salad in growbags

[bigpepperplant]

I have a wooden container built to fit a growbag and want to grow some lettuces, mizuna, land cress, pak choi etc over the winter. I'd rather get an extra-deep growbag but the only ones I've seen are made by Tomorite so obviously full of feed for tomatoes - presumably high in potash. Since I only want to grow leafy crops in it, will such a soil be ok?

[Sue]

I've grown salad leaves in growbags and they have been fine Bigpepperplant. I would suggest you run 1 of those copper strips round the top of your container though as I've always found slugs and snails love to hide inside containers like this.

Sue

[bigpepperplant]

thanks sue, good idea

[Johnboy]

Hi BP,
I have a 4'x4' Salad table on stilts and it stands 30" off the ground which was filled with MP Compost and I grow a great many items but the good thing is I don't have to bend down to do anything. I use well rotted FYM, which I sieve into fine particles, to keep up the fertility each year.
It is easy to cover and I have it situated close to the house.(my plot is more than a 100yds from the house)
I was thinking along the lines of you simply using a bag of MP Compost rather than a Grow-bag.

[bigpepperplant]

thanks johnboy - yes I could line the box with plastic and use any sort of soil (I'm going to try that for herbs, using john innes, grit etc). I suppose the thing with growbags is that a) they fit the box exactly and b) are just so easy since you can just replace them when you want.

[Tigger]

You could use 2 bags. I always use them double depth in my tunnels. Place the first bag in the frame and cut out a large rectangle. Then put the second bag on top. Cut the top of that according to how you want to use it, then put your hands through the soil and remove a rectangle from the bottom of the top bag. It's much easier to do than it sounds!