Growbags!

[sporky_rat]

Anyone have any good sources on creating growbags? I think I can handle winter sowing with old milk jugs (reuse, right?) but grow bags keep eluding me.

Comments

[elusiveat]

I believe my spouse has had moderate success growing potatoes in old potting soil bags. (Moderate, because the potatoes didn't survive to produce much, but I think that's more because potatoes are disease prone than because the soil bags weren't good as planters.)

[tielan]

Creating as in making them? (As compared to buying them?)

Or using them as in growing things in them? I keep trying to grow potatoes in grow-bags (emphasis on 'try') but I might have to give up and just start using the lawn...

[sporky_rat]

Making them and possibly growing in them, I seem to remember something by Ursula Vernon about grow bags and ...champas? Something like that. (My memory is swiss cheesy)

[tielan]

Hm. For better watering - or, at least, less frequent watering, I'd recommend wicking beds or self-watering pots. Or ollas (clay pot drippers).

I'm not sure about making growbags, I always seem to have plenty around - I think I got some when I ordered seed potatoes (although I've never had much luck growing potatoes in them). But using them for growing things? Yacon does really well. Potatoes...not so much for some reason.

My growbags are actually one of the least water-efficient things in my garden. They're pretty small (50cm diameter) so they warm really fast which means greater water evaporation from inside to outside. The holes in the bottom mean the water goes through and out straight away (I should really put them in shallow trays or something), and the wide open mouth tends to mean things evaporate really fast from the top, even with mulch on them.

[juliet]

what's the benefit for you of a growbag as against another form of container?

[sporky_rat]

Watering!

[juliet]

because they hold more water, you mean? Just wondering if some other form of container would achieve the same goals...

[prettyarbitrary]

So far I've been buying growbags, but this year I'm going to try making them out of landscaping fabric and stapling it into shape. (I may end up wishing I'd sewed them instead, but I'm lazy and I want to see if I can avoid having to haul my sewing machine out.) I got a big roll of landscaping fabric for wrapping my bushes with this winter (the poor things keep getting nibbled by squirrels), and I have plenty of it left. But it's not very heavy fabric so I might try doubling it up.

Anyway, I put my growbags in big old saucers/basins like these ones and then keep the saucers filled with water. The fabric and soil wick up the water without needing any help.