Topic: Beds or Bags?

[derbex]

I dug out my greehhouse soil last year, well the top 4-6" could be dug what's underneath is baked solid, so the question is do I replace it with new soil and grow in that or with gravel and grow in bags. I'm tempted by gravel in the hope that it will cut down on slugs and weeding -but then watering and feeding may be problematic. When I gew in bags last year some things did reasnobaly and some struggled -the one tomayo that did really well had rooted through the bag into the clay.

What do people think?

Jeremy.

P. S. I fumigated it at the weekend with a sulfur candle and washed it today.

[Hyacinth]

It's gotta depend how big your greenhouse is (& if you want the work :)) If the soil is that compacted under 4-6" you're really going have to excavate down a lot more & replace with good stuff - and enrich every year - to realistically get good crops, I think. Growbags...try using them upright, emptying out about 1/4 of the bag.....or, like me buy large pots from Wilco's ;D

[MikeB]

Why not use gravel and follow the ring culture method?

A shallow trench is dug out in a border, lined with polythene and filled in with gravel (a large gravel filled tray can also be used). A nine-inch bottomless pot is filled with soil, planted with the tomato seedling and placed on the gravel bed.

The tomatoes are watered from the bottom via the gravel bed and fed via the pot. This way the tomatoes have a free draining system with water and feed available to the plants as and when they need to take it up.

MikeB

P.S.

At the end of the year, remove the plants and pots.  Fill a watering can with Jaye's fluid, dilute as per the instructions, and water the gravel to kill off any disease.  One disease free greenhouse.

[derbex]

OOh Mike, that does sound good, I've already got a shallow trench and I'll be able to run my seep hose under the gravel.

And of course I'm only washing stones with the Jeyes.

I'll think about that some :o

Jeremy

[HO]

Having tried ring culture I would not recommend unless you can  guarantee to be there every day, twice on hot days at least. The problem I found was the checks that plants can have if drying out, even partial occurs. The crops were good, very good in fact but the care was too demanding....and if you go away and leave your precious plants in someone elses care then they had better be good....  . Auto watering would be good. I have also tried growing on straw bales...absolutely fantastic growth, drying out not a great problem because of the bulk of straw, easy in fact. Just the two small matters of getting small bales in the first place and then getting straw that has not been treated with hormone weedkillers...that is why I stopped... I could not get them untreated...mind you the weird growth that results is interesting...  I have now gone back to growing in soil and changing the soil every few years. I also have covered the whole of the greenhouse floor in black plastic and plant through holes...highly recommended.

[supersprout]

Hey HO, thanks for the tip about finding weedkiller free straw  :o. I am going to grow on bales this year if I can find the small ones - otherwise I'll see if I can get a trailerful of spent straw delivered, and hope that the year or so outside will have seen off any chemicals.

[derbex]

Good points HO -I aleady have a basic auto-watering system (seep hose and a timer attached to the water butt(s). It's the problem of watering bags that puts me off using those -I did it last year -but, again you need to be around twice a day and I wasn't always, with the seephose in even my shallow soil I found that things worked pretty well.

I could go to a drip system I suppose -but then I'd need pressure from somewhere.

I would go back to soil if I thought I could get the depth -but swinging a pick or a mattock in a greenhouse isn't a good idea  :)

My big problem is time and the ring culture system looks like it could save quite a bit of that.

Jeremy

[MikeB]

Hi derbex,

Ring culture without the gravel

[derbex]

A quick update -I've decided to do one bed as a ring system for toms and the other I'm replacing the soil. Even with a pick I'm not down a spades depth, but I'm down to clay and it's deeper than it was. THe plan is to perforate the clay with the pointy end of the pick and then rake in a layer of leafmould, this to be topped with soil/compost and finally a mulch.

Jeremy

[misterphil]

Sorry if this sounds too ignorant - I'm just starting out with my first greenhouse (provided that I can reglaze it, anyway!)...

• what can you grow on bales? (apart from mushrooms)
• how do you do it?

thanks!

[supersprout]

Misterphil, if I can get some small straw bales, I am going to try tomatoes on them in the greenhouse with the toms growing in rings on top of the bales. But will follow this thread as I've not done it before.

[misterphil]

so ... does the seedling just get poked into a hole in the bale, or does additional preparation of the bale need to be carried out beforehand?

[supersprout]

I planned to put the ring pots on top of the bales and used comfrey or manure liquid feed as they grow. I would hope the roots would spread into the bales from the pot, then at the end of the season I would compost the bales. Hoping someone reading this thread will let me know if something is wrong or missing! someone did warn to make sure your straw hasn't been affected by hormone weedkiller which might result in curly wurly plants.

[antdg]

I have just read this in a book called your green house by Percy Thrower.

Ring Culture

This is an excellent way to grow tomatoes. The plants are grown in bottomless pots or rings with a minimum diameter and depth of 9in. The pots are stood on a base of coarse ashes or sand or 3/4in ballast. If ashes are used these must be well wearthered to remove the sulphur deposits. A space of at least 18in must be left between ring. They are then partly filled with john innes no3 compost and the plants must be transferred to these before they have completely filled their 3 1/2in pots with roots. With planting completed, the compost surface should be about 1in below the rim of the ring.
Two root systems are encouraged to develop with ring cultures - fine feeding roots in the ring and coarse roots in the aggregate. To make the plants send down roots into the aggregate as quickly as possible, the compost in the rings should only be watered once to settle the soil around the roots. after this all further watering should be given to the aggregate, however dry the compost in the ring may appear.

I am just about to site my first green house and am thinking of doing just this to start with anyway.

Has anybody tried this method?

what are the pros and conns found.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel if the method has found to be flawed

Cheers

Tony