Reversing your Growbags ?

[no_akira]

Q: Why aren't growbags black on the outside?

+ Make small hole, empty filling and reverse bag using sewists trick to pull the insides outside.


+ Refill bag but also add a bit of soil from your plot to really "blow it up"


+ Push in square plant pots filled with stones and a handful of fertilizer stuff hidden under stones


The square watering holes need to come forward a touch and across slightly. Will get it right on my other 3 bags.

x3 Planting positons with x2 watering points through the stones...

Main idea being sun warmed roots & watering offset from roots to encourage root growth.

Also made this medieval hole making tool...when not in use I keep this pressed into deep dense foam, you wouldn't wanna tread on this in the middle of the night

[Logunner]

No advertising if all black...

[Greenleaves]

I wear my jumper inside out sometimes.....

[Aberdeenplotter]

Black absorbs too much heat.

[Scarlet]

Black absorbs too much heat.

Yep. Really hot roots slows the growth in many plants.
This is a really good read.
Plant roots temperature affecting plant health | CANNA UK

[no_akira]

Think that link applies to growing in tropics... not UK with its "will-get-there-eventually" summer temps.

Remember its just for tomatoes and my lean-to greenhouse / rain shelter has open sides so runs a little cooler than your trad greenhouse.

I think toms like a bit of heat and I am watering most evenings during those 2 days of the british summer...

I had good growth out of this set up last season with x3 gard.delight

To be honest I think the biggest benefit is churning loosening the compacted soil within the bag and increasing the soil volume by pumping some more gritty clay soil into the mix...

[smallblueplanet]

I like the way to add water to the bags. You do see lots of stuff like peppers and melons etc being grown on ridges that are covered in black plastic and planted through.

[bikermike]

when I read the title, I had visions of setting a growbag to reverse and watching the plant shrink back down into a seed (possibly quite handy if you get too many going...)

The hot roots thing is interesting.
Who knows what the weather will do, but for the last few years, we've had warm Febs and early March with a gotcha! late frost belt, then wet until it stops raining then dry (with drought depending how soon that starts). So I'd be more worried about hot roots than it might otherwise seem at this time. Could you get a similar, but reversible effect by covering them in black plastic for this time of year. If it gets proper hot in summer, it might then be possible to keep the cover, but with an air gap, to shade the growbag?

I like the waterers though. I use the plastic spike things you put a pop bottle on, and a dripper system that I peg to the bag with a hollow peg so it is held on the surface with a drain into the bag

[Scarlet]

I like the way to add water to the bags. You do see lots of stuff like peppers and melons etc being grown on ridges that are covered in black plastic and planted through.

I often plant through weed suppressant-or through card etc. This keeps the moisture in and stops anything else growing. The ground is much cooler than a growbag though.
I gave up using grow bags years ago. I find the watering is very problematic. They dry out in the heat much too fast.

[Scarlet]

To be honest I think the biggest benefit is churning loosening the compacted soil within the bag and increasing the soil volume by pumping some more gritty clay soil into the mix...

Why bother to turn it inside out then?
And by the time you've gone to all that trouble adding more soil why not just get a big pot?

[Logunner]

Why bother to turn it inside out then?
And by the time you've gone to all that trouble adding more soil why not just get a big pot?

Not something I’ve done, or am likely to do, but the answer for me would always be. Because I wanted to.

We each do our own thing, it’s what makes this such a great place....

[Jungle Jane]

I don’t like using growbags but some people do. Apparently using a red mulch has good results with tomato ripening & yields,I think tomato growbags are red maybe for that reason?

[no_akira]

Ok sounds plausible JJ..

Well for better of worse I'm committed now

Just to respond to using "Growbags". I get two uses out of them. I find they are a cheap way of getting 200 litres of fluffyness for my SD (sow direct) planting the following year. I mix the fluffy stuff with about 20% soil from plot and store in a dalek at the end of the season. Some of it then goes in around the bottom of my seed potatos and topping my seed drills rows.



Now all i've got to do is grow 12 tomato plants from seed what with the lockdown. I won't be able to do my normal lazyness and buy tom plants from a local nursery.

[Urban]

Ok sounds plausible JJ..

Well for better of worse I'm committed now

Just to respond to using "Growbags". I get two uses out of them. I find they are a cheap way of getting 200 litres of fluffyness for my SD (sow direct) planting the following year. I mix the fluffy stuff with about 20% soil from plot and store in a dalek at the end of the season. Some of it then goes in around the bottom of my seed potatos and topping my seed drills rows.

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Now all i've got to do is grow 12 tomato plants from seed what with the lockdown. I won't be able to do my normal lazyness and buy tom plants from a local nursery.

I think the garden centers might be still open, and I'm pretty sure B&Q is still open if you have one of those near you

that being said I managed to get my grow bags, last sunday and a few pepper/chilli plants

pretty good selection at east bridgeford garden center in nottingham, and I think its still allowed to open for gardening stuff