I've also spent a good chunk of my free time the last week constructing 7 EarthTainers for various people and inspired building of at least 4 additional EarthTainers that I know of (with consultation to the builder).
For those of you that are like, "huh, what's he talking about?", an EarthTainer is a container growing system that ensures vegetable plants, usually tomatoes, are properly watered. I built one last year after reading about it on LifeHacker a year ago (Lifehacker is a must read, if you don't already read it, particularly for the tinkering types among us). It took me several hours and lots of new tools and parts to build one last year. The results? They were pretty great - my tomato yield was fantastic.
Several of my friends caught on to my little project and were interested in building containers of their own, so I told a few people that I'd help them build these this year.
Last Thursday I went over to Jenni and Matt's place, and built 3 containers for her. It went really smoothly and it's a lot easier of a project when you have people to help. Jenni's planting tomatoes and peppers in her containers. I can't wait to go over and see how they are growing.
This past weekend, I built 4 more containers, 1 more for myself, 1 for my father-in-law and 2 for my friend and co-worker. My friend's family was so impressed with them that they were building 4 more total for 2 different people.
I'm pretty excited about the 11 earthtainers I've built or inspired, and I'm sure there will be many more. I bet the Lowes in West St Paul and Plymouth are wondering why there's a run on 31 gallon tan RuggedTotes.
If you do decide to build, there's a frequently updated PDF here, and if you're local to the Twin Cities and need assistance, feel free to get in touch with me.
As for my bins, I'm growing 4 tomato plants this year. I have to still buy those and plant them, but that will happen sometime this week.
