Sew a Grow-Bag or Upside Down Planter Bag

Finally found something useful to turn a thick, canvas stripey blue and white fabric into - an attractive grow-bag for blueberries and strawberries.Matched with a white side backing, these grow bags have a kind of nautical appearance. Its a simple colourful option to using plain polystyrene. boxes for your plants.

The upside down grow bags I made were simply made from cut up leggings from corduroy and woollen trousers and the side seams were sewn together. Then I added ahandle forhanging on a tree or wall. Strawberries seem to thrive better off the ground and have less trouble with snails.

Push your plant through paper or fabric to prevent soil escaping from the bottom slit. Push the plant through the upside down planter.I like to ensure good drainage by cutting holes at the bottom of the bag, throw in a few small stones or volcanic rock dust for healthy soil, add composted soil then earth soil to top off the bag.

Optional: Next insert a water bottle with holes for internal drip irrigation. Strawberries and blueberries, mustard greens and brussel sprouts did not like the sea weed fertiliser very much and leaves browned at the edges or died. However, they seemed to grow more new young leaves using fish emulsion.

Check out the sweeter, higher brix blueberry experiment by Farmer Bob Wilt when he stopped using chemical fertilisers and switched to an organic fertiliser for his blueberries.The fava beans kept growing rapidly with little watering and took in any seaweed or wood ash water concoction without a fuss. I experimented using wood ash and ground sea salt mixture. Only the fava beans grew well with this mixture.

After several months sitting in the bags, I forgot to water them and they did not thrive until I returned the container and bag plants into composted soil. The grow bags certainly give all the seedlings a head start.  They are stronger than other plants planted straight into the ground. Someone suggested giving beer to snails to drive them into a drunken stupor and ensure a speedy death. I think I just might try that!

Comments

[Mr. E Meat]

Nice! I did the same thing with weed blocker fabric.

[ooohlaa]

also can do with old pillowcases; i grew potatoes int these and it worked great but you have to water more frequently, they can dry out.

[Gomi Romi]

Thanks! I thought of weed blocker fabric also, but decided to find all my scrap fabrics instead

[originalcyn84]

we have a huge slug problam, and i mean HUGE...some of them get over 8in! i've tried beer but all i ended up with was giant drunken slugs! the beer didn't kill anything. good luck! thanks for the great idea! i'm gonna go through my old fabric and see what i can find for some upsidedown tomatoes :)

[ooohlaa]

actually you are supposed to put out saucers of beer and they drink and drown, that's how they day. never had luck with this either though.

[Kaisei13]

Beer doesn't kill slugs, it attracts them. Try burying a deep bowl or glass level with your soil and put beer in. The slugs will go for it and get stuck (for awhile at least) then just dump them in the garbage.

[Gomi Romi]

Thanks! Good one - Go for it!

[ooohlaa]

wonderful tutorial with many good ideas. I use the fabric bags from walmart or Public wine bag giveaways and they last about 2 seasons and decompose. They are ready made, the wine slots have to be snipped but it works. Never thought to hang, great idea since they have ready made handles. Love the sponge/newspaper ideas too. Thanx

[Sunglowart]

very impressive! I will try this out this summer.