Container Gardening: Earthbox Planting Guide

The Earthbox isn’t all that complicated to put together, but it does take some assembly to work properly. I’ve found that this is the easiest and fastest way to get it together (and the most optimal for my plants).

Earthbox Planting Instructions

For this you will need the Earthbox planting kit I mentioned in my other post, a bag of potting soil, and seeds. This container holds two cubic feet of soil. You may also want some gloves and a trowel. Then you can just jump right in!

  1. Find a sunny spot either indoors or outdoors for your box. If you plan on moving your grow box put the wheels on it first.
  2. Place the aeration screen and fill tube in the bottom of your container. This will help keep air circulation through the soil and keep your plants from getting too wet. Pack soil into the corners of the screen to keep it in place.
  3. Fill the Earthbox with potting medium until you reach two inches below the top. Pour some water in and stir up the medium so that it is moist.
  4. Spread a layer of dolomite (lime, calcium, and magnesium) evenly over the top and cover that layer with more potting medium until it is level with the top of the container.
  5. Make a two-inch trough in the level surface and pour in the fertilizer. Put even more potting medium on top until it is about two inches above the rim.
  6. Cover the soil with the mulch cover–white side up if you live in a dry desert area and black side up otherwise. This will keep weeds down and your seeds moist during germination.
  7. Cut X’s in the Earthbox’s cover where you would like to plant the seeds. Your package of seeds will give you spacing and seed depth instructions. Plant the seeds in the soil where the X’s are. You can also plant seedlings if you want a bit of a head-start.
  8. Fill the water reservoir (that black tube) every few days.

That’s it! You don’t have worry about overwatering or fertilizing after planting or anything. In no time you’ll have an Earthbox that looks like this (ignore the random spacing):

container gardening earthbox

Cool beans!

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