Are Grow Bags Good Outdoors?

Around my area there isn't much for soil. That leaves me with buckettes or bags. If somebody has any exp. with grow bags outdoors could you point me to a web site that I can buy them. Thinking garbage bags but they might rot, get to hot, and any other thing. Need another solution than 5 gallon buckettes too small and clumsy. Thanks for any advice.

bags out side are a bad idea, i have no exspirence growing with them but a while back i was doing yard work filling up heavy duty contractor trash bags with the top soil of dirt and wood chips and rock ect... well i couldnt fit all the bags into the trash and actualy left them sitting in my back yard for about a mounth and what happends is the heat from the sun makes the inside of the bag really humid and detiriorats the plastic, when i finaly got to throwing the bags i left out away they ripped and i had to re shovel into new bags, also i would think the roots might have some kind of bad exspirence.

but thats just my expirence ,

anouther option you could think of if your planning on growing out side is digging a whole slightly bigger then you need and fill it with the soil you where going to use,

its usually what i do when we get plants from nurserys and such, i still might do it if my plant can last till after the frost

I live on a mountain with shale and bluestone only digging to be done is with dynomite and a backhoe. Looking for a better thing then buckettes. That's what I thought about the garbage bag. Thanks student.

THey work great. indoors and out. usually they are reversible to suit you cameo needs.

"i have no exspirence growing with them" - student

I'm using SmartPots and some big 32 gallon storage containers I bought at walmart for 7 bucks, just poked a bunch of holes in them with a wood burner. The smartpots are a spunbonded polypropylene fabric, much like the texture of a stiff felt, but wont rot or decompose, and are completely re-useable. Just wash them out and you're good to go again. The storage containers are big, cheap, and easy to find, just gotta poke drainage holes, though they are rather unweildy. Here's a link showing what I did.

https://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-growing/383815-diy-smartpots.html

The smartpots on the other hand, come in HUGE sizes, up to 200 gallons! And the 30 and 45 gallon ones are about 14.99-17.99 each from the website. They're flexible, breathe like crazy, and somewhere between a grow bag and a pot.





As for worrying about buckets being too clumsy, can you imagine anything being a bigger pain in the ass to move or manipulate than a garbage bag full of soil? There are a lot of creative solutions out there for people who can't plant in-ground. Just keep looking and I'm sure you'll find one that works for you.

Metasynth said:

I'm using SmartPots and some big 32 gallon storage containers I bought at walmart for 7 bucks, just poked a bunch of holes in them with a wood burner. The smartpots are a spunbonded polypropylene fabric, much like the texture of a stiff felt, but wont rot or decompose, and are completely re-useable. Just wash them out and you're good to go again. The storage containers are big, cheap, and easy to find, just gotta poke drainage holes, though they are rather unweildy. Here's a link showing what I did.

https://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-growing/383815-diy-smartpots.html

The smartpots on the other hand, come in HUGE sizes, up to 200 gallons! And the 30 and 45 gallon ones are about 14.99-17.99 each from the website. They're flexible, breathe like crazy, and somewhere between a grow bag and a pot.


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As for worrying about buckets being too clumsy, can you imagine anything being a bigger pain in the ass to move or manipulate than a garbage bag full of soil? There are a lot of creative solutions out there for people who can't plant in-ground. Just keep looking and I'm sure you'll find one that works for you.

Click to expand...

this sounds really cool, if i had the space and money i would probly end up trying it

student said:

this sounds really cool, if i had the space and money i would probly end up trying it

Click to expand...

I assure you, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying pounds of weed throughout the year in random quads and halfs

The grow bags are cheaper but the smartpots sound alot better. Thinking of picking acouple of smart pots and 50 ten gallon grow bags. That should be big enough. Had some root bound issues this year with 5 gallon buckettes before sept even started.

I dunno, smartpots and grow bags seem pretty similar to me, if we're talking about the same grow bags. I just don't think they make grow bags bigger than 15 gallons. I had issues years ago with getting root bound and swore to not let it happen again, thats the only reason I'm going with 30+ gallon containers. This will be one of my first container-dominant grows. I'm planting in-ground, then i have 30 gallon containers, 45 gallon containers, and 18 gallon containers. We'll see in about a year how much of a difference the sizes made.

Gotta go with the cheaper of the two for now. I will be plenty happy with 15 gallons that will make a big difference. Going with indica dom. plants so 10 or 15 gallons will help on not having to water every day hopefully. Size allways matter that's what she said any way.

Does anyone have a reliable source on cheap good quality grow bags? Looking for 10 or 15 gallons.

http://www.gardeners.com/Potato-Bin/GrowBags_Cat,36-629,default,cp.html

http://www.smartpots.com/products-2

Smart pots work a LOT better than grows bags or plastic containers, but raised beds work the best of all.

No kidding blaze, but sometimes people have to work with what they have, whats easiest to get, etc. I am using rubber containers, smartpots, AND a raised bed, so I guess we'll see at the end of the season. Keep in mind that my plastic containers aren't like others, since I've drastically modified mine by perforating them all over with hundreds of little holes. This one is 32 gallons



But the link for grow bags that I provided above is for grow bags that are almost identicle to smart pots, the SP's are even a little cheaper. I'll be doing a grow in several different planting applications, so we'll see whats best for effort/convienance/price.

Here's another link, this time for disposable plastic grow bags, 10 gallons.
Link-----------> http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=7715

And another for 15 gallons
Link-----------> http://www.humboldthydroponics.com/811.htm


Still, you fill a 6-mil black plastic bag with 15 gallons of soil, and water it down, seems pretty unweildy to me, but they are cheap!

Hey you think this will be good for outdoors. For the price it might be good. Being plastic might not be good.
http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=SBG352

I dunno, I understand that you have a budget and all, but it's not always wiser to pinch pennies. I'm sure that you can make plastic grow bags work, but will your end product suffer? I'm more focused on giving my ladies the best most comfortable life possible before I chop them to pieces and hang them out to dry. Whatever you decide to do, just think of your plants first.

Now on to the plastic grow bags...lol. They look like they might fall over if you get any sorta decent wind, especially when your plants get taller. Also, if you set them directly on the ground, is your hardpack shit native soil goin to prevent the bags from draining properly? They say they have drainage holes poked into them, but probably on the bottom, and if those are flush to the hard ground you might have issues there. If you could take a hammer, maybe drive a 2 foot long piece of re-bar down through the bottom of each bag into the soil, that might prevent them from falling over when it gets windy. You might want to think about putting in some drainage holes on the sides about a half inch from the bottom. Obviously if you decide to buy them, try a few different experiments with them to figure out how they work for you.

You might be better off just buying bags of soil, setting them upright and propping them up between something. (i.e. more re-bar, wooden stakes, big rocks) Then you could just cut the top off the bags and plant directly in them. Just make sure you poke drainage holes in them first. I can imagine that getting pretty expensive fast, though, especially if you wanna grow like 50 plants. Soil ain't cheap unless you're buying it by the cubic yard...thats 27 cubic feet...Most bags in home depot and walmart average around 1.5-2 cubic feet a bag, though home depot has Kellogg All Natural soil in 3 cubic feet bags, compressed.

Anywho, these bags vary in price from 4.50-9 bucks a bag, and a cubic yard averages around 25 bucks, though you need a place to have it delivered, or sometimes you can pick it up if you have your own truck. Thats what I'm gonna do next season. Way cheaper to buy it by the yard if you can, and a lot of these soil companies will custom blend soils for you. You can ask them to screen it down to certain sizes, mix in perlite and other goodies, and it's all really affordable. Good Luck dude!

i liked them 15 gallon grow bags $1.50 each at local hardware store

Gotta go the cheaper route this year. The soil alone takes a big chunk out of my pockettes. Now I'm going with bigger containers that with double the cost right their. It will pay for it self in the end. If all goes good weather, law, rippers, pest and any other thing their is.

Don't buy bagged soil then. Often you can get the exact same soil mixes for much less money if you get them direct from the company. It is always much less money to buy a yard of soil than a pallet of bags. Check around in your area for local soil companies. For example the soil I use goes for $9 a bag if you buy it in the store. For a yard of it right from the company it costs $45, less than one third the cost of buying it in bags. It's all organic and OMRI listed too - good stuff.