Inside Urban Green

Tomato Farm On A Deck

Anyone, anywhere could be producing fresh tomatoes in a kitchen garden like this. All you need is enough sunlight and the desire to do it. These happen to be Garden Patch Grow Box sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). They could just as well be EarthBoxes, Tomato Success Kits or homemade SIPs.

SIPs produce more fresh vegetables per square foot than any other method (including in-ground growing) while saving water and time. Plus, you will have no worry about contaminated soil if you live in the city.

Sub-irrigated planter systems are the ecologically sound and smart way to grow food whether you live in the city, suburbs or even if you live in the country.

EarthBox Or Garden Patch Grow Box Online

EarthBox

Garden Patch Grow Box

This is from someone online calling themselves "Earthbox". They sell both the EarthBox and Garden Patch Grow Box sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). I have no experience with them so you're on your own.

If you have any experience with this site, let us all know by posting a comment.

Grow Box Tomato Abundancy

This is a customer photo of a Garden Patch Grow Box sub-irrigated planter (SIP). Many photos of SIPs do not show the abundant fruit as well as this one does.

Wouldn't it be nice to have this tomato garden outside your kitchen door.

via www.agardenpatch.com

I am a Snowbird and spend about 4 month in Florida. I saw your add about your grow boxes and decided to find out if they are as good as you claim. To my surprise the are even better then I expected.

The early morning walkers used to gather around my GrowBox in unbelief admiring my Tomatoes, some came to the door asking for information. Some even asked to taste them to be sure they taste as good as they look. The tomatoes had grown faster then I could make the support frame.

A Garden Patch At Home Denied To Many

Photo: a customer submitted photo from the Garden Patch Grow Box website

There are millions upon millions of urbanites and suburbanites who do not have a backyard with access to dirt who could have a "garden patch" at home like this dad and daughter.

They could, if they knew about it. Sadly, most of them don’t thanks to a horticultural education system fixated on dirt gardening and pots with drain holes.

It is truly a national disgrace that this situation exists. It is even more reprehensible in that the majority of this information comes from taxpayer supported USDA Extension Programs and land grant institutions.

Here is just one of the hundreds of examples I find in my daily research. It is from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental Sciences titled “Tips and tricks for container gardening”.

As is almost always the case, it contains the admonishment to be sure your container has a drain hole. There is not one word about “self-watering”, or more accurately sub-irrigated planters (SIPs).

What is even more amazing is that the Extension Program educator who wrote the article was recognized for her wisdom in solving a kids gardening project problem back in 2007. What was her solution? EarthBoxes! Does she now have a case of amnesia? You can read the article here.

Is the lack of progressive information from these institutions ignorance or is it public policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture? Either answer is unacceptable but in my view the latter would be the more egregious of the two. 

Urban Gardening: Bad Information At Retail

The Earth Box from the Garden Center is great for those who want a simple, low-maintenance herb garden.

The "Earth Box" in the photo is not the brand name EarthBox. It's the Garden Patch Grow Box, but that's not the most egregious error in this article.

The most damaging inaccuracies are the opinions about clay pots (see below). If you're comparing clay pots versus SIPs for growing any vegetables including herbs, it is simply no contest.

SIPs will out-produce clay pots every time while conserving valuable water and time. Open your mind to SIPs and you can easily prove all this to yourself. Incidentally, it's easy to convert clay pots into SIPs. I had many of them growing plants outdoors in San Diego, including Bamboo and Plumeria. More about that in a future post.

The quality of horticultural advice at retail is abominable, but that unfortunately is generically true of our national horticultural education.

If we don't reform our horticultural education, we are clearly in danger of losing yet another technology based industry to companies like Valcent and other international companies. We are simply not keeping up in the field of urban food production.

Oh well, not to worry, it's only about our economy and new jobs.

via www.mysanantonio.com

There are two types of containers to choose from: plastic or clay. The decision can be made on aesthetics, price and efficiency.

"We usually recommend clay over plastic," said Wendy Meyer of Shades of Green Nursery. "It's difficult to find well-done plastic pots that look good."

But unlike their plastic counterparts, clay pots can get pricey; a fancy, glazed clay pot costs as much as $100, according to Wayne Harrell of the Garden Center.

Lyn Belisle, Web master for the San Antonio Herb Society, recommends using clay containers because they hold moisture better and keep soil temperature steady. But Belisle also suggests having fun with containers and thinking outside the pot.

"I've see herb gardens in sinks, cowboy boots, baskets, colorful tin cans and even a colander lined with moss," she said.

Garden Patch Grow Box Now On Amazon.com

via www.amazon.com

I hadn't noticed before that the Garden Patch Grow Box is available on Amazon.com. This will help add to the sub-irrigated planter (SIP) customer feedback database.

There are only a couple of reviews at this time but that will increase as more buyers become aware of SIP productivity benefits while saving valuable water and time.

It's time to order seeds and check out SIPs if you haven't already. There is a ton of information, including consumer experience, on this site. Just surf the categories in the right column or use the Google site search (upper left).

If that fails to answer your question, post a comment. If I don't know the answer I know where to find it. I research every day of the week. It's my positive addiction.

Garden Patch Grow Box Customer Photos

Periodically I remember to check the customer supplied photos on the Garden Patch Grow Box website. It is an interesting source of information. If you are not familiar with it, the Grow Box is a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) very similar to the EarthBox but less well known.

In any case, what strikes me is that the majority of the photos are of SIPs in the suburbs with this exception. There are a couple of others on balconies but most of the photos have grass lawns or contain some other clue that the location is suburban or rural.  

My belief is that this is directly connected to the gardening consciousness associated with having a traditional yard. The majority of people intuitively think of gardening in the dirt. No yard, no dirt, no gardening.

Due to our retrogressive horticultural education, the lay public does not know that fresh vegetables can be grown in a SIP box or bucket anywhere there is sunlight. It does not matter if the surface is grass, blacktop or concrete. Who knew?

The other thing to note about these photos is that all the people are white. That reflects much about our horticultural institutions and education. People of color living in our cities are not well served by these institutions.

I live in New York City and see it first hand. Even though the city is a melting pot of races and cultures, the institutions of horticulture are predominately white. If we are ever going to solve our problems associated with childhood obesity this needs to change.

via www.agardenpatch.com

Garden Patch Grow Box in the City

Thanks to the collection of customer supplied photos on the Garden Patch Grow Box website we have this one taken in Cincinnati, Ohio. How many children ever have the experience of eating a fresh tomato like this in a chain link fence and concrete world? This photo speaks to the realities of urban life. There is no dirt here and if there was you probably would not want to grow in it.

We live in a brownstone in the heart of Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. There is very little space to plant tomatoes in our back lot and even less sun to do it in. I have struggled for years to get anything to consistently grow back there. This year I decided to try the Garden Patch planter. It allowed me to place the plants directly in our little patch of sun. As you can see they are doing very well.

-Erik & Max B. Cincinnati, OH

When I saw the photo, it immediately reminded me of the PS 102 PONG across the street. If the heirloom tomato plants had been planted on time, they too would be covering the chain link fence like this and already producing juicy heirloom tomatoes. Patience, it will happen! Stay tuned!

There is another very important message in this photo. It speaks more loudly than my words. Look at the difference in plant health and robustness between the Garden Patch Grow Box (prior posts) and the top watered drain hole planters. I see this every day in my travels around the web.

Top watering in drain hole planters is the leading cause of weak, spindly and generally unhealthy plants whether edible or decorative. It is clearly an erratic method of container plant irrigation.

Sub-irrigation does make a difference despite all the doubters in the rather dogmatic drain hole community. It is clearly time for our horticultural and botanical institutions to move into the 21st century from whatever prior century they live in.

Portable Garden Abundance

The photos below are from Nelson's Picasa Web Album. He grows in both Garden Patch Grow Boxes and EarthBoxes. As you can see, his tomato plants are portable. Gardens like these can be moved anywhere at any time. Follow the sun or to your next home.

I rarely see lush and full sweet pepper plants (lower photo) like these growing in the ground or in drip irrigated raised beds for that matter.

This garden is obviously in a suburban or rural setting but these plants could be growing anywhere there is enough sun in the inner city. There is no need for tillable land or heavy labor. It is a safe and sensible way to garden.

There is no reason for so-called "food deserts" in the city other than a lack of information. Our horticultural and botanical institutions need to do a much better job than they are doing at this time. They seem to be stuck in a prior century when land based victory gardens were the vogue. That was a long time ago. We obviously now have far more productive ways to grow food in the city.

Really Raised Beds for New Knees

Rick in Virginia is getting two new knees. That means an arduous period of rehabilitation with no physical activities such as gardening. He and his wife, however, came up with a creative solution. 

He now has six Garden Patch Grow Boxes on tables as you can see. You might think of these as the ultimate raised beds. Unlike in-the-ground raised beds, Rick can have his vegetable garden at any height he chooses. For city gardeners it's also lead free gardening. 

This of course isn't just a solution for knee surgery recovery. Think of all the infirm and physically disabled people there are across the country who could benefit from user-friendly elevated sub-irrigated box planters. 

Social service organizations and community gardens should be implementing elevated box gardening outreach programs that would help serve an ever-growing segment of our aging population. 

Incidentally, I can relate to Rick's situation because there are two new knees in my future as well.  

Source: Garden Patch Grow Box