Hello Sandy!

I LOVE mine! They take normal black dirt/compost - absolutely nothing fancy, just good soil! They take a really basic granulated fertilizer (10-10-10 I believe) and if you do tomatoes you need to add extra lime to help prevent blossom end rot. That's it! Totally basic. It's worth getting the big bag of cheapo granulated fertilizer, it takes a strip either down one side or in the middle of the box @ 2 cups/box, and lime is 1 cup/box I believe. They come with a cover so once it's all put together you put on the cover, cut holes through it and plant right into the holes. Then that cover stays on all season and you just water each day through the watering tube! So simple! I plant out my pole beans in mid April as seeds planted straight into the box. The tomato and pepper starts go out on Mother's Day - sometimes they need a bit of protection not from cold but from excessive spring rains - we toss clear plastic over their trellis frames (my husband made them but I understand you can buy them to go with now) to keep the heavy rain off.

-Marie

What are Earth boxes?

Jenny P

Jenny P - Look them up on Google or your favorite search engine. It's a wonderful way of gardening in restricted space and with water issues!

-Marie

Marie - do you companion plant in your earth boxes? If so, what do you mix?

Sandy

I haven't but I understand you can - there's really no need as they get no ground pests and airborne ones are a lot easier to deal with :)

Have you checked their website? I know there's a lot of info there. I'm pretty sure if you did it you'd have to pick things that had the exact same fertilizer location requirement. For instance - tomatoes - you put two in the box with a strip of fertilizer down the opposite (long) side, but beans or peppers - the strip of fertilizer goes down the center. I try one new thing every year, year before last it was popcorn (worked GREAT! though you have to make a soft supportive cage so it doesn't tip), last year Charentes melons (doing those again this year, we have A-frames for them to grow up over), and this year it's broccoli since I haven't gotten enough the past couple years from the CSA to freeze for the winter. Peppers do GREAT and I also do pole beans (again with an 8 foot A-frame my husband built) plus I get State Fair ribbon winning tomatoes from them *GRIN*.

Does that help at all?

-Marie

Marie -
Yes it does. I have been on several websites, saw one guy that did a cuke (that only trailed 2-3 feet) with his tomatoes. I was thinking too many items in a box would suck the nutrients out too fast too. I want to try toms and peppers. I want to grow to many things this year and don't have the garden space to accomdate all my wants, so thought earth boxes might be a way to go to get more veggie garden space. I can't remember - how many do you have? Any pics of them in production??

I have warned John that his carpentry talents would be needed to make supports so I should be covered there.

Sandy

Hmmm . . . companion plants . . . .
You could use radishes and leaf lettuce with your tomatoes or peppers. By the time you hot weather plants get going, your cold weather crops will be done.

I was doing the google search, like Marie suggested, and happened to come across a gw forum entry that pointed to this website featuring a homemade version of earthbox. So far cost has seemed prohibitive to me so this caught my eye. I've never seen the real earth boxes up close, so don't know how close this guy came to reproducing the real thing, but thought I'd add the link to the mix.

Here is a link that might be useful: Homemade Earth Boxes

Those are "close" but not quite the same - though they look like they'd work well.

Sandy, toms and peppers can't be grown in the same Earth Box because they are laid out differently - you can put 2 tomatoes in a box, and (for real!) 8 peppers!

Actually, because none of the fertilizer is washing away because of the cover, you don't loose nutrients and therefore can plant VERY tightly! I plant 12 pole beans in one box, you can get 8 peppers, 2 eggplant, 2 toms, and (I've done it and it works!) 16 corn plants!

The nice thing about planting like broccoli or lettuce is that the box can be dragged (or I guess rolled now if you get the wheels) to cooler locations - works to get stuff out of the wind too if you need to - had to do that with the corn, so it extends your growing time. The thing I find most fun is I can try different varieties at one time - my peppers this year: 2 (something or other) Blush, 1 Cal Wonder orange, 1 Corno de Toro, 1 Marconi, and 1 Candente. Gives me great production at variable times and all different colors and shapes! Pictures... hmmm... yes... somewhere... when I find them I'll make a link here for you!

-Marie

Here we go! First one is the pole beans, second is the Charentes Melons (4 or 5 plants... can't remember) with the tomatoes and beyond them down the drive the peppers:

The tomatoes cover those frames by the end of the season - as did the melons and I got PERFECT melons too YUM!!

-Marie

Marie - Thanks for the pics. I really like the pole bean one, must be at least 10ft high!!

Glad to hear you do up to 8 peppers. I have gotten a lot of different pepper seeds to grow, so the earth box is the way to go for a lot of them, as well as some toms.

I think I will also try Rick's suggestion of some cool weather crops with the toms.

The gardening bug is really biting!!!

How well did your regular pots/containers do that are in the picture compared to the earth boxes?

Sandy

Black cherry tomatoes did great, but the others sorta 'eh... just not as vigorous. Herbs were lovely though.

I'm still amazed by my melons - those were a phenomenal use of the boxes!

-Marie