grow – Brenda Nolen

Update!!!

I do not know if there are any long-term implications for the trunk of the tree being shaded. As for root rot, if water remains on the roots long enough to rot the roots, you may not need these bags.

I had issues with these bags not draining after a couple of weeks. So, I enlarged the holes with garden staples.

I removed them to mow around my trees and noticed a burl formed on one of my mystery trees AND

My beautiful peach tree, which I though was suffering from our drought conditions, now has peachtree borer. I am not sure she’ll survive. I have decided to just manually water for the rest of the season. I am highly disappointed.

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The first time I saw anything like this was a gentleman who designed bags like this for orchards. I was really excited then, so I’m sure you can imagine how happy I was when I saw these!

I received a 3-pack, set them up, and tried them for a week. This is how I setup the second package I bought. These are really easy to setup and use. These are designed to be used during the growing season and stored during the winter.

Each bag holds 20 gallons of water. For established trees, you fill once per week. For new trees, they recommend twice per week.

One bag is designed for a trunk between 1-inch and 4-inches. For trees larger than that, you need to zip bags together. These are fantastic and I can’t wait for my in-laws to move so I can buy some for their new trees!

A friend mentioned that she has a tiny little area to grow any food, so I suggested she grow vertically. I don’t really do this now but may have to since I will be using raised beds this year. I’ve seen so many neat ideas over the past few months that I’m trying to find all the links to share with you (and her). Well, I was going to find a single picture to post here but when I did my Google search (“vertical gardening”) and clicked images I was in awe! There are so many creative ideas out there that I just can’t list them all (so check out the photos yourself here).

This is pretty much what I did when I was growing in containers (I posted pictures of my truck garden in 2011).