By gisette
Greens Growboxes 2009
Submitted on Sat, 2009/03/14 - 5:16pm
Last updated on Tue, 2009/11/10 - 11:59pm
Might as well start the topic, since I planted my first green outside today.
2009-03-28: The seeds sprouted outdoors. Transplanted out the rest of the Little Caesar romaine and baby leaf spinach I started under seedling lights.
2009-04-04: Sowed breakfast and icicle radishes in one growbox, along an edge. Transplanted out a 2-week-old pod of Korean red curl lettuce (2 plants) started in the pro100.
2009-04-05: Sowed Korean red curl and Roman Emperor romaine on growbox edges, tendergreen mustard and toy choi in railing planters. [Um, I forgot I planted red curl there, and placed a kozy coat over it... oh, well.]
2009-04-28 & 05-01: cropped 2 Little Caesar romaines (whole).
2009-05-01: Sowed new lettuce box - Buttercrunch, Kojisan komatsuna, Four Seasons, Korean Red Curl, Little Caesar, Silvia red romaine.
2009-05-13: Reaped one of the oldest spinach to make way for squash. Reaped last icicle radish full-size - really don't like the flavor. Sowed 4 more radish seeds (French Blush and Pointiville) amongst the baby cukes.
2009-05-16: Added tan container to the greens project - planted lettuces little caesar, four seasons, Korean red curl, plus French blush radishes, baby's leaf spinach, kojisan komatsuna. Reaped bunches of mustard greens and toy choi. The toy choi had started to bolt.
2009-05-21: Harvested all the cool weather baby's-leaf spinach and mustard greens - all suddenly bolting. Sowed a few Bloomsdale Longstanding spinach to replace some of the baby's leaf, plus another Pointiville radish for a no-show in the tomato-cuke box.
2009-06-16: Removed the last of the greens from the tomato / zucchini growbox. Harvested two Little Caesar romaines yesterday to salvage them from the aphids, and apparently killed the third somehow. The spinaches were getting absolutely nowhere, so pulled them, too. All the growbox radishes have been harvested now, too.
2009-07-05: Replanted 2nd tan tub in swiss chard - added some lime, slow release Miracle Gro, and some more potting mix on top. Left one silvia red romaine - it was the only green in that pot that looked surviveable.
2009-07-19: Planted spinach (baby leaf & bloomsdale), gonzales cabbage, lettuces krc, buttercrunch, little caesar, and one other... On seedling shelf for transplant outside in August.
2009-08-06: Transplanted a couple spinach and 5 or 6 lettuces into the Bucks County tomato growbox. (Used to be a Lebanese squash sharing it, but now it's pretty open beneath the tomato plant.) I didn't label, so don't know what kinds of lettuce or spinach.
2009-08-08: Yanked last of the leathery summer lettuce and planted for fall: transplanted out remaining 2 spinach, a cabbage, and a lettuce. Planted seeds for another cabbage, couple baby leaf spinach, lettuces KRC (just 2 seeds), roman emperor (5), little caesar (6).
2009-08-23: Planted chard (annual bed - should like the alkaline cinderblocks) and toy choi and mustard (mid-deck railing planters). I'm hoping the chard will look pretty into November in the annual bed.
2009-08-29 ? : Seeded toy choi and mustard greens in railing planters.
2009-09-06: Planted radishes and more toy choi.
2009-09-16: Planted more radishes, toy choi, mustard greens in railing planters. Probably last outdoor plants for this year - should have night-time lows in the 40's by next week.
2009-11-01: Put a cloche back on each growbox and seeded one with toy choi, one tendergreen mustard green, one Little Caesar romaine.
2009-11-10: The cloches are sprouting.
Sat, 2009/03/14 - 7:04pm
#2
Hey gisette, give me an URL for your growboxes. A google search turned up all sorts of things to grow "herbs" but no website for them. They sound like they're more open than earthboxes but similar. I'm curious.
Sat, 2009/03/14 - 7:33pm
#3
Sure - this is the page with the cutaway diagram of how it works.
P.S. I suspect the Earthboxes might work better in NM because evaporation is such a problem. Whereas in CT, you'd kinda like to maximize use of rainwater, but it has to drain, because our summer 3-day monsoons can dump inches.
Edit: then again, the Growbox reservoir is bigger than Earthbox's, and the plants do most of the evaporating, so... Might manage to survive longer on one refill, simply because it holds more water. And you know when it's full, and can add more water directly to the soil if it's dry.
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 3:11pm
#4
Hi Gisette,
I buy mosquito dunks and put chunks in the bottom of my planters and birdbath. Harmless bacteria (Bt) that kills mosquitoes. It really cut down on the 'squito population!
Beth
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 3:26pm
#5
Ooh, thank you, Beth, very interesting! I'm also tempted by the Bt variant specific to caterpillars. My petunias got inundated by those last year. 
Alas, my next-door neighbor is a major fan of birds and butterflies.
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 4:13pm
#6
I love you guys! I have to say that I admire you with your outdoor gardens. You face so many issues and elements of nature working against you, yet you plant and replant undetered. 
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 5:40pm
#7
Stubborn, at least. 
Annual flowers are easy... And there's a lot to be said for sunlight. The insects... are more of a problem...
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 6:27pm
#8
Buzzy seeds sent me a free packet of Poppies. I am going to give them a try for my grandmother in her front yard. She's 80 years old & she said in her little grannie voice "alright Jessica, that'd be real nice".
I told that I would plant them after last frost (listen to me sounding like a real gardener) 
I would start them in my apt but I read that they do not tranfer well and should be planted where they will live. I am looking forward to that!
Sun, 2009/03/15 - 6:37pm
#9
Good luck with the poppies!
Sat, 2009/03/21 - 10:35pm
#10
As expected, pretty lackluster performance from the spinach I planted out last week. No bigger than the ones I've kept in the seedling flat. But - not dead either. 
Not really a fair comparison - the seedling flats have been spending a lot of time in the sun, too. And the one outside has a plastic greenhouse much of the time.
It's not time to plant out the spinach and lettuce yet. Maybe next week (under plastic).
No sign of life from the seeds I planted in the other growbox yet. Today the container soil was lightly frozen again. According to the long-range forecast, in maybe 5 more days we finally climb out of the freezing nights.
Sat, 2009/03/28 - 9:25pm
#11
The spinach and lettuce seeds I planted a few weeks back, finally sprouted out in the Growbox. Chard still a no-show. They're sprouting in the opposite order from their cold-hardiness - lettuce first, then spinach, then chard. 
Anyway, planted out the rest of my lettuce and spinach transplants. The first test transplant spinach spent the last week in a kozy coat. I swapped it into an aqua shield today instead. Maybe it'll like bluegreen light better than red. Red is more for plants you want to hunker down and grow a strong stem... Like a tomato. In any case, the leaky aqua shield was an eyesore downstairs, so it got banished up here.
Sat, 2009/04/04 - 1:26pm
#12
Still growing, not very quickly. The transplanted spinaches don't do very well with gale-force winds, hence the plastic top today. Romaines don't seem to mind. Tried a little Miracle Gro on a spinach and a lettuce today, to see if it makes any difference. They've been getting lots of rain. I don't know that the Aqua Shield is doing the spinach much good. It'll lose it as soon as the cantaloupe seedlings are ready to put out.
Sun, 2009/04/12 - 6:39pm
#13
Greens still not growing very fast, but they are growing. None of last week's seeds have sprouted yet, and weren't expected to. Took 2 of the spinach and 1 lettuce seedling from a growbox and put in a pot for my mother for Easter (her Easter present request).
Because of the kozy coats experiment, the greens got the growbox nutrients and plastic mulch today. That should speed them up some, especially the spinach! (Spinach adores lime and dolomite - last spring, the spinach went nuts when planted in the growbox with a fresh nutrient patch.) Hopefully it'll react the same, though it's still really cold. They've been tarped over with plastic the last couple nights, but will have to survive a freeze tonight with only the nearby water igloos for protection.
Sat, 2009/04/18 - 9:21pm
#14
Greens growboxes gradually taking off. Spinach have grown more than it looks, since I've been nibbling at them. The greens seeds I planted in the saddle planters (toy choi & mustard, mostly) are also sprouting, as are new seedings of radishes and Roman Emperor romaine.
With most of these greens, the idea is to get a quick crop in before summer crops take those spots. Radish, toy choi, and mustard greens are all less than 30 day crops, spinach and lettuce a bit slower.
Fri, 2009/04/24 - 10:16pm
#15
Still growing, still slowly. They may take off this weekend during a pocket heatwave.
I'll catch a picture of the radishes tomorrow, but they haven't grown much.
Sat, 2009/05/02 - 6:14pm
#16
Greens really took off during the pocket heatwave last weekend. Cropped a couple heads of Little Caesar romaine. The mustard and toy choi won't be harvestable in their usual 30 days - took a couple weeks to germinate in the cold. But at least they're picking up now, the mustard greens faster than the toy choi.
Oh, I finally tried eating the radish greens - on an immature icicle radish. Aside from being spiny, it was really quite good.
Sun, 2009/05/10 - 12:40pm
#17
Windowbox greens really took off this week, finally. The radishes... the red ones were good, but the white icicle ones I didn't like. Something went wrong in the little pink tub - tossed yesterday. (There are 4 railing planters growing greens, but they're all similar.)
Sat, 2009/05/16 - 10:22pm
#18
Sat, 2009/05/23 - 7:22pm
#19
Picked last of the mustard greens and toy choi from the railing planters, plus all remaining baby's leaf spinach, as they were all starting to bolt. Also picked the one big KRC lettuce - it was where a pepper need to go. Replaced some of the baby's leaf spinach with warmer-tolerant bloomsdale longstanding. Though... at maturity 45 days from now, it'll probably be hotter than bloomsdale can stand, too.
Sat, 2009/05/30 - 3:24pm
#20
Sat, 2009/06/06 - 9:30pm
#21
So sad - I had to crop my Roman Emperor romaines, to give a cage to the tomato. We'd been eating leaves off them for a while, but they were still a week shy of full grown yet. Very good, though...
The second lettuce pot (tan) needs anti-algae treatment, I think. Maybe a mild peroxide wash... Green lacewings keep laying eggs on my lettuce. But... I kinda want them as garden carnivores, so...
Sat, 2009/06/13 - 8:09pm
#22
Sat, 2009/06/20 - 1:48pm
#23
No more greens left actually in the growboxes, just other planters. Harvested the last of the romaines and radishes, and pulled out some spinach that were getting nowhere underneath tomato and zucchini. Lots of bug/slug damage, but they're still going... I need to harvest them more.
Sat, 2009/06/27 - 1:58pm
#24
The herbs are doing fine, just didn't take a picture today.
Sat, 2009/06/27 - 5:01pm
#25
Herbs always seem to do fine, don't they?
I had trouble with spinach too. It just doesn't want to grow in my dirt outrider.
Sat, 2009/06/27 - 5:22pm
#26
Yeah, herbs are easy. At least, the ones I like to grow are.
That's funny, re the spinach. My spinach-under-seedling-lights worked OK. Not a speed demon for sure, but it grew. This round of outdoor spinach... One set got no light - can't compete with zucchini and tomato. The other set got eaten by slugs. And now it's too hot. Eh. Will grow more spinach in the fall...
Sat, 2009/07/04 - 2:33pm
#27
Not really paying much attention to these. Past season, and too early to plant for autumn. The herbs in the pot are doing well. The basils and cilantro in the annual patch, not really thriving.
Sat, 2009/07/11 - 2:27pm
#28
Only a few of the new swiss chard seeds have germinated yet.
Sat, 2009/07/18 - 10:39pm
#29
The greens are growing badly, but that's kind of expected now that summer soup has set in. I decided to try starting my fall greens indoors on my seedling shelf this year, to see if I can get a better spinach and lettuce crop in this fall, and try some lovely little cabbage seeds from Beth.
Sat, 2009/07/25 - 4:28pm
#30
These continuing to do really poorly, as expected. I was surprised, though - a couple lettuces I simply chopped off completely, have regrown leaves from their bases. They still don't taste very good in summer. But the guinea pig'll eat it...
The replacement fall greens are started and growing in the garage under lights.
Finished prepping my last-year growboxes today. One I planted with lettuce, spinach, and chard seeds last week, and unsurprisingly, no signs of life yet.
The other still had frozen soil last week, so I couldn't get the old tomato stems out. Now it's all set, and I transplanted one of my spinach seedlings out as a test. Nights are still below freezing, so its chances aren't especially good.
Both planters, I removed about half of the potting mix and dumped it in the garden, and topped off with fresh mix. Didn't like how their Moisture Control potting mix worked last year, and figure fresh mix will cut down on disease propagation. Added too much lime in one of the boxes, too.
I like the way Growboxes are more open than Earthboxes - the reservoir is bigger and has direct access, and they store rainwater, with the excess simply spilling out. But. The reservoirs got kinda green, and probably hatched mosquitoes. I pried one growbox apart to wash its reservoir, but it didn't go back together so well.
Won't do that again. The other, now that the ice was melted 
I just dumped out, poured in peroxide, and dumped again. Duct-taped black trashbag flaps over the reservoir access ports. Hopefully that'll cut down on algae and mosquito breeding.