Hi folks,

I am hoping someone knowledgeable will be able to answer this
question. I am trying to grow a grape plant on my terrace one floor
above the ground to provide shade. I can't plant it down below because
the goats will whack it. So I am going to build a giant "flower pot"
out of bricks and cement on the terrace and fill it with earth and
compost and start from there to have it wend its way across the
trelisses I put up. My question is how much earth/soil do I need for a
viable plant? (expressed in cubic metres or yards)

The proposed size of the "flower pot" is 40cm X 40cm X 18Ocm giving
roughly 3 tenths of a cubic meter of soil area to root in. Would this
be enough to sustain the plant throughout its lifetime? presuming I'd
be feeding it from above with compost every year, as I would
ordinarily do in the garden...

thanks for reading this far,

eric

"eric" wrote in message
om...
Hi folks,

I am hoping someone knowledgeable will be able to answer this
question. I am trying to grow a grape plant on my terrace one floor
above the ground to provide shade. I can't plant it down below because
the goats will whack it. So I am going to build a giant "flower pot"
out of bricks and cement on the terrace and fill it with earth and
compost and start from there to have it wend its way across the
trelisses I put up. My question is how much earth/soil do I need for a
viable plant? (expressed in cubic metres or yards)

The proposed size of the "flower pot" is 40cm X 40cm X 18Ocm giving
roughly 3 tenths of a cubic meter of soil area to root in. Would this
be enough to sustain the plant throughout its lifetime? presuming I'd
be feeding it from above with compost every year, as I would
ordinarily do in the garden...

thanks for reading this far,

eric

You might want to check out this site for some ideas:

http://www.spraag.com/africusrex/page2.html

If you intend to keep the vine for several years then you need as large as
you can, with as much depth as you can get,
I would use a mix of peat compost(To reduce the weight on your terrace) and
soil (with water retention polymers added), and a good dressing of Hoof and
horn added to the compost mix.
Remember you don't want the vine drying out when you have grapes on it or
they will drop or split.
I have grown a vine for 6 years in a 2 gall pot but it was kept to no more
that 5 ft.

--
David Hill
Abacus nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk