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This is a very good system for the outdoor gardener. Bag culture as I do it is just like growing in the ground, minus the back breaking labor.
To set up this system you will need the following items: Grow bags sized appropriately for your plants, media, irrigation line, fittings and a reliable water source.
The grow bags shown in picture 1 are two gallon size. I found them to be more than adequate for the tomatoes and peppers that I grow. They come in many sizes from 1/2 gallon up to 30 gallon. Plastic tubs may be used also with proper drainage added. The media I use is clean pine shavings bought at wal-mart. Be sure to get pine shavings and not cedar shavings. Perlite, coir and various other media may be used also. The main considerations are drainage and if the media will react negatively with the nutrient solution.
Irrigation line is next. I use 1/2” black drip irrigation tubing. That supplies 1/4” drip line. The 1/4” drip line is run up to the top of the grow bag and held in place by poking it through the grow bag about 1” below the top of the bag. A spring type clothes pin is used to hold the line right where it needs to be. In figure 3 you see a brass fertilizer injector. It mixes at a ratio of 1:16 Under it is a 55 gallon food grade plastic barrel. I mixed my nutrients 16 times stronger than the end product I wanted. This injector mixes in 1 gallon of nutrients for each 16 gallons of water that flows through it. This injector cost only about $16. To control this system one can turn it on manually and hope not to forget to turn it off, or get a simple timer made for the purpose and enjoy gardening. Using a timer makes it easy to adjust to how much water your plants need and come pretty close to not wasting much water. Also, with this system, multiple short irrigation’s a day are much better than one long soak.
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