The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: deepinthewoods on July 06, 2012, 06:51:36 pm

Title: crappy growbags.
Post by: deepinthewoods on July 06, 2012, 06:51:36 pm

what are your opinions?
i havet used one for a few years but over the last few days ive seen a few my friends are using and i had a look at the growing medium and it was AWFUL!!!!!!!!!
my dad, in particular has got all inspired from eating my veggies so is growing tomatoes and a chilli plant. hes 60 and has never eaten something that hes grown....he plays a mean banjo mind ;)
so i went up to give him one of those little tomato house thingys and check out his new garden and look at his tomato plants  but the growbag soil was just like shredded wood and paper and grit and horrid, it looked like road sweepings. he was so proud of his 6inch tomato plants that i nearly didnt have the heart to tell him mine were 6ft high and full of fruit. :D
how is a new gardener supposed to know that the reason they didnt get a crop or a succesful plant out of all theyre effort is their CRAPPY GROWBAG.
has anyone else had the same experience, not with my dad, but with a  crappy growbag??

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: Fleecewife on July 06, 2012, 06:59:49 pm

I only ever tried growbags once and that was years ago.  I didn't really get the chance to see if the quality was crappy or not because I couldn't keep the darned things watered properly so the crop barely grew  ::)

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: Bionic on July 06, 2012, 07:05:01 pm

I bought cheap ones this year and its a false economy. There are more pieces of wood in them than soil.
I think, if you are prepared to pay a bit more they might be better. 
Sally

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: jaykay on July 06, 2012, 07:43:57 pm

I bought cheap ones last year too and couldn't even get my tomatoes to the point of ripening - complete waste of time and effort. Will be using muck from the bottom of the heap to grow them in future. Think I've left it a bit late this year  ::)

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: Deere on July 07, 2012, 08:28:08 am

Hi,

I had this a few years ago with some compost I bought.
It looked like bits of bark, grit and general garden waste, I then did some online searching and found that it was made using recycled garden waste, which is fine but I thought it didn't look like it had been broken down enough??

It's great we are getting more stuff recycled but by not composting the product for long enough will put many people off repeat buying the stuff (including me) is surely false economy ??

Maybe this batch slipped through the quality control? I'm not sure?

I gave it a go and stuff didn't grow too well in comparison to other composts I had, so now I'm very wary when buying other recycled compost etc.

Tim

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: jaykay on July 07, 2012, 08:34:29 am

I seem to remember someone saying that the composted garden waste also contains residue of weed killer etc which is another reason why they don't grow things very well  ::)

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: suziequeue on July 07, 2012, 09:13:11 am

Yes - you don't know what's going in there - mares tails seed, ragwort seed, aminopyralid residues..... ugh.

Title: Re: crappy growbags.
Post by: deepinthewoods on July 07, 2012, 12:23:15 pm

its a scandal!!
i imagine it is municipal waste, bought in and bagged. i think the councils sell it for £15 a tonne, how many 15lt growbags is that!!!