Shopsmith Forums

I gave growing vegetables in 5 gal buckets a try this summer. They turned out GREAT! Going to make a dozen or so self watering 5 gal buckets this winter.
Global Buckets dot org has a lot of good info.
One thing different I did was take a bucket lid, cut out the center on a scrollsaw and placed it between the two buckets. This gives more space for water and the Solo cup that acts as a wick fits perfect this way.

Anyone grow plants in a bucket planter? Any tips?

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Shouldn't that be globalbuckets.org ?

pennview wrote:Shouldn't that be globalbuckets.org ?

You are correct. .org

Lokks like a good idea. Your plants look healthier than my traditional garden grown ones.

John

Update
This is my bucket garden for 2012. Tomato's, Peppers, Bush Cucumbers and Eggplant. The two buckets that look empty are planted with seed potato's. As the plants grow you fill with top soil.
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Bucket gardening, postage stamp gardens, raised bed gardens, gardens in old tires... All of these things my friends are the early stages of how we can feed ourselves and the world on into the future...
You do know don't you that big old fat marbled steak we love to toss on the grill is about the most inefficiently produced food item on the planet. Grain fed beef, a waste of resources and about as unhealthy as anything you can eat. I know guys that demand one almost every day right up until they get a cholesterol test and it rings the bell at the top of the pole or they have their first heart attack, which ever comes first.
Don't get me wrong, I love them too... but I rarely eat one any more. I also don't begrudge the guys that live for them. I may be forced to eat one myself this week. Just that as a society we need to generally be heading other directions. Not over night, just slow steady changes. As a farm boy I grew up with a high production garden and have gardened most of my life. Even with that the old ways of plowing up a huge garden and planting stuff in rows is far from the best way. I was kind of stuck in that mind-set for a long time and my wife still thinks that is the right way because, well, because that was how her dad did it.
It took me a long time to learn about raised beds and other ways. Today what little gardening I do is intensively planted raised beds of one kind or another. I got out of the gardening habit a few years ago when my health was giving me problems but I am working back into it and plan on growing a lot next year. We have grown a few tomato plants along even in problem years and for several years we have been growing them in an old refrigerator on its back and the doors off. It is sat up much like the self watering method but bigger. We clean out the top few inches of dirt each year and add a soil/compost mix and so far no problem with pathogens. I need to set up a second one so we can rotate between them. One of the things on my sawmill cutting list is some 1" boards to "side" them with so they look less like an old dead fridge. Those tomatoes sure beat the dickens out of those hard old red rocks they sell for tomatoes at the store. I always put out at least one cherry tomato plant just for passing munching.
I am fond of using very wide old tires for small raised beds. They are easy to mow or trim around (and hard to damage). I use a Roto-Zip to buzz both sidewalls out leaving only about 2" of sidewall. I just fill them with dirt most of the way and add compost. They work very well. They may not be the prettiest thing around but then I don't put them out by the road and I put them in nice straight rows.
I have a web friend in northern PA and they have a small house on a small lot. She grows more stuff than they can use or store. They sell some and give a lot of stuff away. She could easily grow a whole lot more if they needed it. That is food production...
BTW, that cow that furnished that fatty steak? You could grow a couple of thousand chickens (and not in a big confinement operation) on the resources and space she needs. I keep saying cow, yeah they butcher mostly steers but you never really know what kind of tired old milk cow might hobble across the scales next...


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Farmer, you lead a most interesting life. I really enjoy your writings. Keep them coming. How is the new shop project coming along?

fredsheldon wrote:Farmer, you lead a most interesting life. I really enjoy your writings. Keep them coming. How is the new shop project coming along?

Sadly it has taken a bit of a back seat to the outdoor work and farm shop work for a while now. There is a line of jobs a mile long waiting on me to get around to them.
We have been doing some work on the house and some landscaping work and of course a ton of mowing.
The more I do the more jobs pop up. There is always something needing work. This week I found a baseball sized rock with a mower blade (I think the horses put it there as a prank) and folded a blade up. A wheel bearing failed on a hay wagon this week that I need to fix as soon as I am sure we got all of the bumblebees killed that had built a nest inside of the front axle... Still enough fence work to do a little almost daily.
The golf cart/truck that we use for hauling feed, hay and sometimes water is getting some shop time this week too as did a little Case VAC tractor that needed some maintenance.
I do expect to get some time in the woodshop when our temperatures spike again this week. When it is 90+ degrees that air-conditioned basement shop seems extra inviting.


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These two sound like a couple of goof-ball kids but they do bring up an interesting concept. I've tried container/bucket gardening before. But, my main problem was trying to keep everything from drying out. I found that you had to pretty much water constantly to keep the soil from drying out. And no matter what I tried, I would ultimately get busy with other projects and forget to water so there would go the garden.

Hummmm. But, they do give me some ideas with their positive flow watering system. I picked up one of those 500 gallon tanks at an auction back in the spring that I created a rain collection system off my barn roof to water my garden. So, far I've just been using a transfer pump when I need to water. But, a soaker hose using a siphoning action might be a better way to go.

I have a friend at work that's into raised bed gardening in a big way. He has a string of raised beds that are 4' x 12' square and 12" high. They are spaced exactly 32" between each bed, and he has a 2x12 that's 3' long with a cleat on each end that can span from one sideboard to the sideboard of the next bed and makes a nice seat he can set on and slide down the length of the bed while he's working. He's got 12" long PCV Pipes attached to the inside of the bed walls at each corner and spaced down the sides with conduit straps. Early in the spring he'll take a piece of smaller diameter PVC pipe and can bend it from one side to the other, slipping the ends in the pipes, making hoops over the beds. With a layer of plastic, he's got hotbeds for starting his vegetables early. After the fear of frost is gone, the hooped PVC pipes are removed and straight PVC pipes go in their places and are used to tie up tomatoes and pole beans.

He's now made a chicken coop which is 4' wide and 6' long, with chicken wire on the top, sides and bottom. There's a nesting box on one side he can access from the outside and the coop has 2 retractable wheels and 2 handles like a wheel barrow. He is now rotating his raised beds. One goes dormant, and he puts the chicken coop on top of the bed on one end. 1/2 the summer goes by and he lowers the wheels, takes the handles and rolls it to the other end of the raised bed. Now the chickens are providing natural fertilizer to the beds and he's getting his own eggs too.