To your black plastic question, yes I would still try to incorporate it as much as possible even with greens. This keeps moisture in and weeds out — both very important to support the growth of a healthy plant.

Gratefully,

Heather

Has anyone here tried growing potatoes? I have never intentionally grown potatoes – only harvested some from my compost pile!! I have heard that, if you keep adding soil, you can get the plant to produce more and more potatoes as it grows. So, I suppose that one could add another bucket with no bottom, just to support the plant and the growing medium. I have no idea, yet, how high a plant grows that is being treated this way. Does the potato need anything different in the way of fertilizer from the tomatoes or peppers?

And one more question: I have seen that we are supposed to cover the top of the bucket with black plastic. But, if one is growing greens, say, then do you just forego the black plastic altogether, or do you still, somehow, cover the growing medium at whatever point you can?

Thank you very much for your patience as I sort this out!!

I really appreciate the help.

Heather

I have not had any personal experience with seeding in the buckets directly (although I’ve transplanted lettuce without issue) but I assume that it would work.

Why not try one as an experiment (seeding) and let us know how it works out. I’d love to hear your follow up.

- Erich

Thank you very much!

Heather

Sure thing. Good job on finding those buckets.

As for fertilizer, I’ve had great results using the organic recipe created by Steven Solomon (author of Gardening When it Counts). It’s as follows (in volume):

1. three parts seedmeal
2. one part blood and bone meal
3. 1/2 part of agricultural lime and 1/2 part of dolomite lime

Many of the above ingredients cannot be found at your typical big-boy gardening store. You’ll need to get that at farm distributors (cheapest) or smaller organic gardening places (more expensive).

Btw, the “wicking” soil I mentioned in the article is also measured in volume.

Hope that helps!

- Erich

Now, I have another question. I want all of my gardening to be organic. What fertilizer can I use in that “ring of fertilizer” that is organic?

And one more thing, please: I was looking at your recipe for your wicking material-”soil”, and I was wondering if your ratios are by weight or volume. Because I am new at this, I want to follow directions as closely as I can, but I didn’t really know what to do with those percentages.

Than you very much for answering me above!!! I love getting an answer! And I will be interested in your response to the questions here.

With best wishes,

Heather

It’s not always easy determining if a bucket is “food grade”. You typically need to contact the manufacturer of the bucket to ask them whether it is food grade or not. The safest thing is to purchase buckets that are sold specifically as food grade (just do a google search for “food grade 5-gallon buckets” and you’ll get good list of them).

There is however a much easier way of getting as many buckets as you want for free (or very inexpensive). Just call around to some of your local bakeries. Every day they use up flour, spices, sugar, filling and many of their other ingredients that get shipped to them in these buckets. Because of this, they end up with a bunch of empty buckets laying around that they’ll typically give you for free or sell you very cheap.