Earth Box Planter - Garden System Review
The Earth Box Garden System has been around since 2001. If you are looking for a good way to do container gardening for larger plants like vegetables, including container tomatoes and peppers and the like, you will need a container that holds at least a couple of cubic feet of soil. The EarthBox is just the right size, measuring about 29×13x10.5 in. It’s a totally self contained garden system. It goes together quickly, about 20-25 minutes including the addition of the potting soil.
A single container will hold all sorts of vegetables. For larger plants like artichokes, tomatoes, and eggplants you can plant two seedlings. For somewhat smaller plants like peppers, melons, and cucumbers you can plant 4 seedlings, for broccoli, cauliflower, onions and most herbs you can plant 8 seedlings, and for peas and beans you can plant 16 seedlings. It makes a great herb garden that you can keep right outside the kitchen door, or even on your patio or balcony if you are an apartment dweller. And of course the Earth Box works great as a flower planter as well. One great use for an EarthBox is to try some root crops like carrots that may not be suited to the soil in your area.
Covered soil: There are two covers (one a spare) that are black on one side and white on the other. You keep the black surface on top unless you are in a very warm climate. The covers not only help to retain moisture, but keep out many pests, help keep the weeds down, and keep the rain from splashing the potting soil and fertilizer out of the container.
Tomatoes: If you plan to put tomatoes in the Earth Box, they suggest that you increase the pH of the soil by adding hydrated lime or dolomite to avoid blossom end rot.
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Optional Casters: With 2 cubic feet of soil and the water reservoir, this unit can get heavy in a hurry. If you need to move it during the growing season, (protoction from storms, or even better to garage it for the first frost or two to extend the growing season a bit) the optional casters are a great addition.
Probably the one negative I’ve seen in reviews on the web is that some folks claim to have had a problem getting through to customer support for ordering if you went to Earth Box directly, and the shipping costs were on the high side. I don’t know how real that may be, but you can fix that easily enough by just ordering through Amazon or some other retailer that already has the unit in stock.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see a video of the Earthbox in action.
The Earth box comes in 2 colors, you can order the EarthBox Dark Green Garden Kit
Here’s an interesting overview of the Earthbox actually being used in commercial applications.
Filed under Container Gardening by John
Comments on Earth Box Planter - Garden System Review »
MayberryGardener @ 2:17 pm
I have had the best luck with an alternative, the Garden Patch. Their customer service is great, and I much prefer their plastic cover–that includes one season’s worth of fertilizer and is applied after the seedlings are planted, with holes cut out–to the elasticized cover that was always difficult to plant through for the Earthbox. Same concept, but Garden patch is less expensive, too. I have even purchased 4-mil plastic in rolls at Walmart, cut to fit, and used my own fertilizer for subsequent years to save money.
They DO ROCK, though! I have more tomatoes, and sooner, than any of my neighbors, and can move the boxes into the garage during winter, and still be harvesting fresh tomatoes in January.
MayberryGardener @ 2:23 pm
A couple more thoughts: these boxes are minimal if any weeding, slugs and other crawling pests can’t get into the boxes, and for tomatoes, it’s super-easy to prevent blossom-end rot by throwing some crushed eggshells into the reservoir. Also, when using the Garden Patch Grow Box, there are preformed slots that you can drill out and bend your regular tomato cages to fit into the holes to support whatever you’re growing. The custom staking systems, made by each company for its respective product, is an expensive addition to an already expensive glorified flowerpot.
Pauline Young @ 10:34 am
I bought 3 earth boxes for over
$100.00 and was not told that you
need special dirt, fertilizer, etc. I
can only find the potting mix but
not the other. Now if I have to
order it, it cost more money plus
postage, which isn’t worth it. There
should have been instructions
BEFORE people purchase it as it
isn’t right that we buy it and can’t
even use it. I now have 3 big
boxes and have no use for them. I
am very disappointed as I was
hoping to get some nice
vegetables this summer and now I
won’t. If anyone asks me about the
earth boxes, I will tell them of my
experience. Pauline Young
John @ 11:20 am
You don’t really need special soil or fertilizer. I’m sure the web site recommends something like the refill kits but that’s not really necessary.
Mine do great with just a standard loose potting soil and I use an organic fertilizer because it will be slow acting. In fact, we are on our second year on some herbs planted in one and they are still going strong. You can buy refill kits, and they do make the job of replanting easier, but by no means is that the only way to use these planters.
Tomato Gardening Tips - 5 Tips for Growing Great Tomatoes @ 2:28 pm
[...] there are several choices. A large self watering container, like the commercially available Earthbox is a great choice, as it solves one of the biggest problems with container grown plants, which is [...]