Hi kristy,

Here is a link that might be useful: Home made earthbox

kristy,

On my first follow up, it didn't print the whole message. Go to that link and then scroll down to the end. I think you'll find your answer.

grb1 :)

You can use fish emulsion when top watering, but I wouldn't put any into the reservoir directly. The reason is that the fish emulsion separates from the water and will never mix back in. You will just accumulate 'sludge' in the reservoir.

You can see this for yourself by taking a gallon milk jug or similar and adding an ounce of fish emulsion (or whatever mixing rate your product recommends) and let it sit for 24 hours.

kristy,

Disregard my previous two posts. justaguy is probably right. Upon further reading about bottom feeding in Earthboxes there was a concern about salt build up using tea compost or in your case, fish emulsion sludge. It works in hydroponics because the water can be flushed out. The reservoirs in the EB wasn't meant to be flushed.

Sorry for the bad info :(

grb1

I grow almost exclusively in EB. Right now I have 25 of them. Although I am only into my second year with EB I offer this bit of info. I plan to top water with LS/FE this 2008 season. I also plan to bottom feed with liquid seaweed during the hot summer months. I can do this during June/July/August because during that time my tomato and okra EBs require filling 2 or more times a day. As long as I flush the reservoir with high pressure hose end nozzle 2-3 times each month I will not have any sludge build-up. I know they are not meant to be flushed but then I like to experiment. I had to flush several of my boxes 2007 summer because they became a mosquito breeding pit (now I use dunks).

I say try it with one box and see how it goes. If you like the results use it for more boxes. IMHO

DL

The liquid seaweed appear to be highly soluble and not prone to settling or falling out of suspension. Is this accurate?

DL - I too am worried about mosquitos. Not to sound stupid but what are dunks?

I have only used fish+seaweed and fish alone so can't say about the seaweed only, but I wouldn't count on it not falling out of suspension. If you intend to use it anyway, why not just mix up a gallon and let it sit and see what happens? Then you know.

Mosquito dunks are usually Bt, a bacteria that kills the larvae (or the eggs, I forget). They are considered harmless to other wildlife including birds, plants, bees etc. They just prey on the mosquitos before they can emerge.

You can buy the bacteria, but most just buy the 'dunks' or pellets' and toss them in any standing water and forget about it.

I can report that the Maxicrop powdered seaweed concentrate does not fall out of suspension. I made some and absolutely no sign of any sort of sediment after 36 hours.

Kristy, I had two EB's last year and gave my plants a drink of Neptunes Harvest at the top of the soil where the stem comes out of the plastic covering. Since NH is also a foliar feeder I soaked all of the foliage on each plant during each feeding. Was I right or wrong doing this, I Dunno but I ate plenty of tomatoes. My only problem was I had lots of BER which usually goes away as the season progressed but mine didn't.

Foliar feeding of the FE/SW would be one excellent way around the settling in the bottom issue. Weekly or at most bi-weekly should keep most of your plants thriving. From using seaweed over 20 years now (liquid form) I can see adding it to the resevoir sporadically should pose no problems. I agree the fish emulsion would settle and be a problem except maybe during the 2 a day fillings which should agitate and help keep more of it in solution form.
Just a few thoughts.
Don't forget to consider the calcium for BER problems and consider dolomite or gypsum mixed in the media before planting will help minimize some part of this problem.

How to deal with feeding after fruit or veg is getting ready to harvest is a more a challenge I suspect. I don't care for fishy maters and so foliar at that point becomes problematic. Maybe this is where adding to resevoir makes more sense because the plants uptake will mean more frequent filling and more of the FE and SW kept in solution.
Just some quick thoughts before I get ready for work:)
Happy Growing David