Question: Is 'Neighbor beater" an actual tomato variety name? Never heard of it before, but I like the name.

I will let others who build their own review your plans, but nothing jumps out at me as being problematic.

One thing I have heard from those who build their own versus use the commercial units is that the containers sometimes degrade in the sun after 1-2 years and become brittle. I think your covering the boxes as you plan to is a good idea as it will keep some of the UV off the plastic.

Neighbor beater is a variety that is only available from a local grower here in Ohio according to the planting tag. Other than that I cannot tell you anything else about it except that they taste delicious and grow pretty big maters!

How would you do the fertilizer strip if you had 1 roma between two basil plants?

That's about the last thing I'm hung up on. Everything else seems pretty straight forward.

I don't think I need to add any Lime or Epsom Salts do I? I read some posts of people doing that in the tomato forum.

Pretty much everything I have read says herbs don't do well in SWCs. It seems that herbs need to go between waterings to develope full flavor. I don't know personally since this is my first time using SWCs. I am using some smaller ceramic containers I found on clearance in front of my homemade SWCs for my herbs.

Just arrange the fertilizer strip so it is as far away from the plants as you can reasonably make it. If you are going to have one 'row' in the box then visually divide the box into thirds lengthwise. Put the plants in one third and the fert strip in the third furthest from the planted one.

Pro Mix is peat based, right? If so it will already be limed, but even so those maters use a fair amount of calcium, that's why the lime is added. The Epsom salts are usually used for their magnesium, but the lime has that already so the salts would be redundant and unnecessary. Even with a pre-limed peat mix I would probably still add another 1/2 cup of lime or at least gypsum per 2 cubic foot of mix. The gypsum won't have any magnesium, but that's OK in this case. The gypsum won't raise pH the way lime will.

The EB people (the company) used to say to only add additional lime when growing tomatos and I questioned them on it twice. Never got a satisfactory answer, but I notice they updated their instructions and now require additional lime for all veggies.

What I am trying to say is I don't think your success or failure will depend on your adding additional lime or gypsum to a pre-limed mix, but I still would, particularly with any plant prone to calcium deficiency problems like tomatos are.

One comment on the quantity of fertilizer - - you indicated your plan to "add 3 cups". I think for an 18 gallon container that is overkill, and you risk shocking the plants with too much. I would add 1.5 to 2 cups max.

On the lime, while some say they don't use it and still get good results, my view is adding it can do no harm to a container based potting mix setup.

Raybo

Raybo-thanks for the tip on the fert.

limecoke-I think you've been misinformed. Herbs are grown hydroponically all the time with great results.

JAG-You've been very helpful. Thank you for your great information.

One comment on the quantity of fertilizer - - you indicated your plan to "add 3 cups". I think for an 18 gallon container that is overkill

Sure sounds like it, doesn't it? But consider the commercial earthbox is a 15 gallon container and the instructions they provide are to add 2 cups of synthetic or 3 cups of organic fertilizer on the surface.

justaguy,

My measurements might be wrong, but I thought it took a 2 cu. ft. bag of mix to fill the EarthBox Company's product. It took a full 3 cu. ft. bag to fill my 31 gallon EarthTainer (with a 6" high Aeration Bench). So, back of the envelope calculation would indicate the EarthBox is similar in size to an 18 gallon DYI earthbox for potting mix volume.

Remember that the water reservoir in the original product is much smaller than what folks use in building their own, hence more room for potting mix in their product. In any event, I would use no more than 2 cups, as Bingster does - - and look at the results he got last year!

Raybo

I thought it took a 2 cu. ft. bag of mix to fill the EarthBox Company's product.

Correct.

The way I am working the math is that there are 7.5 gallons to a cubic foot. It takes 1 2cu ft bag to fill the commercial EB (15 gallons). Of course, I am only including the potting mix area in the calculation, not the overall dimensions.

In the case of your 31 gallon design if it takes 3 cubic feet of soil to fill the growing area that would tell me you have about 22-23 or so gallons of growing area.

You are correct though that if the design is based off an 18 gallon container, the actual growing area might be well under 15 gallons depending on the size of the reservoir and other design factors.

As far as how much fert to use in the fert strip I am basing the amount off the commercial EB instructions which call for 2 cups of synthetic or 3 cups of organic. To be honest with you I always thought it was a waste of fertilizer to use that much since there is an inevitable portion of the fertilizer that gets tossed out at each replanting.

I talked to the EB people about that and their response was that most of it isn't fertilizer, just the filler material. I rather doubt that.

Anyway, lots of people are using the 2 or 3 cups in the 2 cubic foot growing area with good results so I don't think it would be at all harmful, but you might be correct that it is no better than a smaller amount.

Well..it looks like I won't be planting much tonight as we are expecting frost! Maybe in the next week Mother Nature will stop being such a fickle woman and I can plant my boxes!

I guess in a way I'm glad I waited to plant as now I can bring in my vegetables, but that would be difficult if they were in my boxes.

Anyone care to guess how much an 18 gallon DIY EB design weighs with water?

By my calcs (which were wrong in my initial post) 6" of space for water roughly 18"x20" area. That's over 9 gallons of water. At 8.33 lbs per gallon, the EB is going to have over 77 lbs of water weight plus water in the potting mix. So figure 85 lbs to be safe...guess I won't be elevating these off the ground too much! I'll have to support the bottom of the box better than I had planned. Maybe I'll just keep them on the ground and make the covers to fit over the boxes from the top. kind of like those old wooden tissue box covers we had to make in shop class for mother's day. It's an idea...time to think.

This is the design I was shooting for for the cover
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Although I can't offer much advice on the fertilizer and tomatoes since I am a newbie with gardening, but I love the idea of the design for the EB's! I would love to see it when your finished, I bet the lattice would be pretty..My concern with the big rubbermaid tubs was that I diddnt like the way they looked either, but to make a pretty frame around it would solve the problem! great thinking!

teesaz-Thank you for your vote of confidence. I think it's going to be easier on the eyes as well. Hopefully today I can get the boxes finished up and this weekend start on making the covers. If I do I'll be sure to get some pictures along the way for you.

jleiwig, how are your plants doing? I'd love to see pics of the lattice covers if you've done them. Though since it will be another year or two before we'd get around to it, there's no hurry!

I myself didn't get around to the lattice covers yet either.

My tomatoes are doing great! I have already given away about a dozen ripe ones, have a couple sitting on the counter, and have about 6 more ripening as we speak. I will try to remember to get pictures of the garden this afternoon.

3/4" ply will support without a problem - BUT it's all in how you actually attach that 3/4 inch play to your posts / pillar / supports.

I'm going mostly white buckets and some EB style SWCs. I am taking colored electrical table around the white buckets, and white tape around the colored containers. From a distance of more than 5 feet it looks pretty nice. Closer than that it is clear that it is tape, and imperfections in the taping show up.

That should help a *little* bit with the integrity of the boxes. It might also be possible to put weatherproof fabric, some decorative large plastic bags, or netting around them.

Alice

hi raybo, i live in the hot hot aride desert area of southeren ca. what i am going to due is build plywood
boxes 24x24x18 i will bury a 24 gallon rubermade tote
in the ground just deep enough so the lid is about 2
inches aboove the ground, what size of wicking pipe
should i use ?,, the outside of the boxes i will contact
cement 1" thick styrofoarm thanks raybo les matzek

We're on the third year of homemade tote grow boxes..I'd personally give your herbs a container of their own both for the sake of the tomatoes which are space hogs and herbs will do better with other herbs. I had basil in a tote the first year along with a couple of plants of oregano and marjoram. They did well especially the basil. I'd also add the lime for the tomatoes to help against BER. Prevention is better than losing your fruits. Our boxes have faded somewhat but they are holding up fine, they sat out in all types of Minnesota weather,all year long. No signs of wearing out yet. It might be different in your climate. We allow one tomato per container.