Grow Tube, Two - a follow-up.

The Tucson Gardener

Cherry tomatoes.
Cherry tomatoes in a basket.

Current Cultivations

Garden Clubs

Garden Books

In the Garden Calendar

Tucson's Wildlife

Portulaca.
Portulaca in a plastic basket.

Local Garden Links

Links for Special Needs

The Archive

Zinnias.

You're visiting Tucsongardener.com

Grow Tube Two - A Follow-up
In 2003 I put together an article called Totally Tubular which illustrated growing strawberries in a purchased plastic grow bag and a homemade plastic tube. Apparently the idea of making a grow tube caught the fancy of quite a few Tucson Gardener readers because I had to answer a lot of email concerning the plastic tubes. Some readers had their own ideas on how to try and improve on the homemade grow tube and others wanted to know if it would work with other plants.

I will be the first to admit the homemade grow tube has its problems, especially for Tucson Gardeners. After growing pansies, lobelia, sweet alyssum, dwarf periwinkle, moss rose, and strawberries during the past year I came to one very important conclusion about the tubes: they take a lot of care for success. The tubes are long and narrow and don't hold a lot of potting mix. When the tubes fill up with plant roots and the weather is warm, the tubes dry out quickly. You could end up watering two or three times a day. It's also very difficult to get the water to travel all the way to the bottom of the longer tubes if watering through the opening at the top.

The grow tubes are currently sitting next to the compost bin waiting to be made smaller or discarded.
The original strawberry grow tube that seemed to spark The Tucson Gardener readers' interest over the past year.

I resorted to using a trash can that I kept filled with water and a weak solution of fertilizer. I had to carry the plant filled tubes to the trash can and kept them submerged until they became saturated. During the watering process plant stems often broke and once the tube's soil was filled with water, they were difficult to move from one place to the next. The longer ones were pretty heavy.

Dwarf periwinkle looked great in the tube during the summer but the plants were a watering nightmare.
One, two, three it looked so easy. Portulaca, dwarf periwinkle, and a strawberry tube growing under the ramada during the summer of 2003.
Two tubes grown during the winter. One had a mix of lobelia and sweet alyssum while the other had shades of blue and yellow pansies. Even during the winter months the tubes took a lot of time to keep watered.

Although the grow tubes were an interesting and inexpensive experiment I doubt I would recommend them to Tucson Gardeners. That doesn't mean I won't be using mine again. I plan on cutting them all to the same length so they can easily fit into a trash can for watering and I'll only use them during the winter months when temperatures are a bit cooler and I won't have to water as often. (2004)