i need ideas for huge outdoor planter boxes? 60 gal or more?

[303 DUB]

i am going to be doing my first large scale outdoor grow this summer and have been thinking about what i can use for planter boxes. any ideas or input on outdoor growing would be greatly appreciated! also i have been looking into a mix i can use outside that will only require a minimum amount of additives (nutes), some sort of manure-perlite-earthworm casts- and ??? and also what would be the amount of each added to make a solid make shift basement mix or mendo style mix.

 

[Cort]

Ill get the ball rolling

They make smartpots in big sizes, including 65 gallon.

 

[geologic]

Check out the sticky threads just above--
in this same outdoor forum...
https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/forums/general-outdoor-growing.7/

 

[cannapits]

Ill get the ball rolling

They make smartpots in big sizes, including 65 gallon.

Id hate to see what they charge for that size. 5 gallon is like 8 bucks.

 

[Cort]

Id hate to see what they charge for that size. 5 gallon is like 8 bucks.

20-30 each at amazon.

Me? Id just dig an area out, line with wire if you have gophers, fill with good dirt and go for it.

 

[OGkushistein]

raised beds with chicken wire underneath

 

[Myco]

I get my #5 Smarties for like $5/ea online. FWIW. Same place charges $17/ea for 65 gallon. Small price to pay to just be done with it... You could even go 100 gallon for $22/ea.

I'm not an outdoor farmer, but if I was and planned on growing in containers, that'd be the route I'd go.

 

[below frigid]

You can make them for 10% of what you would buy them for. All you need is some 24 inch metal garden fence, zip ties and the material
you can buy 300 ft rolls on E-bay for cheap. I think this will be my fourth season and the the material is still holding up. . Make your hoops however big you want them. zip tie the ends together. Mine are 4-5ft in diameter, I go around the inside of the hoop twice with material and leave about 6 inches at the top edge so you can fold it over. No need to attach the material to the fence, the soil will hold it in place.
Cut the 4 ft fence to length then down the middle to make it 2ft high.

 

[Seamaiden]

Yep, pretty much more cost effective to DIY, but much more configurable. I used sections of electrical conduit as the verticals, then quarter-inch hardware cloth, lined with commercial landscape fabric on the sides only (open to the ground, but sure to use hardware cloth for gophers and such). Let me see if I remembered to upload pix. Yeah, I think you can see these fairly well, I can't find the pix during building. Basically the point is this, if *I* can do it, ANYONE can.

 

[SunGrown]

lots of great ideas posted for you already, but I will add fence boards to the list. You can get #3 Grade fence boards cheap, then scab them to box shape with 2x4 scraps. Then you get some nice 6' square rot and bug resistant boxes(cedar). Make them at tall as you want. Line bottom with gopher wire if needed then fill with soil. I have some pics in a thread of mine on here you can take a look at. HTH

 

[303 DUB]

seamaiden and below fridgid, those are such great ideas!!!!! how did you connect the landscape fabric after forming it into a pot shape? or was it just rolled and tucked?

 

[SunGrown]

You can get the real non woven needle punched geotextile underlayment pretty cheap. It is what smart pots are made from, will last a lot longer than landscape fabric.

 

[303 DUB]

Also can i use well water with a true live organic soil? I plan on doing a tru live organic and i know water with chlorine will kill the micro organisms.. any thoughts or answers for running well water with a soil media like this?

 

[SunGrown]

Also can i use well water with a true live organic soil? I plan on doing a tru live organic and i know water with chlorine will kill the micro organisms.. any thoughts or answers for running well water with a soil media like this?

Well water or rain water would are the best(please harvest your rain water everyone).

check your well water ph often, because it will fluctuate at times. Usually I never adjust my ph, and I have only grown with well water for the last few years. And have always had more than satisfactory results.
HTH

 

[303 DUB]

Thank you everyone, so much! I think i got what i need. Special thanks to Seamaden. You have helped me more than a few times now one here. I appreciate you all the same tho. Much love and happiness to yous

 

[Seamaiden]

Thank you so much, 303. It really means a lot to me to know that I've helped, truly. :)

Also can i use well water with a true live organic soil? I plan on doing a tru live organic and i know water with chlorine will kill the micro organisms.. any thoughts or answers for running well water with a soil media like this?

Fuck yeah you can! I use *only* unfiltered well water, for which I do need to take some care because it is so high in total/general hardness, but more so because it's so high in carbonate hardness. Carbonates can build up. Peat can help lock onto that, though.

 

[below frigid]

I too use water straight from my well. In addition to being hard it also has some ferious iron in the water. PH is 6.5. What kind of care are you speaking of, Sea? I have seen no negative effects so far. Been using a lot of then same soil for years. No rain leaching this year makes me wonder though.

Thank you so much, 303. It really means a lot to me to know that I've helped, truly. :)
Fuck yeah you can! I use *only* unfiltered well water, for which I do need to take some care because it is so high in total/general hardness, but more so because it's so high in carbonate hardness. Carbonates can build up. Peat can help lock onto that, though.

 

[Seamaiden]

I read a paper and subsequent article a couple of years ago about carbonates building up in soils via irrigation. Once carbonate levels are high, you're going to have resulting high pH soils that will be very resistant to shift. We usually rely on rains to help reverse that, but without rains...

Really, just something to be cognizant of.