Global Buckets?

[Get'n Jiggy]

Anyone tried this idea? Thinking of trying it with tomatos this summer.

Looks like a good idea, much better than "topsy turvy". I like the idea of being able to move them around, put them out on early sunny days,move them in on cold nites.

[croixflats]

New to me. Looked it up and looks like a great idea. I'll give it a try. Those videos on how to make them are really good. Thanks for bringing the subject up.

earthtainer looks promising also

[Steve Foss]

Here's a link.

Fan-freaking-tastic!!!!! We'll be doing this next summer.

[croixflats]

The EarthTainer, is the same idea but uses those plastic toat bins. If you look it up they have a great how to video for them. I like the toat bin as they are bigger and enough room for 2 plants and a bit more stable looking. In the video it says use to bins cut the second one up and use the bottom portion of the bin for the tray/seperation for water and the air I think a 1/4 plywood would suffice with the lid from the bin placed on that to protect the ply wood from the soil.

I am excited to give these a try as my soil in the yard just is not cutting the mustard anymore for tomatoes with the fungus in the ground.

[croixflats]

After research its a simpler way of hydroponics.

[Steve Foss]

Thing I like about the bucket system is how portable it is. Move it around to follow the sun. Move it into the porch at night if it's going to get cold. Easy peasy. The bigger you make the containers, the less portable the system. We aren't into the whole canning/sauce thing with tamaters, so two or three plants (1 cherry for salads, 2 others for slicers) that bear well are plenty for us. This'll save precious space in our raised veggie beds.

[croixflats]

I'll being be doing both have quite a few buckets lying around might as well put them to use.. Like you say the buckets are more portable and you can fallow the sun.

Did you see on the new designs part of the site where they used an inexpensive plastic colander for the soil and air separation rather than another bucket?

[pureinsanity]

Looks like too much of a time waster if you ask me? In the time it takes to make 2 of those buckets I could have a whole garden planted.

In the amount of time it would take you to bring those 'heavy' buckets inside you could have already covered up the garden with a blanket.

just my .02$

cool idea but looks more time consuming than the old fashion way

[Trucks]

The biggest downside on this would be too much water. People dont understand that the soil can't constantly be moist. Its good for the the soil to almost dry up sometimes. If soils is always wet this is when mold can start to kick in.

[Get'n Jiggy]

The biggest downside on this would be too much water. People dont understand that the soil can't constantly be moist. Its good for the the soil to almost dry up sometimes. If soils is always wet this is when mold can start to kick in.

If "The Bucket" is set up right there are overflow holes placed so you can't overfill so the "wicking action" keeps the soil from becoming too wet.

As far as extra work, once you set up the bucket, there's no weeding or

anything other than keeping it watered.

[Steve Foss]

If "The Bucket" is set up right there are overflow holes placed so you can't overfill so the "wicking action" keeps the soil from becoming too wet. As far as extra work, once you set up the bucket, there's no weeding or anything other than keeping it watered.

Correct. And for us, being able to free up a large portion of one of our five 4x8 raised veggie beds is a huge plus.

Not to mention we can start these quite early, since we have a south-facing porch with full windows and storm windows that acts as a heat sink on sunny spring and fall days. Even though it's unheated, we can extend the the growing season a full month or more for container-grown plants.

I don't think the bucket system is right for everyone, but it's right for us. We're not all alike in our gardening needs/situations.

[Dotch]

I think that's a great point Steve. We've done the 5 gallon bucket thing sans the reservoir for several years now mainly because the dang sheep had broken the handles off the buckets and the wife had extra tomatoes from the greenhouse. They get watered from the water buckets we dump every morning. And it's handy when Jack Frost starts to visit to toss them in the skidloader bucket and back them in the shed. Heck, we had fresh tomatoes for much of November this year. Kinda wish I had one now!

[Get'n Jiggy]

I was thinking of building another raised bed, but I like this idea as some plants,like tomatoes, take up a lot of room. I'm thinking it will be easier to keep blite problems to a minimum. I saw some pic's of a guy who

raised some huge cabbages with this system. I think it will compliment the

raised beds I have as I too have very marginal soil. I understand where

people in other areas who have good soil and longer season may think it's not worth "the fuss" but for me it makes a lot of sense.

[Jim Almquist]

Last year I think I had close to 20 cat litter buckets with tomatoes. It worked great other then having blight on some of the plants. By covering them with plastic we had fresh tomatoes till October. I will be starting them earlier this year and going with a couple of different varieties.

[Get'n Jiggy]

Well I put together 6 global buckets and planted brussel sprouts in them.

I've never had great success with sprouts in the past but I think that's

going to change. I planted broccoli in my raised beds at the same time

and my sprouts are twice as high. I'm thinking of planting a bunch more next year, maybe some musk melons next to a trellous, definitly going to get my maters started earlier in buckets. Water once every few days, no

weeds, wish I'd known about this method sooner.

[Steve Foss]

Jiggy, I'm interested to see how your cabbage family veggies do in the buckets and raised beds. They do tend to like things cool, and one of the benefits for other veggies in raised beds and buckets is that they heat up much better.

All our veggies are in raised beds, and our tomatoes are in global buckets this year. We've generally had really good luck with cabbage family plants in raised beds, but we are in a pretty cool location.

[Get'n Jiggy]

Steve, been planting broccoli and sprouts in raised beds for a few years.

Broccoli has always been good, sprouts, not so much, mostly cause I think

I've crowded them a little. Usually have a couple plants that get shaded by

others. The "buckets" are no problem with spacing and the plants are doing

great, although we only had a few days of heat. I saw on a you tube vid a guy

in Cal. had huge cabbage in g buckets. How are your maters doing?

[Steve Foss]

Maters are going strong in the global buckets. We have high hopes here. With a constant supply of sun (well, as much sun as we're getting, anyway), water and nutrients, what's not for a mater to like?

I grew three heirloom variety maters from seed. San Marzano, Brandywine Pink and Large Red Cherry. For goofy reasons, the SMs didn't survive the first transplanting (my fault), but we've got two Brandywines and one cherry in the GBs. All three are growing so fast it's easy to see from day to day.

Planted a lot of Kossack variety giant kohlrabi from seed in the raised beds this season. They were smashers last year in the raised beds, and are always a big fave with me. Like I said, we have good luck with cool-loving veggies such as cabbage family and radishes in the raised beds in our short growing season and cooler summers. My wife graciously granted approval for all the kohlrabi instead of broccoli, since she loves broccoli, but I made it better by planting a bunch of garlic late last fall, and it's come up and going strong. She loves garlic as much as I love kohlrabi.

Hmmmmm, garlic and kohlrabi. Hmmm.

[Get'n Jiggy]

Kohlrabi, never tried it. I'll have to give it a try, must be something I'd

like as I love most other cabbage family plants. How do you fix it? My wife

does green beans with balsamic vinegar & bacon that'll make you sit up and

bark for more!

[fishinchicks]

A good friend of mine has an herb garden in his tote bucket system. He had to plant a bush variety of tomato this year, since last years got so tall it fell over. They don't have the space for a full veggie garden, so they have gone the tote route. I am thinking that I will be trying the herb garden in a tote system next year.

Thanks for all the reviews/progress reports!

[Get'n Jiggy]

The "determinate" tomato varieties seem to work best in the GB's. I think

herbs will do very well.

[Get'n Jiggy]

Was wondering if anyone had any success stories to tell on global buckets?

I planted 6 buckets with Brussels Sprouts, they grew like crazy but the

sprouts all bloomed out, never had that happen before. Next season I'm

gonna plant tomatoes in them, they seem to do better. I'm thinking the

sprouts may have got over heated???

[fishwater]

I'm thinking the sprouts may have got over heated???

I think you are right. Brassicas are very susceptible to bolting, especially from high rootzone temperatures.

[kg2]

I had 2 global buckets with tomatoes this year. They worked just fine. I got plenty of tomatoes.

The one thing I don't like is the very small water reservoir. I had to drag a hose out every day to fill the buckets. (Some days I could have filled it twice.) Expect to not be able to go someplace for a long weekend of fishing without someone there to water.

[Steve Foss]

A lot of the cabbage family members probably aren't the best for the Global Buckets because they generally prefer it cool, and the buckets get good and warm out in the sun. I expect that's why the Brussel's sprouts bolted.

Our three Global Buckets with tomatoes in them could easily go two days, sometimes three, without watering them. One key, we found, was how valuable it is to put the plastic over the top of the soil. The really keeps the water from evaporating. We also used somewhat heavier soil than what the YouTube video recommended, and that allowed us to hold water better.

And of course, the larger the plants got, the more water they needed. Two buckets had Brandywine Pinks in them, and for various reasons having to do more with goofy early and mid summer temp fluctuations, we didn't get good yields on them until later in August, when they really started going strong. The GB with the cherry tomatoes was nuts fright from the start.

We extended our growing season by more than a month by moving the buckets into our south-facing front porch, which has tall windows on all three sides. Just took them down a week ago or so. We're still eating fresh Brandywine slicers and putting the cherries on salads, and probably will for the next couple of weeks. Fresh garden tomatoes into mid November are a blessing! Couldn't have done it without the GBs.

I think peppers would produce like champs in the GBs, too. They like a long warm growing season.