You must have found some good landscape fabric. Being constantly wet and holding up the soil mix would be more than the brand I use could take, I think.

Hi Granny, well yes, I did get the good stuff, but if you were concerned, you could just double it up, it is not very expensive, about 10 cents a square foot. Also, if you looked at the pictures, you will see that it is supported not only by the dozen large head screws around the rim, the modified cover gives a 100% grab above. The weight of 3/4 cubuc foot quantity of the lightweight potting mix even wet is quite small because it allows any excess moisture to pass through if it gets rained on. You could elect to use a plastic mulch cover to avoid rain intrusion. Are you intrested in trying out the design? Thank you for your intresting observations. chuck

Interesting, I'll wait to see the test results and maybe try that for next season.

grb1

Hmmm. . . I have quite a few extra seedlings. This is the first year that I was going to try Josh's HM earthbox. Maybe I'll try a few using your method Chuck. Will post results once I get them transplanted. At the very least, I'll be able to compare the two variations.
Thanks for sharing.

I like this project very much and had already found your site. I also shared the link with others. I have a friend who has lots of 5 gallon buckets that is going to try a modified version since it would be free for her to at least try, I have the landscape fabric. Thanks for the great idea.

Maybe I am missing something, but is the ENTIRE area of the landscape cloth at the bottom, submerged under water? If so, this is far too large a wicking surface and the plants will likely drown in a few weeks. Also, as the plants would load up with tomatoes during the season, won't the newly added weight (plus the weight of the water saturated potting mix) eventually rip through the landscape fabric?

You had said the container cost was $4.00. I would really advise to use Josho's EB design method in buying the extra $4.00 container and cutting it off to form a rigid Aeration Bench. That, along with a wicking basket which would provide no more than 25 sq. inch of orifice area will work, with far happier results. My own experience comes from building 26 EarthTainers along Josho's general design, but having to cut way back on the wicking orifice as the tomato plants were simply getting too wet.

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I applaud your effort to get as low a cost bill of materials as possible, but I would hate to see all of your plants die on you in a few months due to over saturation of water. Maybe you could even line most of the landscape cloth with a plastic garbage bag, with the center (bottom) of the bag cut out with a 6 inch diameter hole and place that over the middle of the landscape cloth to limit the wicking surface area.

Raybo

Raybo, yea, you missed the whole point. Over-kill on projects is ok, but for me the kiss method has been working fine for me. The transfere rate from resivoire to plant is very different when using a membrane such as the ground cloth. Support for plants need not be an intrigal part of the grower. Relax a little my friend. You will soon know how your dire pradictions turn out. I am not saying the design I offered is superior to any other, but it is less expensive and does work just fine if the immersion of the liner is limited to two to three inches as stated in the construction notes. BTW, the plants are doing just fine. I will poost new pictures on the link below every week or so. Thanks for the encouragement. chuck

Here is a link that might be useful: questionable grower design

Chuck,

Your method is very cost effective, and I like it very much. I was just trying to convey my personal experience that my original wicking area was too large (75 sq. inches) and I had to empty out each EarthTainer, and cover over half of the wicking area. Wish someone had cautioned me about that before I built the darn things. I lost many plants to rot, but the time delay in getting healthy new plants going (again) was the real killer.

Hope your design works well, as next year I want to add some peppers, etc. that do not require staking.

Raybo

I'm curious about a couple of things.

Basically you have a bag of soil with a permeable covering sitting in a bucket of water, right? Why don't you get root rot?

Maybe I just don't get the application of the concept of capillary action as used in these earthboxes. How do you figure out how many square inches of soil needs to be in direct contact with water to get adequate moisture into the soil without waterlogging the whole thing?

One may ask, what causes root rot? Also one may ask, how do plants with roots completly submerged in water survive and prosper in hydroponic systems? Oxygen, or. the lack of oxygen in standing water will sufficate the roots. Also. the fabric was designed for what purpose?, to block plant growth, including roots for landscaping purposes. The fact is, that some roots, but very few make their way through the landscape fabric. Next. consider the various ways that ponds are aireated. The way I fill the lower resivoire is with a hose with water under pressure through a nozzle. I eliminated the fill pipe that runs down to the bottom of the tank after the first three units were built and now use a 1 3/4 inch hole to function as both the fill hole and the overflow hole. The bag is not flat on the bottom. In the construction details, I tried to describe the shape as a VEE shape where the portion in the water is only a small fraction of the overall volume. The action of the water rising up through the fabric will also pull some air (oxygen) up with it as it rises. I must confess here that I have been growing for the past 8 years using mostly hydroponic methodes, so my fear, or reluctance to allow roots to be in contact with water is perhaps less restrained than most. If in fact a few small roots manage to squeeze through the landscape fabric, they are only a very tiny percentage of the main root structure that fills the rest of the bag. I have taken some pictures today of the progress of the plants growing in these cheap grow boxes. They are intended to only last a few seasons. When I posted the details of this expirement on the EARTH BOX website, it was as though I was the AXE murderer from hell. People were absolutly furious with me. Oh well, this idea is for people like me who after buying gas don't have much money left for fresh veges, much less $50 dollar growers. Finally, I would just say that the ratio of the bag that is in contact with the water to the rest of the bag is probably less than 10%, and that I never go more than 2 days without refilling, making sure that I create plenty of turbulance to charge the water as much as possible with air (oxygen). I hope that you will continue to investigate new (different) ways to grow. I have several more easy to make systems for those with an urge to expirence unique cost saving growing activities. I would request that you email me direct because for the most part, people are not too intrested in emergency food growing until they are a part of the emergency them selves, and I don't want to waste their time here. chuck

Here is a link that might be useful: new pictures as of may 22, 2008

chuck,

I'm not above experimenting myself. Right now I'm trying to understand the concepts and their varieties of application when putting a box together. Some of the stuff I've seen reminds me of the rigging on a sailboat, not a simple structure utilizing capillary action.

I've got a bunch of those clear Sterlite boxes and plastic coffee cans I'm hoping to figure out how to use to make a self-watering system out of.

I got that book, Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers, in front of me. On page 135 their is a picture of him dumping out the box at the end of the growing season. I found it interesting that one hell of a lot of roots grew into the space occupied by the water underneath the growing medium, enough to almost fill the space where the water was.

Hi Hank, if I can help you, I will. I think that to go further and deeper, it might be better to communicate direct rather than through the gardenweb forum. If you agree, my email address is posted on my website. chuck

Here is a link that might be useful: my website