Bench in pots, floor in pots, or in beds?

[quanglewangle]

We got given a greenhouse back in 2019. Since then we have grown:

• Tomatoes in beds
• Melons in beds
• Cucumbers in beds

and

• Aubergines in pots on staging (bought the staging just because we thought everyone did)

All with reasonable success

But
It's a big chore digging out the beds each year and replacing with sterile topsoil/compost mixture.
The staging is a bit too high and the aubergines reach the roof

How about?
I ditch the staging, line the whole floor with 100 mm depth of gravel, and grow everything in pots, say 30cm ones.

What do folks think?

[Nicos]

Can you stand several pots on long plastic trays on top of the gravel so there is a reservoir…and then maybe drip feed water just to keep a constant flow of water supply?
I guess you will get a lot more evaporation though to contend with ?

Just a few thoughts to bounce off.

[quanglewangle]

^^^That's more or less how I grow the aubergines on the bench.

Could do the same on the floor but would cucumbers, melons and tomatoes do as well in pots as in beds?

[greenishfing]

I have two greenhouses where I grow in pots and two where I grow in the border soil. I find that tomatoes do far better in the borders, probably due to more even watering and the roots not getting as hot. I always had problems with blossom end rot when growing them in pots. Everything else doesn't seem to mind. I have staging that I use at certain times of the year for different reasons but tend to semi-dismantle at other times.

[Nicos]

I don’t have a greenhouse anymore but I think with pots it’s important to have a constant supply of water to prevent cracking of tomatoes etc

I also wonder if the colour of the pots might slightly affect how hot the roots get - particularly if you have a heatwave summer again?

(I put gravel on top of my flowerpots here to reduce evaporation)

[Nicos]

Snap gf!

[nickdub]

I grow my tomatoes in a poly tunnel. They're in Morrisons flower buckets with wicks in the bottom and stood on old rain water gutter for watering. Not perfect but cheap, and it gets the job done with minimum work.

[quanglewangle]

I grow my tomatoes in a poly tunnel. They're in Morrisons flower buckets with wicks in the bottom and stood on old rain water gutter for watering. Not perfect but cheap, and it gets the job done with minimum work.

Very interesting.

1. About how big are the buckets?
2. Do you feed from the top and only water through the gutter/wick arrangement?

[quanglewangle]

greenishfing More BER with pots than beds interesting. I suppose beds have bigger reserve of moisture so less chance of uneven watering.

[ameno]

Have you considered that you could get away with changing the soil only every 2 years by essentially rotating what you grow in it? If you grow tomatoes on one side and cucumbers and melons on the other one year, then switch them in year 2, you can then change the soil after the end of the second year.

[nick the grief]

My dad never dug the beds out to the best of my knowledge and neither have I but you need to treat it like any other part of the garden and dig in some compost or manure to refresh the nutrients.

But as an alternative you gould dig the bed out and line it with black plastic and then fill this with gravel and stand your pots on this and then you water into the gravel and the roots go into the gravel. feeding you you do into the pots as normal.

Or, grow in straw bales then at the end of the year just compost the lot.

[quanglewangle]

Thanks for thoughtful contributions.

ameno - I did that to start with, but the greenhouse ridge runs east/west and so swapping the staging from north to south side puts the bed on the north side into (some) shade. Matters less once the season gets going when the sun is higher, but is a big deal early on.

nick the grief - the beds aren't quite like garden beds where you can plan to not grow the same thing for several years. Nutrients aren't the issue, they come in 5l cans, it is pathogens I am concerned about

However...

I think I am going to bite the bullet and dig out the bed and replace the soil with my usual mixture of sterile compost, screened topsoil and course sand.

[Nicos]

Thanks what we used to do Q.
And every year the ‘old’ compost dug out was put on top of slightly raised beds outside, slowly increasing their depth being mixed in with fresh compost first.

You’ll have room for catch crops of radish, lettuce etc too in there.

[nick the grief]

nick the grief - the beds aren't quite like garden beds where you can plan to not grow the same thing for several years.
[/QUOTE]

I guess it depends on the size of your greenhouse. Mines 12 x 8 so I can grow the tomatoes in one bed and the melons and Cuke's in another and then swap them over the following year ... plus I tend to grow things in them over winter ( carrots and early beans) so that helps. and they just get the addition of bit of compost and fertiliser. Pathogens shouldn't be a problem unless you introduce them and you can always grow in pots one year to give you a 3 year break - you do'nt need to dig it out every year I would only do it every 5 or 6 years at most ... that said I know some folks enjoy digging ... nowt as strange as folk

[nickdub]

Very interesting.

1. About how big are the buckets?
2. Do you feed from the top and only water through the gutter/wick arrangement?

The buckets are the ones Morrisons use for flowers - usually black, and you can sometimes get them for free if you ask - a bit under 2 gallons in size I'd say.

There are several videos on U-tube for guttering watering systems - I had plenty of old plastic gutter knocking around, so the cost was just the work to set it up. The gutter does bend under weight though, so you need to support it. Which I do by either by part burying it in the ground or making a long wooden box that the gutter sits in. I've used it for my cuc's this year too, and it's worked well. I'm still picking bowlfuls of tomatoes every day