Root Pouch Gardening

Note: I didn’t realize I hadn’t published this until now (September 6, 2020)…. several months later. About a week and a half after I wrote it, a hail storm blew in and obliterated my garden. It was looking awesome, but that just meant more greenery to be decimated (peppers and tomatoes only at that point). I may do a follow up on what it looked like and the resulting loss.

If there’s one thing I hate about gardening, it’s weeding.

When I bought my first house one of the first things I did was build raised beds. They were kind of addictive and I really enjoy gardening, however the maintenance was something I often neglected. In the off season, I’d always get lazy and grass would find its way in and overtake the beds. I’d spend a couple hours just tilling them up before I could plant.

I bought my current house just over four years ago. It came with one raised bed on the side of the shed. The first thing I did (with friends help) was work it up and get it planted. It did mediocre… too shallow, too much shade, and soil wasn’t that great. The next year, 2017, I said no more. No more raised beds that is. I still wanted to garden.

Checking out container gardening on YouTube I came across Root Pouches.

Root Pouch is a brand name for non-woven bags that you fill with soil and plant in. Plenty of videos out there touting their “air pruning” advantages. The theory is that as roots grow they reach the interior edge of the air-permeable pouch and the air stops the roots from growing outward and wrapping around, yet they remain viable and make the roots more efficient in taking up nutrients. I don’t know if that’s true or not, and I have seen one example of it in a small (one gallon) pouch I had chives in. Whether the theory is true or not, it was a pretty cool effect.

I went online and purchased 20, five gallon pouches. I got the non-degrading ones. They make less expensive ones that say they’ll last somewhere between 2 and 4 years if I recall correctly. Got them in in just a couple of days, got some soil, and spent an evening planting peppers and tomatoes. I liked them from day one.

One issue I had was that I didn’t want to just plop them on the ground. I wasn’t sure whether they’d hold up with direct ground contact even they were the non-degradable ones, and I didn’t want to tear them up weedeating around them.

This got my utilitarian/creative mojo going. Went to Lowe’s and got some treated 2×6’s, fence pickets, and nails. A few hours of cutting and nailing and I had some good looking platforms built.

I was new to the neighborhood, and didn’t want someone driving through the alley to stop and drive off with my garden. Back to Lowe’s I went. Got some plastic coated cable, cable clamps, and eyelet screws. The idea was to attach the cable to the platform and string it through the pouch handles.

It worked, but was a pain in the ass especially when I later broke the garden down and stored everything off to the side of the yard over the winter. I later realized the chance of theft was low and if someone wanted to swipe my pouches, the cables were of little deterrence. I didn’t use them after the first year.

While putting everything together that first year, I came across some heavy duty green plastic trays to set the pouches in on the platforms (see image above). The videos I had seen said these helped with water retention (root pouches get good airflow and will dry out quickly). I ordered 20 and set them under the pouches. They worked great (and looked cool).

Before I got the first 20 done I had already decided I wanted more. Back to Amazon and Lowe’s I went for 20 more pouches, trays, and materials for platforms. Next thing I knew I had taken up most of my back yard with 40 pouches on 10 platforms.

Things went pretty well, except it took way too long to water each one individually via hose, so I began building the first iteration of an irrigation system. In the first two years I was able to hook hoses up to pvc pipes with holes in them on each platform, The watering time went from about an hour and a half to about 10 minutes.

Last year I built an automated system that was awesome. Working on a new iteration this year for the redesigned garden. I’ll write a separate blog on my irrigation adventures.

Over the past three years I’ve learned a lot about gardening in root pouches:

• They will get weeds in them, but are very easy to keep under control.
• The trays enable watering from the bottom (works better on tomatoes)
• Cucumbers don’t do well (May try again someday)
• Algae can grow on the outside of the pouch, but easy to blast off with a hose
• They do dry out quickly on hot Texas days
• Really easy to take care of the plants, but mowing and trimming around the platforms gets old very quickly
• Plants are limited to more upright things (I had built a trellis for the cucs) so melons, squash, zucchini are pretty much a no-go with my setup

Like anything there are down sides, but I’ve gotten better at using them over the past three years.

I did buy some one gallon pouches for herbs. They worked ok, but I didn’t have an irrigation system on them so they did get neglected. The chives I mentioned previously are the exception. They overwintered outside and the second year really took off.

There are pluses and minuses to root pouch gardening. I enjoy the challenges of trying something different and seeing how much better I get at gardening with them from year to year.

I’ve got some pretty cool things going with garden setup changes this year and will make a separate post about Garden 2020 (big hint in a pic I added to a previous post).