A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 How to make Growth Containers. Part One

I know this will take dialup a couple of minutes to load. However, I believe pictures help in understanding this author. Plus this took me serveral hours to put together, I hope dialups don't mind the wait.

zelinda ask me to come up with some plans on how to make a Growth Container. We both thought it would be a good idea to post those plans.

First and foremost just about any type of container may be used. It can be of any size from a quart on up--which I will show you. The idea behind a Growth Container is to set up an environment that allow the plant to uptake water and food as need. Without restriction.

The first set of pictures is a container another gardener made. The reason I'm not going to link you to that posting is his directions are somewhat confusing. He used a Rubbermaid container. His total cost was about $12.00-$15.00.

The items needed for this container are:
1-Rubbermaid storage container
4-1 quart plastic paint cups.
4-feet of 2 inch pvc pipe.

Now before we begin, some of this may not make sense at first. By the time you get to the last picture it will all come together. In this first picture you will note that he cut out the main part of the lid. Both the outer edge and the cut out piece are important. So when you cut yours out take your time.

Part Two








Now the ones below I made out of 8 foot fresh water tank from a boat.

*This is my second time to try to post part 3*
Part 3




Next this is my base soiless mixture.

3 parts Ground pine bark (I run it through a chipper)
2 parts sphagnum moss
1 part Perlite /Vermiculite
1/2 part builders sand.
1 pint dolomite lime per bushel of soil mix
I do not use any wetting agents. This means you will have to really work at getting this mixture wet. Once it is wet don't let it dry out. Next I add, a good inch of mature compost to the top of my filled containers. This last time I added mushroom compost.

My base Fertilizer:
2 parts blood meal
1 part fish meal
2 parts bonemeal
4 parts rock phosphate
6 parts greensand.
1/2 part kelp meal


How much fertilizer do I add? 25% by volume (this includes the compost) to 75% soiless mixture. After that I side dress moderately twice per year. Next, when setting up your new container with soiless mixture one of the most important items you need to add for the first couple of months is one ounce of fish and seaweed extracts to every gallon of water you put into the container's water reservoir. Once per month add one ounce of unsulphured molasses to this mixture per gallon of water. Do not skip this step. After a couple of months cut back this mixture to once per month. Note, after the cut back to once per month I stop including the molasses

Any questions?
Pineapple_Raye

Raye,
This looks like an awesome idea!!!
Wish I was a little more "handy" with makin' stuff and/or I had a hubby more inthusiastic
about makin' stuff for me like this!!!

Someday I'll get him to make me something like this!

Thanks for the "how~to's"

Weezie

P.S. Gotta make your pictures a tiny bit smaller, they go off my page even when I have the smallest print on my "view~text".

What resolution are you running? 640 x 480?

I think so,
But instead of viewing everything in small print,
I just put it on the largest settings,
but even when I take it down to the smallest settings it still goes off the end of my page...
(I have to scroll it back and forth to see the pictures~well some, not all!)

Weezie

Weezie,

That has to do with restolution not type size. Most folks polled run 1024 x 768 today. For the longest time it was 800 x 600.

I run 1024 x 768 and the pictures do not fill the page up. I can run 2048 x 1536 (I have a big video card and a top flight monitor) but I don't as most sites are set up for the 1024 x 768 today.

See if your monitor and v-card can run at the higher resolution, if so then set your type to large, and you should be good to go~~ no more scrolling.