These fabric pots are not very expensive and I would think that they can be reused. I’ll see when I dig them out to use this season. I like the fact that they can be set wherever there is sun, but then they can be taken down. The smaller ones (shown in my pictures) I used to grow potatoes and beans. I ended up with a bowlful of edible, but small, potatoes. The bag is really too small to get much of a potato crop. They would do better in the ground, but I don’t have the space.
I also grew green beans in two of the pots and I had loads of delicious beans! I will definitely try that again.
The larger holder is where I planted tomatoes along with basil, some herbs and radishes. (I have a photo of that one on this page.) The tomatoes got too large to stay upright and the “pot” wasn’t deep enough to hold a wire tomato cage. By the end of summer my tomatoes had fallen over from their own weight. I also had planted too many of them. I wouldn’t put tomatoes in the bags again.
I’m thinking a squash or zucchini plant may do well in a smaller pot and then it could drape over the sides and spread out. I always grow zucchini and even one plant takes up a lot of area in my little garden.
The larger bag might hold my cukes, carrots or beets. I guess it depends on what I decide to plant. When summer was over and the harvest was in, I emptied the pots and stuffed them under my deck. I am wondering if I could leave the dirt in the larger one next time. I don’t know how it would do over the winter.
If you want to try an easy way to grow something that can be moved from year to year, without digging up the ground, maybe a fabric pot would be right for you. For more ideas please read Discover the Benefits of Container Gardening by my friend Mike. It’s because of his page that I tried this! Thanks Mike!
Tag: potatoes
The Return of the Turd Bug
Last summer I had a bug show up on my tomato plants that looked like a little bird turd. I have never before seen one like this. I’m always on the lookout for the worms that grow gigantic and can strip a tomato plant down to stems only, but when I first saw this little bug I dismissed it as bird poop.
Then I saw more of them so I looked closer. They are hard-shelled and I only found them on the tomatoes. So far this year I have found one on the potato plant. None of my tomatoes are in the ground yet. They do eat the leaves, but can be picked off easy enough. They fly if you mess with them, like little lady bugs.
On my New England blog I had mentioned this turd bug and a reader left a message telling me what it is. Look up the clavate tortoise beetle and you’ll see it is one and the same. That page says, “this species appears to prefer plants of the family Solanaceae” which means…what? Okay… I looked it up. Wikipedia says it’s the nightshade family which does include potato, tomato and eggplant.
My tomato plants go into the ground this weekend and I’ll be keeping an eye out for the turd bug.
Must be the larva I got a photo of.
Related articles
- University Of New Hampshire Considers Tomato Plants Holiday Decor (proflowers.com)
- Lady Bug, Lady Bug, You Run So Fast (cottonmouthcreek.wordpress.com)
- the good, the bad & the ugly (asonomagarden.wordpress.com)
Thank you for sharing!
A First Attempt at Fabric Pot Gardening
I first learned about fabric pot gardening while reading a Wizzley article written by someone who also loves growing things. On his page he suggests growing potatoes in a pot made of black fabric or burlap.
Instantly, I loved this idea! I don’t have to dig up the ground and get it ready to plant – whoo hoo – I hate that part of gardening. I ordered three yards of compost / loam mix to add to all my garden beds and just used some of it to fill my black fabric bags. The one on the left in my picture has potatoes and you can see one sprout shooting up through the dirt. Once the shoots grow to 6 or 8 inches I will add more dirt.
The other pot has carrot seeds. I figure they might do well in a good bag of soil instead of in my yard. It’s always a chore to get the garden areas ready for planting. I started at this house with an overgrown backyard so my first year here was spent clearing out the weeds and blackberry bushes. Last year I expanded the garden area and added good dirt. This year I am adding more dirt, but it’s easier to add it to bags and the chance of weeds invading a bag is minimal.
My backyard is quite small and my garden holds vegetables as well as flowers I’ve planted and flowering weeds. Flowers of all kinds are good for attracting beneficial bugs to the garden area. I am currently growing cold weather things like peas, basil, and strawberries (from last year). I will have to wait until the first of June to get the cukes, tomatoes, basil and zucchini into the ground.
This type of gardening is experimental, but I am hoping for good results. I even bought a large, round fabric bag and will set that up as soon as I get more dirt. I started my own zucchini plants (5 of them!) this year from seeds I saved last summer and I may have to put a couple into that new pot along with some of my tomato plants.
Related articles
- The Return of the Garden! And an Important Lesson (therioshamanism.com)
- Five Cost Effective Ways to Transform Your Garden (epicahome.com)
Hydrangeas Blue 