Container gardening offering revolutionary growing technique

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) - Container gardening is getting very popular for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs. The technique has really improved over the years.

Gary Bachman with the Mississippi State University Extension Service has quite a container set up at his home. They’re called earthboxes. They are the perfect device in the world of container gardening.

“We have 136 of these earthboxes. I think this is the way to do it,” Bachman said.

Bachman, professor of Horticulture for the Mississippi State University Coastal Research and Extension Center, works what he calls his urban nano-farm at his Ocean Springs home.

Bachman grows a variety of flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables, like beans eaten right off the plant. Bachman, a professional gardener, is like a kid at Christmas when growing at his home-based farm. The produce is a gift.

“These earthboxes are fantastic for growing onions, for example. You don’t see very much. It’s all under the cover. When you pull the onion up, look at that. Onions are cheap at the grocery store, but there’s nothing like this. It’s like a million dollars to me,” Bachman said.

It goes by many names, container or sub-irrigator gardening and earth box, different names, same principle. A water reservoir is on the bottom of the box and that regulates the critical water supply. This is becoming increasingly popular. There is plenty of information out there, and Bachman is heavily involved in sharing knowledge with gardeners interested in embracing this approach.

“There is a lot of information on the web. There is the web site Earthbox.com. I’m a contributor to that. There is also an information forum that I’m the global moderator of. I see all the questions coming in and we try to help people be successful with this system,” Bachman said.

If you are interested in container gardening, check out Earthbox.com.

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