6 imaginative ways to use grow bags in small spaces

Ditch ugly black plastic grow bags for some more versatile versions to help you grow fruit and veg in a small space, says Hannah Stephenson.

If you tend to grow your tomatoes and other veg in unsightly plastic grow bags, it might be time to think again.

Self taught gardener Kevin Espiritu, author of a new book Grow Bag Gardening, offers a wealth of different growing ideas for alternative fabric grow bags, rather than just the typical black plastic ones you ordinarily see.

He says that most available fabric grow bags “are made from recycled plastic, which at the very least means they’ve already gone through the recycling process once and will last for quite a while.” Meanwhile, you’ll be able to track down others made of jute or hessian, which will degrade over time.

The advantages of grow bags

You’ll be able to find grow bags in an array of shapes and sizes, from circular to rectangular and multi-pocketed, which will accommodate the smallest space on a balcony or a tiny garden. And for Generation Rent, they’re also easy to move and cheaper than terracotta and other decorative containers.

“Their portability, flexibility and air pruning benefits effectively delete the downsides of growing in containers that many gardeners face,” Espiritu observes. While plants that outgrow their pots end up with a mass of roots circling the base of the plant, if you use a permeable grow bag, the roots get an air-rich environment low in water and nutrients, which causes the tips of the roots to die, signalling the plant to produce new roots elsewhere in the root system, he explains. This extends the length of time a plant can be grown in a grow bag before it needs repotting.

Of course, if you’re using grow bags on a balcony or on surfaces you don’t want the water to seep on to, place the bag on a high-sided terracotta tray or saucer to catch excess moisture, or custom make a reservoir from a wooden crate lined with pond liner to accommodate a number of bags.

Here, Espiritu offers gardeners with even the smallest spaces some ideas on how to make the most of their grow bags…

1. Stir-fry grow bag

Create your own stir-fry ready bag of veg and greens. “I have one now where you can grow sage, thyme, oregano, coriander and basil – then on the top I have Asian greens including pak choi, Asian mustard, so I could make a quick stir fry simply from that bag, which takes up very little space. If you’re a small-space gardener, that’s a really good bet. That bag would take around 30 litres of compost.

“If some of your herbs, like coriander, bolt (run to seed), it’s easy to replenish. As you are cramming so many plants in one bag, harvest them more often, gently pull them out and plant a replacement into the pocket, so you can succession-plant as the season progresses.

“Alternatively, plant herbs that are likely to bolt in their own bags, to place in a shadier spot during hot weather, to stop them bolting so quickly.”

2. Fruit tree in a bag

“If you are in a relatively cold area, grow a citrus, which you could move in and out fairly easily in a grow bag. To grow a fruit tree, you’d need a big bag that would hold around 100 litres of compost. I would recommend buying a tree that’s on dwarfing rootstock, which is more naturally a small plant. They will live happily in a grow bag for around a decade, I reckon.

“With fruit trees you would need to top dress and feed with a granular fertiliser, because if you use soluble fertiliser and then water, you’ll water the nutrients right out of the bag, which is permeable. I would even mulch the surface with leaves or compost to protect the layer.”

3. Mini allotment

“If you are a renter with a small back garden, you can roll out a large grow bag and build a raised bed in seconds. I like making an artistic vegetable garden, so I have Chinese cabbage in the middle and mizunas in different colours at the sides and it almost looks like a little art piece.”

4. Multiple mints and strawberries

“Mints are invasive, so you need to plant them on their own. I’d take a couple of varieties and plant them all together, then at least they won’t colonise anything else, so you could have a variety of minted teas or leaves to add to salads.

“Or you could plant strawberries, which throw out a lot of runners, in an individual grow bag, so they don’t take over a whole patch of ground.”

5. Balcony climbers

“Grow vertically in a small space, adding bamboo trellises or canes into the grow bag, growing peas, sweet peas and ornamental climbers as well as French and runner beans. You’d only need as much soil as you would in a standard container, but the grow bag will be much lighter.”

6. Perfect for pollinators

“Grow bags can also fill spaces in your border as the season progresses. Fill your grow bag with nectar-rich plants to attract insects to the bed.

“Typically in a small space you want to grow food, but in a larger garden you may want flowers too. I place good plants for pollinators in grow bags near the vegetables, which should encourage insects to pollinate the flowers and give me better crops.

“So, if I have tomatoes or cucumbers that need more pollination, I group grow bags of pollinator-attracting plants that I can move at will. Nasturtiums will bring in larger pollinators like bees, but they also attract aphids away from your vegetable plants.”

Where to buy fabric grow bags

You can buy a variety of grow bags in all shapes, sizes and materials, through stockists of Smart Pot (smartpots.com) and Haxnicks (haxnicks.co.uk), and through online retailers including Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and Crocus (crocus.co.uk).

Grow Bag Gardening by Kevin Espiritu is published by Cool Springs Press, priced £14.99. Available March 16.

How to Combine Veg and Flowers in Pots for an Eye-Catching Display

veg pots

Horticulturist Tom Harris explains how to combine edibles and flowers to create colour and flavour in containers.

Throughout his life, plantsman Tom Harris has planted thousands of containers to enhance gardens nationwide and beyond. He’s perked up unpromising small spaces with both flowers and edibles, and says you can have a brilliantly colourful effect by combining both, as he demonstrates in his new book, Pots For All Seasons.

“People have different criteria when growing veg. I don’t approach it on the basis of what will provide me with the most food. I just find that many veg and herbs are just as ornamental, and if I get some crops from them, that’s a bonus.”

So, how do you go about growing plants such as lettuce, beetroot and tomatoes, alongside pretty annuals?

veg pots

Go for good-looking veg

“Firstly, look for good-looking vegetables. I don’t grow anything which I don’t consider to be good looking,” he says. “Tomatoes, aubergines and peppers provide brilliant colour in pots, while leafy veg and carrot tops provide the green you also need.”

veg pots

Find out which veg grow better in pots

“Some do better in pots than they would in the ground. Chillies and aubergines, for instance, tend not to do as well in the ground, while you can keep a better eye on leafy salads in containers, where you can crop them young and keep them protected off the ground.”

veg pots

Grow them separately

Harris recommends growing veg separately from flowers in pots, moving them around to experiment with what gives the best effect. “Try to grow them in individual pots and group ornamental and foliage plants around veg, rather than putting them in the same pot,” he explains. “Having said that, I had a great success planting lobelia and lettuce in a pot together. They work really well in a wall pot or a basket. Nasturtiums also work well with lettuce.

“Certain veg don’t like too much competition. Aubergines, for instance, resent anything else competing with them and look great in pots on their own. I grow them in old olive tins which make the fruits look that much more striking.

“Courgettes should be put singly in the largest pot you can. The yellow-fruited or round-fruited ones – I grow one called Greyzini which has beautifully marbled leaves and grey-green fruits – look great.

“The ‘Baby Rosanna’ small-fruited aubergines are very productive but manageable in a container, and with tomatoes in pots, I’d go for the bush or trailing cherry tomatoes such as ‘Sweet and Neat’, a compact variety which comes in yellow or red and ‘Tumbling Toms’ are the most productive.”

veg pots

Combine herbs

If you want your herb garden to be changeable, plant pots of basil, chives, thyme and parsley separately, then group all the small pots into a much bigger container, he suggests.

“Lots of herbs get too big, too quickly. Keeping them in their smaller individual pots allows you to pull them out and put something else back in and repot them, and helps keep rampant herbs like mint in check. Again, it’s about creating a picture; keeping herbs in a display, but neatly separated.”

Make the most of ornamental leaves

Colourful leaves also add interest to your combined pots, says Harris. “Some of the coloured mustard mixes look great, and my favourite chilli is ‘Prairie Fire’ which is very compact and I grow it in a long trough. You might want to grow a taller variety in a single pot.

“In a display, each one can show off the other in terms of texture, colour and shape, and the fruits bring you something extra that you wouldn’t just get with flowering bedding plants.”

veg pots

Which combinations work best together?

If you have a crate, intermingle sun-worshipping Verbena ‘Lollipop’ with trailing pink calibrachoa and cherry-fruited tomatoes, Harris suggests. “In baskets I always plant thunbergia with free-trailing tomatoes and parsley, so you have that wonderful contrast of different greens and then pops of bright colour from the tomatoes and the thunbergia.”

In larger planters with wigwams, grow sweet peas with climbing beans and you’re likely to get a better crop, as bees will be attracted to the sweet peas and will then pollinate the beans, he adds.

“If you group crops of veg with crops of flowers, you will be encouraging biodiversity and hopefully warding off some predators by confusing them,” he says.

veg pots

Think about pot height

In a mixed display, make sure your pots are all at different heights, Harris suggests. “Choose pots of different heights and different widths. I use anything from stacks of bricks with a paving slab, or upturned pots to raise my containers. You need some kind of variation in height and size to get a good look.

“Play around with the pots, rearranging them and placing one plant against another until you have the right combination. You might need to take something away or bring something else in. The display is all part of the fun.”

veg pots

Use colour combinations

Chillies might be partnered with rich-leaved heucheras and sedum, he notes. “Coleus is another great foliage plant. The bright coloured leaves bring out the tones in tomatoes or the chillies, or even echo the red leaves of lettuce or mustard.”

Pots For All Seasons by Tom Harris is published on June 25 by Pimpernel Press, priced £20.

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