Anyone In Usa Tried Planting In Grow Bags

I have grown tomatoes, kale ans swiss chard in pots in a balcony last year. yield was not too bad. This year we are trying garden bed. Not tried in grow bags though.

 

I am sure you get those in amazon.com. I think it's better to avoid it to prevent plastic pollution. Instead go for reusable pots . I have pots plus raised garden bed. Garden bed is like a big grow bag. Anyway, it's your choice. I filled it using a mix of garden/top/ potting soil/ vermiculite soil/ peat moss, cowdung based compost (from home depot). May be similar combination can be used. The typical potting mix loose its quality within a few months. I rarely use miracle grow fertilizer (only in the beginning stages ), but use fish fertilizer. I prefer organic gardening and avoid chemicals as much I can.

 

Grow bags are fine. Spinach will need a smaller one. For tomatoes and okra the large ones work best: like 15-20 gallon size. Peppers will grow happily in 5-10 gallon containers. I get whatever potting mix is on sale or readily available. Miracle grow or the bags at Costco are good. I use Osmocote slow release fertilizer. Once the flowers appear I also add Jobe’s tomato spikes. If you want to use organic fertilizers Tomato tone and Vegetable tone are good. I prefer the slow-release because nutrients get easily washed out of containers.
A handful of alfalfa meal and fish or kelp meal also keeps the plants very healthy.

 

We built one small raised garden bed on our own last week. Got the materials from Lowe's and bought the soil too. My back yard is also west facing, I have 27 trees in my yard, but luckily there is sun after 10 am.
One thing you can do is observe where the sunlight mostly fall on the yard and pick a place. 5-6 hours direct sunlight might be adequate. They will get light unless u have thick shadows from everywhere else.

 

Whatever it is vegetables need good sunlight. I think you will be able to figure it out this year. I have experience with grow bags too. We use it in our home in India and had great results with all the types of vegetables you mentioned.
Good luck

 

@deepthivinayak1 Thank you for the timely question. I am also debating between the two - grow bags or raised beds.

In my case I know the sunny spots in our garden but raised beds appear to be quite expensive - the wood ones cost between 100-200$ or more for deep ones easily. I was looking for used ones from Nextdoor and Offerup. But even there the prices are high and I would prefer to avoid spending time with new people and exchange cash to get a used raised bed.

@Angela123 Thanks for sharing that you built your own raised bed. That is awesome! Could you share if you used an online tutorial to build one.

So wanted to ask others - how much is a good price for a moderate sized raised bed (say 4ft by 3ft). Also is it better to go for multiple small ones or fewer big ones? I see slightly better prices on wayfair - has anyone tried these?

Also for raised beds, is wood, metal or plastic preferable? My intuition says keep it natural and wood but I might be missing some practical aspects of these materials.

 

We have also built raisedbed ourselves using wood from home depot. It's cheap compared to the readymade ones. There are videos in YouTube on DIY. If you check pinterest, you can get many pics and ideas. The size depends on yard size ,its shape, location and our needs. We made two large ones of the same side close ( not too close) to the wall of our home in the backyard,where we get good sunlight and it's near to external water pipe. Measure length and breadth of the raised bed needed. Go to home depot ask them to cut wood in that shape. You may need tools to fix the corners. It's quite easy to do it. If you ask the staff in home depot they will help you to find easy ones.

You can learn from video like this one. There are many in YouTube.

 

You don’t necessarily need to build a raised bed with wooden sides. Look up “lasagna gardens” or “no-dig gardening”. I just pile up about 6-8 inches of compost, shredded leaves, manure, topsoil and amendments on top of the earth and then plant. Don’t make them too wide unless you can reach from
both sides. It will look better if you mulch it. The earthworms will do the job of turning over the soil for you.
Another low cost method if you want a tidier look is to use cinderblocks as a border. You can plant annual flowers or herbs in the holes on top.