Gardening with Growing Boxes

Written by Lee Wyatt (last updated December 4, 2024)

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If you find yourself facing difficulties when gardening, you may want to consider using some growing boxes. Gardening with growing boxes can be a great method for reducing, or even eliminating, many of the common problems faced with a regular garden. Here are a few things that you need to consider when you begin gardening with growing boxes.

  • Indoor boxes. Indoor growing boxes used to be more popular than they are now, though you can still find variants of them in many buildings today. These types of growing boxes can often be seen in interior atriums of buildings. For the most part these type of growing boxes will require some additional help due to them being indoors, so don't be surprised if you have to set up some lights, or place them near windows and such. Furthermore, since the plants will be indoors, you will need to help manually propagate the plants if you want them to reproduce at all.
  • Outdoor boxes. Outdoor growing boxes can be seen in a variety of locations, even today. Frankly they can be anything from window planters to the huge boxes you find around trees. One of the more common variants that are found today are the square foot gardening boxes. Outdoor boxes typically do not require additional lights, though they can require additional maintenance due to the weather.
  • Size. In the simplest terms, there really is no upper limit to the size of a growing box. That being said, most growing boxes that are used around the home will be under five feet in length or width. Typically you will want to choose a size that you can easily handle on your own, since you are the one that will most likely be doing the work on it.
  • Plant spacing. Since gardening in growing boxes is different than gardening normally, it should come as no surprise that you will need to actually plant your plants a bit differently. The general rule of thumb is that you will wan to cut down the plant spacing by no more than half. This will allow your plants to grow, and help avoid over crowding.
  • Nutrients. Considering that growing boxes are typically closed environments you will have to periodically add a bit of nutrients to the soil. This means that at the start of the growing season, prior to planting anything, you will need to mix in some long lasting, slow acting, fertilizers to help feed your plants through out the growing season. In addition, you may want to keep a closer eye on the pH balance of the soil to make sure that it doesn't end up damaging the plants in any way.

As you begin gardening with growing boxes, make sure that you keep an eye on the box. Since it is made out of wood, you can very easily end up with the wood rotting over time. This means that the wood will need to be well maintained. If you spot any signs of decay, or problems, simply take the necessary steps to repair it as quickly as possible.

Author Bio

Lee Wyatt

Contributor of numerous Tips.Net articles, Lee Wyatt is quickly becoming a regular "Jack of all trades." He is currently an independent contractor specializing in writing and editing. Contact him today for all of your writing and editing needs! Click here to contact. ...

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What is 2 + 2?

2013-10-02 22:49:08

Dave white

A south facing window well makes a great container garden box. To try it out use heavy clear plastic with 2 by 2 supports. Raise them at least 4 inches on the wall side to facilitate drainage. Cover with 2 layers of clear plastic overlapping at least a foot. Hold it down with bricks or staple to 2 by 2s.

Its easy to care for the plants, just open your basement window. Have over wintered tender plants, grown lettuce and dwarf Chinese cabbage lots of cress and garlic chives. This have purchased a rigid plastic cover.


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