Grow Bag with Bulb Fennel

Did you know I tried growing some larger herbs in Grow Bags this year?

No? Well you can read the original post here.

To recap, I bought several Grow Bags from Gardeners Supply to try and planted smaller herbs in one, Florence Fennel in another and Marshmallow in the largest of the bags.

The fennel was doing well when the weather went from 65* to 90*F within a week. The fennel bolted resulting in much smaller roots than I’d hoped for, but that’s OK. This whole grow bag thing was an experiment.

The Marshmallow plants in the larger Potato Grow Bag did very well, but due to the height of the plants and our windy location, they had a tendency to blow over fairly often.

Note to self: Next time remember to place Grow Bags with taller herbs near a wind break.

I did learn a few other things about growing in the Grow Bags.

What I liked:

First of all…they do very nicely for larger herbs. I could have fit another plant in the carrot bag and still have had plenty of room for large bulbs to form.

The bags seemed nice and sturdy.

The plants did well with regular daily watering.

What I Didn’t Like:

The bags were thirsty.

They dried out very quickly on hot days, which was every day in July. The small herb bag containing a basil and parsley plant needed watering two or three times a day.

Watering seemed uneven. I realized this was the outer soil drying out due to the ‘breathability’ of the bags. If I had not been watering and checking the bags every day I definitely would have lost plants. Just sayin’.

Dry Soil on Outer Edges of Grow Bag

So….the BIG questions.

Would I use them again? Yes, absolutely.

Would I buy more? Yes.

I would also recommend them to friends, with the warning about soil drying out and plants wilting in hot, windy areas.

If you want to try them yourself you can find the Grow Bags here at Gardener’s Supply.

One thing I AM curious about is how they will hold up over another year or two.

I plan to bring these in for the winter, plant them again in the Spring and let you know

comfrey & catnip drying in the herb shed

One thing I love about my little garden shed is the great area for hanging herb bundles.

Since herbs need to be dried properly to avoid becoming moldy after cutting, we usually bundle the herbs and hang them to dry.

I try to get them hung right away because:

• it’s so humid here in the summer

• if I don’t, they will just sit and rot.

The shed stays pretty dry and warm (with that attached greenhouse and all) and there is no direct sun during the summer so most things dry very well in there.

Of course some things don’t lend themselves to hanging, or I may just want the leaves, so those herbs get laid out flat to dry. Like these sage leaves.

sage leaves

Every once in awhile something comes up , I get interrupted and I forget to finish something that needs doing. And sometimes I’m just flaky and forget things.

Most recently it was the second cutting of nettle. A phone call and trip to town took over my brain and I left two big tubs of cut nettle just sitting in the shed waiting to be hung… for three days.

Arrggghhh.

Nettle is a favorite and used a lot during hay-fever season. For me that starts when the local ragweed is releasing what seems like 32 tons of pollen per plant. We harvest, dry and tincture lots of Stinging Nettle.

When I remembered I had left the nettle in the tubs and returned to my drying duties I hoped some of the nettle would be usable.

Um, not so much. The nettle in the top of the tub looked great, but the high temps in the closed shed combined with juicy ripe nettle resulted in this nasty looking mess beneath that top layer…

moldy nettle

Darn it!

Come ragweed season I am sure going to wish I hadn’t done that.

Gardener's Supply Grow Bag with Bulb Fennel

Have you been seeing grow bags all over the place? I think they are a great idea -especially with so many people growing urban gardens.

For years gardeners have been slitting open bags of soil and using them as a small garden beds, and they worked very well. Appearance-wise they lean to the far side of ugly, but they work!

Then someone got smart. They invented growing bags. They are much more attractive than a ratty old bag of potting soil, and are said to have other benefits as well.

The only concern I have heard is that the bags are made from polypropylene. The idea of growing in plastic was unappealing to a few people, but in my humble opinion, if you are an urban gardener you are probably growing in plastic containers and 5 gallon buckets anyway!

It seems that fresh food grown in a Grow Bag has to be better than NOT having fresh, and I would imagine there would be less plastic chemical leaching into my herbs and veggies from a Grow Bag than with a 5 gallon bucket. I could be very wrong, but since the bags are breathable it makes sense in my head. Does anyone know of any studies out there on this?

Well, in the spirit of experimentation I thought I would try a few Grow Bags myself and post my findings here and on our Growing Herbs for Beginners Facebook page.

I bought three different Grow Bags from Gardeners Supply Company (and no, they did not pay me for this!)

Gardener's Supply Grow Bags

I got the herb bag in basic black. It’s a square affair measuring 13″ W x 10″ L x 7″ H. I got it because it said HERB BAG. It was a no brainer. It’s currently planted with a mixed group of herbs.

I also purchased a carrot bag. In blue because it was pretty  It measures 14″ diameter x 12″ tall.

I wanted to try a few larger herbs that people generally don’t grow in containers to see how they fare in the Grow Bags. My pretty blue carrot bag is planted with a few Florence or bulb fennel plants.

Blue Grow Bag from Gardeners Supply

There is also a potato bag…it’s huge and as of this moment not fully planted. I already have potatoes planted in the kitchen garden, so I’m going with big herbs…

I’m thinking we’ll test it with some of the larger herbs like Echinacea or Marshmallow. I want to try marshmallow because I’m thinking rather than wrestling and digging the coveted roots it might easier to retrieve them from a grow bag.

This could be great for those with poor soil or limited garden space and gardeners with disabilites…but we’ll see how my theory tests.

I’ll keep track and take pictures along the way and let you know how it goes!

Cattle Panel Lean-to Greenhouse in April

I’ve had a few people ask about my little lean-to greenhouse so I thought I’d post a few more pictures here for you.

I can only get about half of the greenhouse in a photo, so I’ll show you photos from both sides and you can mentally piece it together…or not.

This lean-to is attached to the garden shed and is about 15′ x 16′. There are two doors, one on either side. One faces east,the other west.  Vents above both doors help prevent overheating.

Grow Bed in the Greenhouse

There are three permanent grow beds in the greenhouse with room for another if I want- but I really like using the Earth Boxes for some things-especially in the winter. I can scoot them around where I like, and move them outdoors when the weather gets nice.

The longer permanent grow beds on the outside ‘walls’ are about 10′ x2′ and have 4″ of builders sand in them.  The shorter one is about 8′ long and 2′ wide, also sand filled.

Potted plants or seedling flats an be set inside them. The grow beds can be covered with half hoops and plastic which bumps me up another zone or two. This allows me to grow a few greens all winter. I can also use heating cables in them for root zone heat-providing we don’t lose power. That happens quite often actually.

Another trick I like is using plain old clear plastic tubs to make mini greenhouses for seedlings and smaller tender plants. I can set the tubs in unused areas of the grow beds over heat cables if necessary.

Greenhouse From West Side

We recently had a huge ‘toss-a-thon’ and got rid of about 14,985,642 nursery pots from the lean-to, garden shed, outside potting bench and wherever else I had them stashed. I don’t know why I’ve kept them all, I sure don’t need that many these days…must be a gardening thing!  Here it’s been tidied a bit.

Herb Greenhouse- Potting Shed Wall

OK…I did not say I had gotten rid of all my nursery and tree pots. A girl should keep about 400 on hand I think. And plenty of cedar herb boxes, too.

This wall is the back of the garden shed. It gets really beat up from the sun and heat so it’s getting stained this year come h*ll or high water! I am also adding a long bench beneath the windows and tossing the castoff plastic dealio on the left. In case you didn’t know, plastic stuff degrades like crazy in the greenhouse. The cute little decorative bench is getting relocated, too. It was never meant as a serious potting bench, but as a decorative thing. I think I’ve nearly killed it over the last few years.

Here is the inside of the garden shed, AKA The Mental Health Center.

One thing I love is that on sunny winter days I can open these two little windows on the greenhouse side and the garden shed heats right up! I originally thought about opening this wall on the left up into the greenhouse, but decided against it. We hold small classes in here and can’t afford to lose the workspace. Besides-the 15′ walk around the corner to the greenhouse isn’t that far.

Interior West Half of Herb Garden Shed

You can see the west half here- one of the 4×8 hanging racks above, and the antique Chambers stove to the right. The stove is nice for preparing my brews, soaps, lotions and potions.

Then of course there is lots of junk like my gourds, half finished concrete projects, greenhouse shade cloth and plenty more. Now that I’m looking at it I realize I probably should have cleaned up before taking this picture.

The other side has more storage, hanging racks, a work table, small TV with the trimmings, and even an itty bitty fireplace. It’s really cozy in here and a very nice place to work in the winter. When my kids were little we’d bring out toys and schoolwork (they were all home schooled) and we would all ‘work’ .

Well, that’s the end of the herb greenhouse and garden shed tour, hope you enjoyed it!

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Texas How- Do

My gardening pal Pammy grows her herb garden in Texas.

She can even grow Rosemary year round OUTDOORS!

I know, right?

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but for those of us in the Midwest and North Eastern parts of the country, this seems like magic! Shoot, by this time of year all my non-hardy and tender herbs are already safely tucked indoors.

Pammy has kindly agreed to be our hostess of herb blogging this weekend, and she’s sharing some of her rosemary growing tips over at her blog with us.

Now y’all go check out her Texas style gardening!