stacking containers?

[amylong]

Hi everyone, I am new to gardening and I am trying to grow tomatoes, pepper and strawberry. I was wondering if anyone has tried stacking containers and how successful it was. I got something called Nancy Janes P1360. Of course the picture looks gorgeous. Thanks so much:)

[rainbowgardener]

The picture does look very pretty, I looked it up. But each individual container looks quite small. It is 12" tall and has three tiers? That makes each container just 4 inches deep. Not NEARLY enough soil for a tomato or pepper plant, though might work for strawberries.

One tomato plant needs the amount of soil in a 5 gallon bucket, if not more. Tomato plants, unless you get special dwarf varieties, get huge. Even the dwarf tomatoes could not be grown in such a small pot. One pepper plant could go in a 2-3 gallon container.

[amylong]

I know, I got suckered in by the pictures:( I got some strawberry plants from a farmer market because I got impatient with my strawberry plants. My strawberry just have those three leaves and look so fragile.. The ones from the nursery, I put them in the styrofoam cups, and I am worried that they may need more space soon, thus I ordered them. Do you have any suggestions on what would be a nice container for my tomatoes? I wish I did more research on them and that there is such thing as patio tomatoes and bushy ones that are better for containers. I was looking into Smart Pots. I will take pictures of the stackers when they arrive:) if anyone is interested. Thank you everyone for their inputs!

[imafan26]

Stacking containers are very small. They need to be watered often and are more for small plants with small root systems that are not going to have to stay in the pot for long. Lettuce, and some herbs do o.k. Put the drier herbs on top. I actually made my own by stacking different sized pot on top of each other. I used an 8 inch 12 inch and 16 inch pot. they still needed to be watered daily and the 4 inch planting space still meant that more or less small and trailing plants had to be grown. I also had to locate the stack where the sun could get to all sides otherwise there was a bare side to the planter.

I put strawberries in hanging baskets they do fine. They will also do well in other containers like styrofoam boxes and window boxes. Patio tomato only grows to be about 18-24 inches tall. It can grow in a 3-5 gallon bucket. There are a few dwarf tomatoes that will do fine in a container. I put large tomatoes in 18 gallon earth boxes. The earthbox can also be homemade.

https://www.seattleoil.com/Flyers/Earthbox.pdf

There are also products like the garden stick, (you can make that yourself too with
PVC pipe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGVGyAIfjtk

[amylong]

Thanks for the feedback. I just got them. thank goodness for dropbox:) Do you think it will be ok for strawberrys? or is it too small and I should just return them?? I will keep my eye out for people throwing away big containers now.