Viewing post #805685 by dyzzypyxxy

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Mar 8, 2015 8:46 AM CST
Name: Elaine
Sarasota, Fl
The one constant in life is change
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Have you looked at the Earth Box system, George? www.earthbox.com I gave a couple to my kids in Salt Lake City, and they say that's the only way they'd ever be able to grow vegetables there. They're going to be very short of water this year, too.

I use them because our soil here is so dismal and infested with nematodes, but they are a very water-efficient way to grow vegetables in a small space. An Earth Box is a recycled plastic planter sort of like a big window box with a water reservoir in the bottom. I set mine up on cinder blocks so they can drain, and I now also have a big, metal rack to hold them up so I can get to them without bending over (another nice thing, for me).

Once you set it up, fill it and plant it with what you want, you put a fitted plastic cover over the soil so there's very little evaporation, and no water wasted unless you routinely overflow the reservoir. (I put a plant under the overflow, just for decoration and it 'tells' me if the box didn't get enough water). Best of all, no weeding! Once it's planted and covered, all you do is make sure it's getting enough water - I have mine fitted with a micro-sprinkler tube that's on a timer, but we don't have water shortages here, at least not lately.

In your hot, dry weather you might have to fill the reservoir more than once a day as your plants get big. But it's still absolutely the most water-efficient way I've ever grown anything. No spraying water up into the air and having half of it evaporate before it gets down to the ground, right?

Here's one of my boxes - the covers come with the kit, and you can reverse them from black to white (white keeps the soil cooler, but early in the season I sometimes use black).
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Elaine

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." –Winston Churchill

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