"Bucket" Gardening...very, Very Satisfactory!

by Swan Road Designs

This is the third year experimenting with "bucket" gardening. First year was quite good and an education as to what to do differently or additionally. The second year was even better and provided even more information as to how I could do even better
So...this year, the third year, I've gone full bore into a new approach and I couldn't be more pleased. This first photo shows (L to R) cherry tomato, large beefsteak-like tomato, and cherry tomato/squash/zucchini. The photo is just over 3 weeks old.

bucket gardening very very satisfactory, container gardening, gardening

Fast forward to today. Same buckets, along with several more. Most of the tomatoes are now 6 feet or taller. The smaller plant in the bucket in the right foreground is another zucchini. The first one with the squash and tomato are right behind it.

The system I've been using seems to be more than favorable to creating healthy, highly-producing plants. EVERYTHING is loaded with "babies." We are going to be up to our all-American eyeballs in cherry, grape and mini yellow pear tomatoes. To say nothing of the eggplant, green peppers and cucumbers. Yeah!

Here we are, looking at the buckets from the other end. The two half barrels contain beets which, by the way, are going bonkers, too. The tall plant on the far left is the cucumber vine. It's already covered in tiny cucumbers and what isn't little cukes, is a yellow blossom wanting to be one.

To give you some concept of the space where the "garden" stands, the wall behind the plants is the side of our equipment garage that houses tractors, etc., so it's not a small space.

I've topped the tomatoes twice and am going to have to do it again. They are nice and healthy and the stems are robust and thick so they will easily bear the weight of the tomatoes that are forming in massive numbers.

For those of you who might be curious, here is what the buckets hold:

1 cucumber

1 green bell pepper

1 ichiban eggplant

1 Juliette grape tomato

1 Husky Red cherry tomato

1 Sweet 100 cherry tomato

1 Black Cherry cherry tomato

1 yellow mini pear tomato

2 roma tomatoes

1 Park's Whopper beefsteak tomato

2 barrels Ruby Queen beets

2 straight neck squash

2 zucchini

Guess I'd better get my canning jars and freezer bags ready. And, oh, in the "real" garden, my husband has planted Double Delicious corn, Blue Lake green beans and okra.

Yep, that ought to do it!

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3 comments

Pam M. on Jun 12, 2015
Beautiful Very impressive.What kind of soil mix are you using in the buckets? How often do you have to water?

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- Swan Road Designs on Jun 12, 2015
  @Pam M. I use something called Sta-Green Potting Mix Plus Fertilizer that I buy at Lowe's. It comes in a large grass green-colored bag. I mix it 3 parts soil with 1 part Perlite. One thing that I need to point out is that each plant is in 2 buckets. If you look closer at the first photo, the 3 small buckets have a 1-inch hole about 3 inches from the bottom. The bucket that sits on the pavement is the "water" bucket and the other one contains the soil, "wick" and plants. I have adapted a method that I saw done on a site called The Rusted Vegetable Garden. The wicks I mentioned are nothing more than old bath towels that have been cut, lengthwise, into 3-inch wide strips and placed, 3 per bucket, into the top bucket. The explanation is a bit difficult to do without video or photos and, at the moment, I have neither but, to date, I couldn't be more pleased with the results I'm seeing. As for watering, now that the plants are so large, I pay close attention to the water, or lack thereof, in the bottom bucket. I've begun watering once per day until I see water flowing out of the hole in the outer bucket. What I think happens is that the plants aren't overwatered but the towel "wick" can allow the plant to slurp water from the reservoir when it needs it. . This method is by far the best I've tried for our region. It HOT here during the summer months and can be incredibly dry. This IS working beautifully.
  
  1
Pam M. on Jun 12, 2015
Ok, I have seen that method with mop strings instead of towels. It seems like towels would work much better as they could take up a larger volume of water.I have tried growing in buckets before and keeping enough moisture in the soil was a problem. Thanks so much for the info, im definatly goin to try this.

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