Using pots/buckets instead of a ground garden

[pepper]

I might do a major downsize of my ground garden next year and just use pots, buckets and maybe the fabric bag things. This year I am using several big pots and buckets to grow some of my peppers and tomatoes. I was just reading on another thread here that someone is doing the same and their peppers are much larger in the buckets then the ones in the ground.
It just makes it all so much more simple. No weeds to constantly hoe out. Never have to worry about moisture level at the tap roots. No worry about having enough compost for a massive area, just enough for each bucket. End of season dump it out in the compost pile and next season fill them with fresh stuff, not an inch of it goes to waste without getting used by the plant. Stack them up in the fall and wash them out every spring to be used again. Anyway it's a thought. I'll see how they manage this grow season. I would still till up a garden for things like onions, cucumbers etc but I don't see a need to take up the space with everything.

 

[Chuck]

This year I planted squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a couple of okras in containers. The only thing I planted in the ground are corn, okra and green beans. I have 32 tomatoes, 9 cucumbers, 2 squash and 20 peppers all in either 10 gallon grow bags, 5 gallon grow bags, 5 gallon buckets and 2 gallon plastic containers. They are all growing with the Hugelculture method. EVERYTHING in the containers did great, either equal to or above inground production. I still have a lot of green tomatoes on the plants but they are fairly small and I will soon pull the determinates. I have taken cuttings from the indeterminates and as soon as they root I will put them into the containers the determinates were in and put them in the shade with the sweet peppers. My hot peppers love the heat but my sweet peppers are going downhill fast. The daytime temperatures have been 102+ for almost 2 weeks with one day at 108 by my thermometer. One interesting thing about the okra is that I planted the seeds in the containers at the exact same time as the 40 in the ground. They are 50% bigger. I planted 9 cucumber plants in 2 gallon plastic containers. Before the heat and mildew got them I pickled 49 pints of pickles. I pulled up the pickling cucumber plants and kept the single slicer cucumber. It is still producing although production has slowed greatly. I am erecting a 40% shade cloth to help keep the sweet peppers and tomato cuttings alive until it starts to cool off. This is my first year of growing this much stuff in containers and also the first year doing Hugelculture in pots but so far I am impressed. I have had no diseases except for powdery mildews on the squash and cucumbers but with the weather here this is to be expected. I always fight early blight on my tomatoes. Using the fabric pots I found it much easier to treat and maintain the plants. I grew so many squash I got tired of taking care of them and pulled and burned the plants. I grew the squash in 10 gallon fabric pots. They grew so big at first I thought that they would fall over but the containers are wide enough to prevent this, but once they grew down to the ground these worries stopped. All in all, I find growing in containers is a MUCH easier process and so far just as productive than growing in the ground.

 

[Meadowlark]

I might do a major downsize of my ground garden next year and just use pots, buckets and maybe the fabric bag things.

If you want to save on soil and make life significantly easier in container gardening, consider using the Hügelkultur container approach...see the thread:

An experiment in Hugelkulture in containers

I'm a little (lot) late to this fun party but @Meadowlark you're trying something like what I've done for several seasons now. I use this method to fill my raised beds but they also have an open bottom to native soil where your's are only highly perforated. The key though is they get better with...

www.gardening-forums.com

I first started this looking for a way to lighten large containers so I could easily move them around as well as lessen the amount of garden soil required to fill my containers. What I found was much more...a really superior way to garden.

As the referenced thread shows, I tested my approach on over 38 different veggies over a year and every single one of them was successful. In fact, I found certain types, such as leafy veggies, outperformed in ground planting as much as more than double.

Now, I'm working on methods of making the technique sustaining, even if you do not have access to superior garden soil to replenish the soil in the containers. It is my belief, which I'm in the process of proving or disproving, that the techniques of soil amending with compost, cover crops, rotation, and organic gardening can all be applied to Hügelkultur containers successfully completely sustaining without synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, and soil replacement.

I'm about halfway through the experiment on applying these techniques to HK containers using one single container that was completely depleted of vital nutrients by previous harvests. Here is my single tub getting a "hair-cut" on a cover crop which is replenishing the tired used soil by allowing the cover crop clippings to return to the soil.

In another couple of months, I will turn that cover crop totally back into the soil and then run a soil test. The soil test will show whether or not this can be done in this manner to achieve complete sustainability in HK containers.

If interested...stay tuned!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I have done buckets for my tomatoes this year and filled the bottom third with wood, a big saving on the manure compost mix I used. I thought I would be able to stand them in trays and get the wood drawing water up, but it doesn't work out and I have to water from the top, but they are doing well. I shall be interested to see what they are like when done. The first couple of buckets I filled early in the year I put broad beans in, they didn't do very well, and when they were emptied out I found the roots had gone straight to the bottom and round and round the bottom of the bucket under the wood. Broad beans definitely go in the ground next year, you have to try these things, but luckily we still have loads in the freezer from last year. I wonder how much the soil temperatures count, I often plant broad beans in September or October and they will happily grow through the winter snow, but tomatoes and peppers will enjoy the soil in the buckets which can warm from all sides, not just the top like the ground does even in the greenhouse.

 

[Meadowlark]

... The first couple of buckets I filled early in the year I put broad beans in, they didn't do very well, and when they were emptied out I found the roots had gone straight to the bottom and round and round the bottom of the bucket under the wood. ...

What was the size of the container you used?

 

[Chuck]

And what type/kind of wood? Twigs, small logs, half rotten? Was soil added or just 2/3 manure compost?

 

[Oliver Buckle]

It was oak, mostly new wood about 2inches diameter, we had just had the oak tree pruned, but I made sure there were a few dead bits in there as well. Then I worked chainsaw chipp[ngs down into the gaps; I had been chopping up the larger branches for firewood. (Yes, finally bought myself an electric chainsaw, too much for the old bowsaw even for me). Tbh I can't remember what the mix was, probably a bit of compost and manure added to spent soil from old pots and a bit of garden earth, I wouldn't have made it as rich as I do for the tomatoes. They were standard buckets, 12 litre, a local store has been selling them at a pound each and I bought a whole bunch. A one inch hole saw through the centre of the bottom and six no 8 drill holes around the edge. The only drawback is they are bright orange.

 

[pepper]

It was oak, mostly new wood about 2inches diameter, we had just had the oak tree pruned, but I made sure there were a few dead bits in there as well. Then I worked chainsaw chipp[ngs down into the gaps; I had been chopping up the larger branches for firewood. (Yes, finally bought myself an electric chainsaw, too much for the old bowsaw even for me). Tbh I can't remember what the mix was, probably a bit of compost and manure added to spent soil from old pots and a bit of garden earth, I wouldn't have made it as rich as I do for the tomatoes. They were standard buckets, 12 litre, a local store has been selling them at a pound each and I bought a whole bunch. A one inch hole saw through the centre of the bottom and six no 8 drill holes around the edge. The only drawback is they are bright orange.

Bright orange would probably attract pollinators so it's not so bad.

 

[Meadowlark]

...They were standard buckets, 12 litre, a local store has been selling them at a pound each and I bought a whole bunch. ...

Bingo...way too small/shallow. That's just over 3 gallons. The smallest I would even consider would be 5 gallons (18.9 litres). No way I would try to raise beans in that.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Bright orange would probably attract pollinators so it's not so bad.

The missus won't have them on the patio.

 

[pepper]

Bingo...way too small/shallow. That's just over 3 gallons. The smallest I would even consider would be 5 gallons (18.9 litres). No way I would try to raise beans in that.

For things like beans the plastic recycling bins would work good. It's amazing how many people toss them to the end of their driveway for anyone who wants them! Just got to wait until the big truck comes and takes away all the crap inside. But the right day you could get hundreds of them!

I am joking. But anything like that would be great in a row for stuff like beans.

 

[Meadowlark]

My containers are 25 gallons (94.6 litres) by comparison which are about 8 times larger than what Oliver used to try to grow beans.

They were originally used as cattle feed tubs which weighed over 200 pounds...thus the need to lighten up the load with Hügelkultur.

 

[pepper]

My containers are 25 gallons (94.6 litres) by comparison which are about 8 times larger than what Oliver used to try to grow beans.

They were originally used as cattle feed tubs which weighed over 200 pounds...thus the need to lighten up the load with Hügelkultur.

I understand. But keep in mind some people on here might have very small yards or areas to garden, maybe even in an apartment and growing on their balcony. Some people have limited space, some people live alone and only need to grow enough for themselves. People should use what works best for them and the amount of space for whatever they are growing to succeed.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

They were my first try and broad beans were about the only thing I could plant that time of year, impatience. Tomatoes are doing great in them.

 

[big rockpile]

Buckets with Bails help me I have Fiber Pots but try to move them I turn them over and everything comes out.