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jmalt31

New Earthbox Design and head to head test

jmalt31
17 years ago

Hello All,

I hope everyone is well? I know that I am checking in way late with this but my wife wanted her patio finished. Anyway I have made yet another design using two rubbermaid tubs one 14 gallon and one 18 gallon. The 14 gallon tub sits into the 18 gallon tub. This is the easiest design yet and has the largest water reservoir and the same amount of potting mix as the other designs. I will have a PDF write-up on this in a few days. The head to head test will be four earthboxes one real one and three of my designs. The three designs are the earthbox copy, the dual tub mentioned above and the hybrid design with the aeration tubes instead of the screen. I will plant one sungold in each and we will see if one performs better that the others. Here are some pictures of the designs

The new dual tub design.

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And the hybrid design.

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Comments (8)

  • tuesdayschild
    17 years ago

    Am dying to see the results, I've been fascinated by all the ads that have been arriving at my house, but know naught about how they're constructed. So your post is fascinating, but I am feeling really dense looking at the 3rd photo -- Am not getting a sense of size and relationship between the tubes pictured.

    Couple of queries:

    A1 and B3 do not actually have "holes" into the inner tub? Only the center one goes all the way through?

    How tall are those tubes? They look really big!

    Wow I'm all-a-jingle that someone's actually trying a serious test on these!!! Yeee hah -- I have a vested interest having 11 tomato plants in pots as my land has almost no dirt between decks, patios, etc.

  • jmalt31
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Hello Tuesdaychild,

    I am glad you are so excited about them. The pipes are 4 inch PVC drain pipe with some holes already drilled into it. They are just a hair under 7 inches tall (the distace from the bottom of the 14 gallon tub to the bottom of the 18 gallon tub). the pipe cost about 5 bucks for 10 feet at my local home depot here in the northeast. If you look close you will see that I drilled a diagonal series of holes in all three pipes. I have included a few more pictures that should give you some idea of the scale and my web site is listed at the bottom with the original DIY earthbox doc. Soon to be added to.

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    Here is a link that might be useful: Link to my website

  • benjaminsurletoit
    17 years ago

    Good Job on these containers. This is exactly how we have been building our catainers (2 rubbermaids) for our roof top garden project (see link below) for the past two growing seasons. They work great although more & smaller wicks at the corners has been found to be preferable because the soil mix tends to dry up there first. Visit our website for ideas on building other models (buckets, barrels, etc.)

    Here is a link that might be useful: Rooftop Gardens

  • nealsc
    17 years ago

    SO what were the RESULTS of this head to head test??!?!?!??!?!?!

  • jmalt31
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    You want the results you got them. I just posted 2 new documents to my website. One is the results of the test and the other is the details building instructions for the dual tub design. I am sorry it took me so long to post them but they are available now.

    Thanks,
    Joe

    Here is a link that might be useful: my website

  • dangsr2
    17 years ago

    jmalt31, I looked over your site as you said and saw nothing about gardening, where are the pix?

  • bob414
    17 years ago

    Go to the page and click on one of these links:
    how to make a selfwatering container or Earthbox
    The new dual tub design (part 2 of the file above)
    test results from the head to head comparison test
    To see pictures of the results click on the bottom one.

  • curlymom
    17 years ago

    I am really intrigued by this container method, for my roof top garden. I just attended the flower show lecture on hydroponics and am beginning to make my own compost, thank you for posting all of this information. I will certainly try it for my tomato plants at the very least!
    Thanks again,
    curlymom