Who uses 5 Gallon Buckets with the bottom cut out in their garden?
I saw someone selling them Pre-cut in a local ad and looked into it a bit online. Seems the idea is to cut the bottom off of 5 gallon buckets. Set on ground. Fill with potting mix (dirt/soil?) = poor man’s raised beds. Less weeds, higher than ground, wind protection. I might try some. I have a few busted buckets and tons of pots on hand.
Any thoughts on native soil vs potting soil mix?
The problem at my location is because of the small area of dirt inside the buckets they take frequent watering as they dry out in less than a day. Try to think about that when you put then in. As an example bury a 2 liter bottle full of holes in the bucket with the top above the ground with the lid on. You can remove the bottlecap and fill the bottle with water every morning. This bottle in the same bucket beside the tomato prolonges it drying out. A sponge or papers or wood hold water as well. It’s a poor man’s Drip irrigation.
I occasionally use pots with the bottom cut off to protect young plants thru winter from critters.
After the buckets go through a winter they will become ultra brittle. When you go to move them they will just fall apart. What I found that works better are those big moving tubs. They are like tupperware, but survive the freezes better. And they are cheap.
I grow all my pepper plant in 5 gallon bucket with drain holes instead of bottomless. The need a lot less watering than the bottomless bucket. I have 3 prickly pears in upside down bottomless buckets that grow well.
I use them when i want to layer/move a plant. Just drop the bucket over the plant and fill with appropriate soil.
A local farmer told me to plant celery in a cut out 5 gallon bucket, but in ground. The bucket forces the stalk to grow tall to reach sunlight, and when it gets close you stack another bucket on top, and again if you are able. He said this produces the most tender robust celery stalks he’s ever had. His daughter used this technique for a local farm show entry if I remember correctly.
This could be used year round to protect plants if you have enough room and free buckets. Basically a larger version of a tree tube.
I have a couple. The idea is that you would put them around the suckers coming up from the tree you cut down with a few inches of compost and they would be like stooling beds for rootstock.
The benefit of a bottomless bucket over one with holes is that it prevents a perched water table- this is why a light potting mix is required in containers or the medium becomes too soggy. A bottomless container could use real soil which holds a lot more water than potting soil as well as available nutrients, in most cases. It should also allow capillary pull of water from (or to) soil below. Therefore, it shouldn’t dry out until surrounding soil does, especially if you partially bury it or mulch around it. That is how I understand it, but in dry windy conditions I don’t know how quickly capillary pull would replace evaporating water. Raised soil will always heat up more, cool down more quickly and dry out faster.
In my fruit tree nursery, my container trees are in pots with bottoms to slow root growth outside the pots, which I allow to a degree. My pots are half buried, 25 gallon ones and I size up the trees in real soil within in-ground bags before moving them into pots. I’ve discovered that I can use real soil in pots (with bottoms and holes) if I surround the soil with potting mix. It works better than pure potting soil, actually- a discovery that could be put to use in all potting culture, I believe.
I have nothing but rotted leaves and leaf duff on my roof top garden for soil. I tried bottomless buckets but the water ran right through and left a lot of unwetted medium. A bucket with a couple of small hole holds water long enough to insure total wetting. By the time my peppers are big enough to reach the perched water table they are able to use it up in a day.
Wow, thanks for all the insight.
Here in south Louisiana the Spring and summer are very wet and hot. Though we do occasionally have drier spells.
I’m thinking I’ll experiment a bit with the bottomless buckets in my raised beds. Everything is drip irrigated, so no worries about drying out. It may help from getting too soggy. I’m hoping it helps with weeds more than anything.
Sounds like it may be about as light as a peat-lite potting soil mix.
Bottomless buckets work great for tomatoes in windy conditions. I don’t fill them up with soil or anything like that though. I just lightly press them an inch or so in the soil so they don’t blow over. If you have lids, they also work great for putting that lid back on them when they are young if you are expecting a frosty night in early spring or have a hail storm coming in. Pick them up before winter and store them in your garage and they will last around 3 years. I do the same thing only with gallon cans with the bottom cut out for my peppers.
I did something similar, but used inexpensive black plastic trash cans with the bottom cut off. Used a couple to protect new persimmon seedlings, held in place by bamboo stakes. No soil added. They protect from wind and small critters, plus soak up some sun in winter and mitigate the cold a bit on a sunny day.
I have a friend who picks up the emptied 1 gallon cans from his local school’s cafeteria. He cuts both ends out of them and starts his veggies (including corn) in them in the greenhouse in early Spring. When the weather warms, he moves them into the garden with just the base of the can buried. He waters the plant by watering in the can. No problems with drying out as the plant’s roots are down into the soil. He swears by them saying they really help keep pests away from the plants, and make weeding and watering easier.
My garbage can is painted white and has a light fixture mounted in the bottom
Good luck with the dragonfruit. I heard they are challenging as they grow larger. That is a cool idea with the garbage can light!
