Growbags or pots ????????

[Minty]

Hi all,,,,,,,,As this will be my first year with a greenhouse i have been wondering what the pros and cons are when it comes to planting in pots or growbags.
My intentions are to plant tomato,cucumber,chilli,sweet peppers and going to have a go at melon.
I have managed to source from my local florist a dozen pots roughly the size of a wastepaper bin, will these be big enough for the above ???? or do i cut the hassle and go for the growbags?????
Thanks Minty

[allotmentlady]

Growbags

I experimented last year of NOT using growbags and had a disaster, Toms ran out of nutrients.......not enough soil for plants. This year I am going back to growbags.....

Try cutting the bottom of your pots for the tomatoes and wedge them in the grow bag.

Chilli peppers work well in BIG enough pots.

I reuse my growbags at the end of the season by emptying onto my raised beds.

[Madasafish]

I find growing tomatoes in pots, the roots grow out the bottom and grow into the soil in the boarders...Lovely tomatoes.

I find growbags on their own are not enough so use pots on top of growbags...

[mrdinkle]

I reuse my growbags at the end of the season by emptying onto my raised beds.

Same here!

I read on here that some people recommend cutting a grow bag in half and standing the 2 bits on end. I might try this for tomatoes this year.

[Cutecumber]

Pots:

Don't try less than a 15 litre pot for a cordon tomato. Bigger for a large beefsteak type.
Think carefully about how you are going to support the growing stems - just because they are in a pot it doesn't mean that a cane will be enough for a heavy crop.
If it is a black pot in the greenhouse or full sun, it will get very, very hot - can you mulch the surface and give the pot itself some shade to keep the roots cooler?
If the pot is in the greenhouse, how much head room will the plant have? Remember that in the ground, the plant has far more head room. In a pot, it starts from the depth of the pot off the ground, and has glass above.

Growing bags:

Limited depth of compost, but "gro-pots" or a bottomless pot on the top will help.
Tricky to water unless you use gro-pots. Try small flowerpots sunk in between the plants and put water in them. Even so, parts of the bag will dry out.
How will you support the plants? Look at the frames you can now get to hold the bag and support stakes.
Make sure you won't need to move the plants once they are in situ - you won't be able to do so if you use a grow bag.

[skiprat]

I now grow my toms to eventually end up in large pots which have the bottom cut out and this is then put into a grow bag - lots of toms and have good resavoir of water, the toms then grow from the pot into the growbag. Saves me lots of watering and no split toms either.

[PAULW]

If you have a soil floor in your greenhouse take a growbag cut in half and dig a hole and put the half growbag into it, this will let the tomato put down deep roots you can give it a good water in the morning and not have to worry about it drying out during the day this also works with pots, pots stood proud of the ground will dry out will the warm air circulating around them in the ground they retain moisture for longer

[Minty]

Thanks for all the great advice. Think i need to add that the greenhouse floor is slabs.
Minty

[flowerofshona]

I always do ring culture for my toms and cucumbers, Growbag with 3 black buckets from Asda with the bottom cut off, set into the growbag and filled up and the plant put into this, holds much more compost and watering is easier

[kethry]

i grew tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries last year in growbags. The tomatoes were put into bottomless pots - i was lucky enough to get some 10 inch pots (across) from tescos very cheaply, about 20p each or something - which were then put into growbags, three to a growbag, and i did 4 growbags - 2 with gardener's delight, 2 with moneymaker. the gardener's delight loved it, the moneymaker struggled, although i think that had more to do with the weather than the growbag. To water i upended pop bottles into the growbag with holes punctured into the top of the pop bottle, and the bottom cut off to create a sort of funnel. when adding tomato feed i added that directly to the bottomless pots as i'd read somewhere that the parts of the plant that take up tomato feed are higher up the root system than the parts that take up water. canes were pushed into the pot for the tomato to grow up, but at the top, were attached together by another cane to provide a sort of structure to help strengthen them all and prevent them tipping over. two of the growbags were on paving slabs as well, so it would work anywhere, really.

the strawberries are still in their growbag! they've overwintered there - 6 plants to a growbag - although i plan to move them to a dedicated fruit bed in the next couple of weeks. didn't get much fruit from them but it was their first year so wasn't expecting much.

cucumber was grown in the greenhouse (plastic jobbie). two cukes to a growbag, the variety was telegraph improved. I improvised with the canes: the tips were pushed into the growbag (no bottomless pot) and then attached to the greenhouse frame and the cukes were trained up it. to water, i added another empty, bottomless pop bottle with holes in the top, and filled that with water, rather than trying to water in the hole for the cukes, which avoided the potential for neck rot. they grew well, gave us about 10 cukes before i went away for the weekend on the hottest weekend of the year and the plant got hit badly by the heat in the (closed) greenhouse and never really recovered. ah well.

HTH

keth
xx

[rustylady]

I've tried both growbags and large pots, and I think the best solution is probably to use Growbags with bottomless pots set into them as Flowerofshona says. I will try this system this year.

[helly]

me too , with both my toms & cums wot about using this method with melons?

[SarzWix]

I've given up on pots and growbags this year, OH has scouted round a few industrial estates and found a place with really big packing crates to get rid of. They're trough shaped, about 4ft long x 18inches, 2ft deep (I can fit 3 each side in my 12ft greenhouse). I'm planning to put in 4 plants per crate of tomatoes (cordon type) or 3 cucumbers and water with inverted pop bottles. My outdoor tomatoes (mostly bush type) will be going in big patio size pots. All of the pots & crates will have a proportion of topsoil in the mixture for stability, water & nutrient retension. The reason for all this, is that I'm fed up with problems of under/over watering in the smaller containers & growbags, causing flower drop/blossom end rot & lower yields. I am determined to have enough tomatoes this year to eat & preserve some for winter!!

[vicky]

My mum uses those massive 80l bags of compost in her greenhouse just like a big growbag...