
Max Fortres uploaded this most impressive photo of
EarthBoxes in Campbell’s greenhouse to
Photobucket. It is the only photo in the album and the location is unknown. I left a comment for Max and perhaps he will reply. It would be interesting to know more about the photo.
What is significant about it is the obvious professional organization and the lush, productive growth in the EarthBoxes. Who knows how many there are in this facility but it obviously represents serious business. Who knows also how many commercial growing facilities across the country are using EarthBoxes or other
sub-irrigation planters (SIPs).
The point I make, once again, is that it unconscionable how our cooperative extension program agents, botanical institutions, gardening publications, gardening organizations, and other horticulturists continue to ignore the rapidly increasing growth in the use of sub-irrigation planters (SIPs) like the EarthBox. In my professional opinion, it is a "firing offense".
This is not about a subjective opinion or personal preference. It is now well documented that SIPs will out produce both top watered planters and in-ground plantings while conserving water and precious time. Sub-irrigation is not a new technique. Its use is documented more than one hundred years ago.
We have much rhetoric in the media about our national obesity problem and the need for local urban agriculture and yet our media is essentially dumb on the subject of using very simple technology like SIPs. Capillary action is not rocket science.
If you're in the New York metro area, come out to the
Waterpod this weekend and see for yourself how SIPs do their thing in a very impressive way. Seeing is believing.