Put holes in a pot or not?

[abrogard]

Thanks for all the tips about the herbs. I wasn't expecting that. But it is/was exactly what I need and have needed for a long, long time: some essential basic 'sorting' of the whole herb thing.
I got half a ton of the sand. Found a good earth-selling place (what's the proper name for them? I don't know) after trying a bit. Lovely stuff. Comes from up the riverland, Berri way. I can always get more. It's only about $50/ton.
I like that 'favourite' indoor plant and I'd love to have such graceful things adorning our place but (1) I currently don't know what they are how to grow them and (2) our place seems so cluttered we don't have that much clear wall space for a setting for them.
They are evocative to me. One place they evoke memories of is the NT for instance.

 

[redback]

I was in Darwin '79-'80.
I'm not an indoor plant person I inherited them and potted them up.
The sand from Berri sounds good. Landscape suppliers -maybe?
Clutter is a good topic. I think the only way to win is that downsizing excercise where you imagine you are going to die tomorrow and just keep the essentials.

 

[abrogard]

Landscape suppliers. Yep, that'll do.
It's a funny thing about the clutter. It's there because every time I look at a bit of it I 'must' or 'ought to' keep it.
Yet I can contemplate getting in the car and driving away from it all to not return for years if ever, without a twinge of regret..
Perhaps I'm just plain lazy.

 

[redback]

I invited friends to one of my bonfires and that stirred me to tidy up. Everyone seems to pose their garden photos to look perfect and so you get the impression that everyone else has a picture book look. It's not true and I blame photographers. So - I heard that Gardening Australia is sending out one of their experts to photograph your place next week. LOL.
The downside of all this apparent perfection is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Just about everywhere you walk in the garden or house you see tiny errors or bits of rubbish or out-of-place objects. It becomes never-ending and you can never rest. I fight dis disorder by taking my own sweet time to do stuff and taking as many breaks as needed. Like now. Oops - better go and plant those dwarf beans. LOL.

 

[abrogard]

root of my problem is we moved from a place with one big shed and a small into a place with just one 'normal' and I had to squeeze everything in.

That and having too many interests or unavoidable 'interests' in one shed: woodwork, metalwork, gardening, computers, plumbing, automotive, house renovating.... with all their associated tools and materials.

Further compounded by retaining from nostalgia all the children's old schoolstuff etc.. even unto toys. Topped off with vast amounts of 'govt' paper acquired and kept.

Lot of room there for improvement. Just need to get into it.

all good fun.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

River sand should be okay, but a word of warning to others, sometimes sand contains a lot of brine, it can be worth washing it through before using it. I get it in bags, and when I start a bag I open up the top of the next bag, leave it out so it fills with rain, then stick the fork through the bottom so it drains.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Further compounded by retaining from nostalgia all the children's old schoolstuff

My missus has everything either of our girls ever brought home from school, we are now moving on to pictures sent by grandchild.

 

[Sean Regan]

Most outdoor plants in pots need holes in the bottom for drainage.
We've about eighteen 16" ceramic pots that come with pre-drilled drainage holes.
These sit on plastic pot movers. I drill a hole in the centre of these potmovers and seal with a dab of silicone for the summer. As these sit on patios the pots get very warm so water that drains through the holes in the pots sits in the potmover, so the plant doesn't go short of water on hot days. In the cold months I remove the silicone so the pots don't become waterlogged.
We have some plants that sit in plastic saucers on our drive. For the winter I turn them upside down and sit the pots on them so water in the pots can drain away.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Most outdoor plants in pots need holes in the bottom for drainage.
We've about eighteen 16" ceramic pots that come with pre-drilled drainage holes.
These sit on plastic pot movers. I drill a hole in the centre of these potmovers and seal with a dab of silicone for the summer. As these sit on patios the pots get very warm so water that drains through the holes in the pots sits in the potmover, so the plant doesn't go short of water on hot days. In the cold months I remove the silicone so the pots don't become waterlogged.
We have some plants that sit in plastic saucers on our drive. For the winter I turn them upside down and sit the pots on them so water in the pots can drain away.

I use plastic trays which hold multiple pots and do the same, turn them upside down for winter if they are outside.

 

[MiTmite9]

Just scored a couple of excellent heavy black plastic pots. I don't know what they were used for. But they have carrying hand holds around them. About 40 litres I'd say.

I was just about to bore some holes in the bottoms for they don't have any when I thought to ask first. I know virtually nothing about gardening. It could be that watertight pots are advantageous somehow, somewhere. Yes? Or no, go ahead an bore.

And when it comes to boring holes there seems to be an enormous range of proportions: holes/floor area in pots I've acquired. Some are virtually like lacework at the bottom, they have so many holes. Others are great big earthenware pots with one single half inch hole.

Is there any rationale, rules to go by, or just do whatever.. ?

Do these pots have any indication (on very bottom part) of what type of plastic they are? Not all plastic is food grade/safe for planting veggies and such. Are your pots marked #1, 2, 4 or 5? If I had large black plastic pots, I would probably use them to catch rainwater, but only IF they're 1,2, 4 or 5. Otherwise, I'd use them to grow flowers, other non-food plants or as green waste storage for leaves collected in garden, etc. I don't use those popular "grow bags," either, because the "fabric" is actually polystyrene and I avoid adding plastic/microplastics to my garden. https://www.gardenmyths.com/growing-food-plastic-containers-safe/

 

[redback]

root of my problem is we moved from a place with one big shed and a small into a place with just one 'normal' and I had to squeeze everything in.

Mrs. Shultz was our old neighbor who used to stare at what we were doing by standing with just her head of white hair above the fence. We called her the 'white cat' because a lot of the time we mistook her hair for a cat. She was talking to us one day, saying she had just cleaned her shed. "That's a double garage and would have taken a lot of work to clean', I said. But no, she said half of it was entirely empty and she moved all the stuff to the empty side once a year to clean the shed properly. We call this the Mrs. Shultz method ever since.
I agree with you - you need a bigger shed.

 

[redback]

I forgot to mention parsley. Add two types of parsley (flat leaf Italian and curly leaf African) to your potted herbs.

 

[abrogard]

I forgot to mention parsley. Add two types of parsley (flat leaf Italian and curly leaf African) to your potted herbs.

Will. going shopping for seed today. About soil: what depth of soil does one need? I have pots nearly three feet deep. Should they all be filled with soil (mix) ? Presumable the answer would vary according to what's in them.
Well: herbs?
succulents? ( inc. aloe vera & agave )
& I dunno: other things...

And maybe its a dumb question because I can see for myself that everything (except maybe ground cover type herbs) is going to grow and fill all available space even downwards I guess?

But then again haven't I see many illustrations of how it is only the top foot of our soil where everything grows?

If I'm not intending trees to grow in them do I need to fill those deep tubs?

Hmmm. Later. I will leave the question stand for what it is worth but as far as my own situation goes I'm talking a heap of crap. When actually go and measure my biggest pot is only 400mm deep. 'Nearly three foot' I said. Garbage. I'm not to be trusted.

 

[redback]

About soil: what depth of soil does one need? I have pots nearly three feet deep. Should they all be filled with soil (mix) ?

Most edible plants only need 250mm (10") of soil depth. That's usually as far as roots get down into the soil in one season.
Those three-foot-deep ones are for perennials. All your small shrubs - buddleias, hollyhocks and salvias need that sort of depth. It's okay to put straw or foam fillers in the bottom foot to lighten the pot and save soil costs. It's also okay to mix the local soil/sand with composts and potting mixes to save money.

I will leave the question stand for what it is worth but as far as my own situation goes I'm talking a heap of crap. When actually go and measure my biggest pot is only 400mm deep. 'Nearly three foot' I said. Garbage. I'm not to be trusted.

Tomatoes are small trees and will easily send roots down 400mm - (you're not the only one to get measurements wrong). BTW parsley and most herbs are hard to grow from seed. Basil is grown from seed but buy a punnett of four to six seedlings and put them into bigger pots. These make good gifts and also (apart from basil) they last many seasons and can been divided when one year old.
Good to see you are a stayer. Good luck.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Worth while to have a look at Meadowlark's thread about hk container growing, basically he is filling large pots with one third wood, one third compost then a top layer of good quality soil. The wood holds moisture and provides nutrients as it rots.

Tomatoes are small trees and will easily send roots down 400mm

This depends a bit on the climate, I grow tomatoes in pots, and last year tried the hk method successfully using ordinary builders buckets. In England we usually stop our tomatoes at three or four trusses, but I hear of people in the US growing them to three times the height of mine.