Earthbox Setup Day

Last Sunday was Earthbox day in my backyard. It was perfect weather for gardening, 60 degrees and sunny. I set up 2 Earthboxes -- 1 box with 2 tomato plants and 1 box with 6 peppers -- 4 sweet peppers, 1 jalapeno and 1 Thai dragon. I like to make dried red pepper flakes out of the Thai dragon peppers. Here's the empty Earthbox. It has a screen in the bottom, and a tube for watering.

It was very easy to set up, but the huge bags of Bacto potting medium were heavy!

First I filled a bucket with the potting medium. Moistening that potting soil took more water than I could ever have imagined! I thought I would be able to moisten it with the green watering can, but I soon resorted to the hose.

I filled up the Earthbox until the soil was level, then added 2 cups of fertilizer in a strip.

Then I mounded soil until it was 2 inches above the level of the box. Then I put on its little "shower cap".

The seedlings are planted by cutting an "X" through the plastic cover and stuffing the plant into the soil. Note to self for next year: use smaller seedlings! The tomato plants that I started from seed in my basement were fine, it was easy to stuff them through the little hole. But the pepper seedlings I bought at the farmer's market had a much larger rootball. It was a violent episode to stuff them through and get them planted! Here are the peppers, awaiting their fate:

Here are the two little tomato seedlings nestled in their Earthbox house.

And here are the 6 pepper plants, all tucked in and enjoying some sunshine. They seemed to have survived their unmerciful lynching! Three days later, they still look fine.

Now, according to the Earthbox folks, all I have to do is keep the water reservoir full by adding water down the tube. Easy peasey!

I'm looking forward to a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and peppers. Now I have to figure out a way to stake the tomatoes without paying a million dollars for Earthbox's fancy-schmancy staking system. I have a few ideas rolling around in my brain, and plenty of junk rolling around my basement that I'm sure I can put to good use.