Container gardening

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Jim62

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Anybody doing any container gardening? Particularly using those protein and mineral tubs as containers?

We've got 10 or 12 of them, and are thinking about trying them for planters. Never have seen them recommended--wonder if there's a reason for that.
 
Yes. I've used them, as well as plain old 5 gallon buckets to plant flowers, as well as things like tomatoes. I don't like to punch holes in the bottom of the tubs(they make excellent water tubs in the non-growing season), so I just put 2-3 inches of gravel in the bottom before I plant. That gives the excess water somewhere to go and helps prevent root rot. Good luck with your container garden!
 
i'm planning to use some for that purpose, however right now they are being used as winter covers.
 
I don't see why you couldn't use them! I am stuck in a trailer park while I'm going to college and do most of my gardening in 5 gallon buckets-works pretty well, I get some aged manure from home and some garden soil from my grandfather's garden and fill them half and half.
 
Sounds like a plan. I was wondering why nobody suggests using them. Probably because the only ones that have them are cow people, and we have plenty of them. One company used to charge a deposit for them ($6.00) but that didn't last but about 6 months. They said the problem was the kids stealing them out of pastures for the money. So now we have empties........
 
If anyone needs some let me know I will send ya some you just gotta pay the freight :lol:

Wife is gonna use some this yr
with just me and her it is kinda useless us putting out a big garden and besides I have 2 neighbors that have huge gardens and we get all we want from them
so she is just planting a few maters, and then she also is gonna plant flowers in them by our entry way
 
If you do poke a hole in it,use a coffee filter to cover the hole..that prevents the soil from running out..
 
peg4x4":3qkma72d said:
If you do poke a hole in it,use a coffee filter to cover the hole..that prevents the soil from running out..

A small flat rock works better - it won't decompose like a coffee filter will.
 
Well, time for an update on the protein tub gardening effort. Got the holes drilled in the bottoms of the tubs for drainage. Put a couple of inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage, and filled them with "composted garden soil" from the local nursery. Planted some tomatos, squash, cucumbers, and a few okras just for grins. All the plants came from another local nursery, and looked like good plants. Everything has been planted in the tubs now for 3 or 4 weeks. The squash, cucumbers, and okra is still alive, but has not made any progress as far as growing bigger. The tomatos have been totally dead for about a week now, but they, too, had made no progress as to growth. Even tried a little shot of miracle grow, which had no effect at all.

So, I think I can safely say, it didn't work. Back to the drawing board.
 
Jim62":1675m20a said:
Well, time for an update on the protein tub gardening effort. Got the holes drilled in the bottoms of the tubs for drainage. Put a couple of inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage, and filled them with "composted garden soil" from the local nursery. Planted some tomatos, squash, cucumbers, and a few okras just for grins. All the plants came from another local nursery, and looked like good plants. Everything has been planted in the tubs now for 3 or 4 weeks. The squash, cucumbers, and okra is still alive, but has not made any progress as far as growing bigger. The tomatos have been totally dead for about a week now, but they, too, had made no progress as to growth. Even tried a little shot of miracle grow, which had no effect at all.

So, I think I can safely say, it didn't work. Back to the drawing board.

Jim, I'm going to say your biggest problem is probably the "composted garden soil". Most of that stuff is just ground up brush, bark, trash and sawdust with a bit of blow sand. Now if you set them to the side and throw a few hand full of fertilizer in them and let them compost till next year you will have a better chance. Finding a spot where you can get some real earth to mix in will help too. Better luck next time.

This first pot is a year older than the next.

View attachment 1



The tomatoes are the same variety and came out of the same six-pack so their is no difference their.
 
Gonna try mixing in a little horse manure and see if that helps. In any case, it's plentiful around here and cheap. :cowboy:
 
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These are some of my containers. I use a drip irrigation with the timer pictured. I have it set to run twice a day for 30 minutes. I only use potting soil in my pots. I buy the 2 cubic foot bags which are cheaper than the smaller bags. I also mix some osmocote fertilizer in before planting. I also put calcium nitrate fertilizer on the tomato plants when they start to make to help prevent blossum end rot.
 
Jim62":1jl5w3s4 said:
Well, time for an update on the protein tub gardening effort. Got the holes drilled in the bottoms of the tubs for drainage. Put a couple of inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage, and filled them with "composted garden soil" from the local nursery. Planted some tomatos, squash, cucumbers, and a few okras just for grins. All the plants came from another local nursery, and looked like good plants. Everything has been planted in the tubs now for 3 or 4 weeks. The squash, cucumbers, and okra is still alive, but has not made any progress as far as growing bigger. The tomatos have been totally dead for about a week now, but they, too, had made no progress as to growth. Even tried a little shot of miracle grow, which had no effect at all.

So, I think I can safely say, it didn't work. Back to the drawing board.

How many plants did you put in each tub? I usually just use plain old dirt, mixed with some kind of manure.
 
Two tomatos per tub, four cucumbers and squash, with the idea of moving two to new tubs when time permits, assuming they look like they'll survive. Everything (except the tomatos) is looking better now, with the addition of a little horse manure and a handful of 16-16-16.
 
Jim62":3jo781z3 said:
Two tomatos per tub, four cucumbers and squash, with the idea of moving two to new tubs when time permits, assuming they look like they'll survive. Everything (except the tomatos) is looking better now, with the addition of a little horse manure and a handful of 16-16-16.

I am unclear on whether your cucumbers and squash are in the same tub, and I could be wrong here, but I believe that squash will cross-pollinate(I think that is the term?) with cucumbers if planted close together. Maybe they have solved that problem, and I'm just not aware of it - it's been a lot of years since I had a full garden.
 
Well, time for an update on the protein tub gardening effort. Got the holes drilled in the bottoms of the tubs for drainage. Put a couple of inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage, and filled them with "composted garden soil" from the local nursery. Planted some tomatos, squash, cucumbers, and a few okras just for grins. All the plants came from another local nursery, and looked like good plants. Everything has been planted in the tubs now for 3 or 4 weeks. The squash, cucumbers, and okra is still alive, but has not made any progress as far as growing bigger. The tomatos have been totally dead for about a week now, but they, too, had made no progress as to growth. Even tried a little shot of miracle grow, which had no effect at all.

So, I think I can safely say, it didn't work. Back to the drawing board.
I have been container gardening for about five years. And each year my garden gets bigger and bigger:) I utilize the containers with mental around them (the one that transport oil or other liquids) cut in half and placed on pallet is awesome. This year I have 27 molasses tubs going omg - I'm getting addicted as well as a rubber horse trough that started cracking. I use left over fencing (cattle panel or horse fencing wire) to build ladders and so forth for my cucumbers, beans and peas. I also use the wire to build supports for my tomatoes (3 kinds) and let's not forget I did miniature cross fencing to enable my squash and zucchini to be elevated and off the ground.

I use old hay from round bales, old cow poop, sand / dirt from our area and them add container grade soil. This year I have corn, peas, beans (both vine and bush), three varieties of cucumbers, okra, squash, zucchini, five types of peppers, three types of tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, Brussels sprouts as well as a dilapidated wheelbarrow for my herbs.

Don't know what I'm doing right or wrong, but I'd love to help. I'm in Texas zone 8.
 
A couple of years ago I was on a hike up in the mountains and noticed a bunch of old stock tanks around one of the springs, empty and just sitting there. I found out who had cattle in the area and bought several of them. Green, steel, 12X3 maybe wider, and about twenty inches deep. I put them on railroad ties to raise them off the ground and filled them with about five kinds of bagged commercial soils, compost, and mulch.

I've done raised beds/containers for a few years and the trick is to get the soil biome to start percolating. If you don't have live soil, bacteria and such in it, it won't grow anything decently. I dig a bunch of earthworms and add them in and they usually die pretty quickly the first couple of years, but they add healthy micro-life. When you can dig up the live worms in a container you know you have a good growing medium.
 
I always heard it helped to bury a dead chicken in your container and it would very soon have all kinds of "bacteria and such" percolating about in it.
(as opposed to burying a live one)

(Of course, I heard the same thing from the man that installed my aerobic waste water system. "Throw an old dead chicken, feathers and all into the solids tank and it will be working perfect in no time" )
 

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