a sharp tip then a razor since the plastic is so thick / stiff and uneven. I'm not sure how straight I could make a cut using my jigsaw on the uneven cover.

I had built a few simple smaller containers from Walmart also and they seem to be doing well also but I really liked the dimensions and stiffness of the 27 gal one from HD.

I ended up using Krylon "Fusion" spray paint on the exterior so that the black surface wouldn't absorb too much heat. This will also help with any UV degradation.

Hi Everyone;

Just a few photos taken today of my garden of earthtainers on wheels.

Wow big Alan looks great!!
By the looks of that one Tomato, I suspect you are winning that competition you are having with your neighbors?
Awsome!
When did you plant out again?

Big Alan,

You are going to have to trailer that thing down to the County Fair!!! You will surely win some awards with your "Garden-On-Wheels". I am really impressed.

Raybo

Bdobs and Raybo;

As far as the friendly contest I have (with my neighbors) completed part one as having the first vine ripened fruit. Part two is growing the largest plants which I am ahead on also. Pounds of fruit are not in the contest as no way to compete against ¼ acre plots.

Bdobs I did not keep track of exact date when I planted my transplants into the earthtainers but approx 45-50 days ago.

Also in the earthtainers are
1. corn
2. okra
3. snow peas
4. bell peppers
5. banana peppers
6. acorn squash
7. rosemary
8. dill
9. basil

10. chives
11. bush beans
12. Spinach (not doing well bolted to seed) will pull it out and replant something new.

As a first year Gardner overall I am quiet happy with the results of the earthtainer.

Big Alan

Hi guys. Here is an update on my Earthtainer "mini farm". Ray has the the patent on the "Farm" :)

All seem to be doing well even though we have had less than desirable weather as of late. Rained pretty hard yesterday and last night.
Here are some of my guys from this morning

Tomato patch on upper lawn. No fruitset, but blossoms. I think once it warms up they should start setting

Peppers are doing great. Cant see in the picture, but the Bells have lots of bud on them. My traditional bells never have this many buds this early.
Growth is far exceeding those in my Earthbox

Already a few sweet Banana peppers on this guy

SunGold and Big Beef. Sungold has three little Fruits, and 5 flower clusters of 12-15 each :)

Wild Boar farm varieties growing with first flower cluster popping

A big beef I just couldnt kill after I dug out of an Earthtainer for a Beauty King. Its doing alright

bdobs,

Looking good!!!

I just stuck 4 Yolo Peppers in an EarthBox to see what would happen to them this year (should have built an extra EarthTainer, from your report).

I would recommend you trim the branches touching the moisture barrier. I try to keep a good 4 to 6" pruned up from the surface, as it inhibits insects, as well as allowing better air circulation around the plant.

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Raybo

Good call, will do. Those lower branches and leaves dont look so hot anyways with curl and such.

I am now in the planning stages of building quite a large deck in my backyard. Never built a deck before, but how hard can it be :)

Have Ray draw up some plans and have a tomatofest. I see a multi level deck for your snowpeas, corn, tomatoes and pumpkins.

George

I guess I need to remove the lower branches too. Interestingly the old Garden Tone + worm castings are out-growing the new Tomato-Tone + worm castings. The EarthTainer all the way on the right in this photo and all the way to the left is fertilized with new Tomato-Tone + worm castings while the middle 3 ETs are Garden-Tone + worm castings. Notice that the Early Girl with the tomato (which was already there before it was transplanted into the ET) has lighter leaves.. sort of like what Raybo is also seeing with the new Tomato-Tone on his tomatoes.

I have not found time to construct a UV fence to block the sun from the front of the EarthTainers. Sunlight doesn't get into the backside til the sun is near dusk and it just shines though some small cracks and the closeness of each 'tainer should block the light from the sides of each container.

ben,

Looking good!! Unless the sun is beating against the sides of your 'Tainers for 6 hours or more, don't worry about a sun shield. Just remember to rotate them 180 degrees next season, and this will nearly double their useful life.

Raybo

bdobs, You have it down pat, as far as I can see. Keep up the good work. I am amazed at the growth you have. Mine are only about 10-12".

Gardening with love, Kiee

Hey Thanks Kiee!!
I think its going to be a very good year :) Thanks to Ray.

ew ew ew oh, I have three fruit set on one of my Cherokee Purps! OF course its the one I set out early in a WOW not in an Earthtainer. She doesnt look nearly as nice as the one in the 'Tainer, but FRUITSET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like to fish, so the saying can be coverted to gardening
FRUIT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ben, bdobs, big alan,

One thing I notice for those of you using the threaded rod "extensions", is that it looks like you have a good 24 to 30 inches of cage before the plant hits the first hoopset. In any kind of wind, etc. the plant stem could bend and snap off.

I would recommend running a thin piece of rope around the outer legs of each cage, one foot up from surface level, and again at half the distance from there to the first hoopset to contain the plant within. Wouldn't want to see any of your plants topple over as they are trying to grow up!!

Raybo

Raybo
Looking at Bens Pics, I most definetly agree. With my Target cages I dont have that worry as the lower hoop is really low. Not to mention thay all have eclipsed the first hoop :)

Raybo, Bdobs and other Friends

Crazy Alan (me) is going to try another experiment with vermicomposting. I have bought a worm farm bin through amazon.com to start raising my worms.

Here is a link to a web site about it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl9gY_SqyxM I was particularly interested in the fact that since the 1980Âs the level of vitamins and or minerals has drastically declined in our foods (they mention spinach) till now.

I would have never thought that I would be a green rights movement person until now I was of the opinion better life through chemistry 10-10-10 etcetera.

So today I went to a nearby horse farm and asked for their manure, the lady that owned the farm said ok take all you want. I said are you sure because when I went back to the manure piles most of it was years old and already composted in to dirt.

So this weekend I will be going there with my neighbor who owns a dump truck to scarf it up. Just guessing there is approximately 50-60 cubic yards of it.

So the trucking is free and the manure is free the only thing I have to do is give him half of it. (Country boy whom I was in friendly completion about the tomatoes)

I consider all of the people here on this thread to be my friends and if I can pass on any information that my be of use to them I hope I can.

Big Alan:
Great video of the "worm guy." The only thing I wonder is how come with so much scrap food there was no flies around the place?

Good luck with the horse manure!

Hi everyone:
Here is a quick update. I have made my modified version of Earthtainer. I'll post some pictures next week. I have 26 tomatoes planted so far and have three more to go.

The tomato plants are about 18" tall and many of them have flowered. I'm interested in your opinion about keeping or cutting the first blooms. With my in ground plants I cut the first booms to redirect the energy into roots. That seems to work. Should I do the same with ET tomatoes?

Here are some photos of my earthtainers.

I will have to tie some twine to create a new first hoop I guess. I just have not had a chance yet. The stems on my seedlings are ridiculously thick, so I have some insurance. The plants are almost at the first ring now anyway (especially the Brandywine and Brandyboy hybrid). There's definitely something to be said for using worm casts as part of your soil starter. I screen peat and add it to worm castings from my bins and finer vermiculite. I think I did a 4:1:1 ratio and it sure is potent. From seeds to seedlings in 3 days on the top of a hot water heater! Then the seedlings grew fast and strong before I transplanted them into sawed-off, re-used 32oz foam cups with 4 pencil poke holes in the bottom.

In addition to the Garden-Tone and new Tomato-Tone used in each EarthTainer, each planting hole also got a healthy scoop (about 1/8 cup) of worm castings. Big Alan's words do seem to coincide with my worm cast use observations. I am hoping for a variety of very flavorful tomato fruits. We shall see.

bdank.

Really nice looking lattice work on the housing. In looking at the sun exposure, you "could" cut the legs of the housing down to sit on the concrete, and still get plenty of sun. My concern is that your plants will surely grow to 7 ft. above the surface level and will hit your ceiling early in the season.

The vertical post spacing on my deck is much closer than yours, and they still get plenty of sun:

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Raybo

Raybo,
I had them down on the concrete, but the angle of the roof on my porch was blocking alot of the sun, they get more up high like that. I tested it out, and when I add the 2nd cage as an extender it still fits under my porch, so I think they'll have enough room to grow up. I'll probably need a step stool to pick from up there.

I am a bit concerned about the amount of sunlight they'll be getting. This area only receives about 6 hours. I know tomatoes need more than that, but there really is no where else for me to put them. I have read some posts from others who still had success with about 5 hours of sun. I'm hoping that I will be successful too. I can't wait until the day when we will own a home (about three years from now) and I can have an area to grow vegetables. This is top priority on my list when we start searching for a home.

I only get about 6 hours of sunlight on my tomato plants due to the forced proximity to my stockade fence in my tiny yard. They don't mature as fast as someone with a full day's length of sunlight, but they do grow and produce fine .. just not as fast as everyone else. I think this is why my plants are stretching so tall so quickly. They are trying to overtake the shadow cast by the fence because they automatically know if they can stretch higher, they will get that full sunlight longer.

Just wanted to note the 18ga Earthtainer I made with the lid cut with a tiny hole and cut like an X to allow the plant to slip through... this guy doesn't need nearly as much water added to the reservoir each day to top off the reservoir as the ones with the plastic mulch baggie tops. It makes sense since there's less external exposure to evaporation.. just transpiration out of the plant leaves. I built a 5-gallon bucket version of an EarthTainer last weekend and did the same lid cutout dealio and this one also isn't requiring as much water everyday to top it off. So far no cook-tainer, which is good, though it has been raining here on and off for many days and unseasonable cool. A 30-gallon ET with lid cutout for 2 plants would be much more difficult to use, but may not not impossible if you are careful getting the plants through the holes and lid down.

Also note-worthy.. the self-made potting mix is working great in my EarthTainers. It was much less expensive to buy peat, vermiculite and perlite individually and mix it myself. I used a 55-gallon drum with the top cut off as the mixing container. I used a small camp-sized shovel to mix it all around (7 parts peat, 2 parts perlite and 1 part vermiculite).

For every four+ 30-gallon ETs I saved around $20 if I had used Miracle Gro by making it myself. Water is wicking fine with the proportion of ingredients. The only thing missing are the little pellets of Miracle Gro fertilizer in their mix that last 3 months. That's ok, I am using Espoma products + worm castings. That should suffice.

Raybo

A couple of my plants are growing like banchees and I think I may need to prune out a couple of shoots.
Is this OK even though they are big? 1'3" long as as thick as one of my finger. Roughly 1/2" diameter.

make that 1 to 3 feet :)

Here are some pics from today. These guys are almost growing too well, reasoning for my above post

Absolutely love the Sungold, such a beautiful plant with cool fruit clusters
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Have fruitset on almost all plants now!

Now this thread will never load :)

Brian

Beautiful plants, Brian.

Brian,

I am on the East Coast on 28.8Kbps dial-up, and the thread took a full 10 minutes to load all the photos, etc.

I truly believe you are going to need cage extensions before the season is out!! At least another 6 feet of additional growth is my prediction.

I prune the bottom 6 to 8" of stems, etc. to provide better air circulation around the plant base. Also, you can snip the suckers if you like, but I generally let them grow. I am anxious to see my 'Tainer "Farm" when I return on Thursday.

Raybo

Some of my tainer plants are almost to the top of the 54" cages. They have been in the tainers since the 30th of Mar.
The growth rate is amazing. The only problem I have is there's no tomatoes yet. There are a number of flowers but not as many as the size of the plants would dictate. I used the new Tomato Tone and Actinovate. I'm starting to worry about the no tomato thing

Just built my first EarthTainer thanks to Ray and his design. I planted Cherokee Purple and Gold Medal. Look forward to seeing the results.

The only change I made was to add pieces of cloth to the overflow holes sealed with some plumbing sealant. These are to keep mosquitoes out. Hit the link for some pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Earthtainer

Question: would it be ok to add some Miracle Grow or Ironite to my earthtainers?

I've had a lot of leaf curl in one container and now some of the leaves on the Anna's Russian are showing dicoloration. I'm not sure its a mg deficiency, but that's the suggestion that keeps coming up. Thus the interest in using some water soluble mg fert.

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alistair,

Nice site. I have bookmarked it for future visits.

My only observation on the cloth patches over the overflow holes is that sometimes, larger particles of the potting mix that have floated into the water reservoir will clog the hole, and you need to take a small twig or shaft to unblock the opening to let the excess water out.

It would be good to find a "trap door" kind of flap that you could pry open a bit to insert the clearing stick. I have seen some folks glue a piece of plastic screen door material to the top of the piece, and this gives them a flexible flap.

Raybo

Drill a larger hole, like 1/2 inch, with the bottom elevation of the hole at the elevation you want for the water level, and rig a PVC tube with a flap valve to keep lizards (or diminutive Lizard Space Aliens) from crawling inside the reservoir.

..because we all have problems with Lizard Space Aliens crawling into our EarthTainers (secret incubation containers). hahaha love it!

Don't feed your EarthTainer after midnight!!

Hi all;
it has been a while since i posted last.All the plants are doing well and have to freeze the the ones i can not eat fresh. Since all who read this forum use computers i have been using windows 7.

It is so much faster than my xp computer it is almost like changing chanels on a tv surfing the web.

ps do not buy a computer with pre-loaded software as if have a problem you do you will have a very hard time, trying to reinstall all the programs with out the original CD's

My advice if you are considering an upgrade would be to buy your componets from newegg as they seem to have good prices and buy the best you can afford as computer hardware will be old in 2 years time.

My recomendation to you that have the know how, or find a computer geek is to build a system for you.

Windows 7 can be down loaded from microsoft

rather than put your xp or vista computer at risk i bought a kvm switch that allows me to switch between my xp system computer and my windows 7 computer

Big Alan, is there anything you can't do? Seriously! 'Tainers on wheels, all the modifications you've come up for them, and computer geekiness too? Good golly!