I set up these boxes in December with the intent to start a couple more. However, I ran out of room! We also don't have a lot of sunshine at our site, which I'm sure will help in July, but it limited the area in which I could place the boxes. The blue bins are filled with a mix of perlite and red cedar bark mulch. I picked this mix to try to increase airspace between the materials and also to help retain water. Perlite will hold water to an extent, but it dries out quickly. The red cedar bark mulch definitely retains water, but it doesn't become soggy. So far the plants like the combination, and I've been watering them about 2-3 times a week with a 1,200-1,500PPM hydroponic solution, which is my normal regimen for watering all my plants. The solution we use doesn't have much (if any) salts in it, so you can use it practically everyday without doing anything but make the plants green and healthy.
In the box on the left is a mix of potatoes we didn't get to eating before they sprouted. There are blue, red, and white potatoes in there. So far they appear to have plenty of vigor and are free of disease. In the next box is a collection of colored carrots, planted close to maximize the use of the space. I'm hoping I can thin them in a couple weeks and maybe get some baby carrots. I may also leave a section unthinned to see what happens.
On the right side are two of our standard five gallon hydroponic systems. The one is full of parsley, and the other has some tomatoes and peppers in it. These were all store bought transplants that I shook the dirt off of and transplanted. They all survived, though the tomatoes have some kind of fungal disease which could be from the lack of sunshine, humidity, or they may have been contaminated from the store. I've gotten a few tomatoes off them at least.
