In Ground Planter Pot Gardening – Installation and Irrigation

Last year I put a couple of large 4 gallon planter pots in the ground for container gardening. The plants in these fairly inexpensive, around $5, nursery pots grew really well. They allowed me to use my normal plant soil mix to more easily control the soil. The results were great! We were eating heirloom and cherry tomatoes, basil and eggplant all season from these containers.

This time around I used two different plastic nursery pots sizes, 4 gallons like before and one closer to 5-6 gallons. Both types were purchased and Home Depot from the gardening area. The 4 gallon one was around $5 and the 5-6 gallon one was closer to $6.50. They were tucked away near the tomato cages and not near the normal pot and plant container area.

Layout

After I removed the sandstone rock that was being used for mulch, I placed the pots along the back wall to try to judge a good spacing.

Bringing Irrigation to the Containers

To make the installation easier I used funny pipe. I really didn’t feel like gluing PVC pipe and having to deal with adapting the connections to go to the plastic nursery pots.

I was able to use a PVC to irrigation funny pipe connector to tap into what used to be a sprinkler. The grass in that area is gone, but luckily I was too lazy to dig up the existing irrigation.

In Las Vegas I’m sure the freeze line is pretty shallow. The irrigation funny pipe was run in a 6 inch deep trench in front of the planters since there was already a funny pipe irrigation line behind the planters that was on a different water schedule, one that runs a slow drip system for a long period of time.

A barbed coupler was used to pierce the funny pipe for the ¼ inch line that will go to each of the containers.

I made sure to over estimate the length so I wouldn’t run out of ¼ inch line.

Putting Pots In the Ground

When digging the holes, I tried to make sure when it was filled in that the planter pot would stick about 3-4 inches from the ground. Also, a small trench in front of the pot allowed for the irrigation to easily reach the container.

After this project I ended up taking about ½ a truck bed of dirt to the dump. Unfortunately I had no use for it in other places.

Finishing the Containers

After the pots were all in the ground a 4 foot wide weed barrier was put down. When installing the weed barrier, it was stretched the length of the area and holes were cut for the gardening containers.

An edging, that was purchased at the end of last season for 50% off, was installed to keep the rock mulch from creeping on to the sidewalk.

The usual raised bed / container gardening soil mix was used to fill the pots.

The irrigation stubs were capped off so the rest of the garden could be watered while I was figuring out what to plant in these.

Lessons For Next Time

• I should have used string as a guide to keep a consistent center line from the back wall.
• Measure and mark the center line of where the pots will be finally placed on the string described above. Let’s just say my pots don’t have an exact placement 🙂 .
• Test the irrigation by capping off all the ¼ inch tube with a plug and turning on the water. This is to test the connection point on the funny pipe to make sure you don’t bury a leak. Conserve that water!
• Mix in any time release fertilizer you want to use when filling the containers.