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tomatoes, tubs with no drainage
Just picked up my usual 5 growbags from local diy store and noticed they are
thinner, ie: less volume. So I went around my local farms and collected some vitamin tubs that the farmers use for feeding cattle, called "cow lick" or similar. They are pretty big and a single grow bag barely fills 2 of them. My question is do I need to drill holes in these tubs? My personal feeling is no because my grow bags usually dry up very quickly in the greenhouse and they need watering at least once a day - I have heating on at night too in the greenhouse. Seems a waste of a good tub to drill holes in it when it can be used for 101 other things. I was also thinking of adding something to the growbag contents to fatten it up. Would leaf mold be any good? --------------= Posted using GrabIt =---------------- ------= Binary Usenet downloading made easy =--------- -= Get GrabIt for free from http://www.shemes.com/ =- |
#2
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tomatoes, tubs with no drainage
Janet Baraclough writes
The message from "Dave" contains these words: Just picked up my usual 5 growbags from local diy store and noticed they are thinner, ie: less volume. So I went around my local farms and collected some vitamin tubs that the farmers use for feeding cattle, called "cow lick" or similar. They are pretty big and a single grow bag barely fills 2 of them. My question is do I need to drill holes in these tubs? Yes. Otherwise there will be stagnant water in the base, inviting rot. Growbags also need a drainage hole spiked in them. It is *possible* to grow things in deep tubs without drainage, but you have to be very accurate about your watering, otherwise, as Janet says, you'll get rot. The tub needs to be deep, so that the main root mass is not in the area susceptible to waterlogging. If you put them outside at any time, then you *will* need drainage holes, as the weather is not as accurate at watering as you might be. Problem with drainage holes in the base is that if you let the compost get too dry, then it can be difficult to wet it again - the water runs straight through. What I find works well for me is to put drainage holes round the sides, about two inches up - then the bottom acts a reservoir. Better still would be to fill the bottom two inches with stones or crocks to discourage fine roots in that region - then you're getting close to one of these fancy 'self watering pots' which have a separate water reservoir in the base. -- Kay |
#3
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tomatoes, tubs with no drainage
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message from "Dave" contains these words: Just picked up my usual 5 growbags from local diy store and noticed they are thinner, ie: less volume. So I went around my local farms and collected some vitamin tubs that the farmers use for feeding cattle, called "cow lick" or similar. They are pretty big and a single grow bag barely fills 2 of them. My question is do I need to drill holes in these tubs? Yes. Otherwise there will be stagnant water in the base, inviting rot. Growbags also need a drainage hole spiked in them. I have managed without drainage holes - but mainly in high summer when too much rain is not an issue. This is when I know that my dodgy gardening will mean that I let the pots dry out, then need to add loads of water because I will be away for a few days etc. Not the best way to water, but better than the plants snuffing it. To get over the problem of re-wetting dry compost I mix in a bag of JI No.3 (or bags of topsoil if I can't get JI No. 3) with a larger amount of compost. I tend to lob a bag of farmyard manure in as well. This give a reasonable amount of 'wetable' addition to the mixture. HTH Dave R P.S. Suffolk is very dry anyway - you may have problems if you are on the we(s)t side of the island. |
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