How to Grow Squash in Containers || Black Gumbo

hey welcome to black gun with southern gardening my name's Scott and I'm glad to see you here today we're gonna plant some squash in containers let's go look [Music] alright so today I've got some containers some typical containers from the big-box stores I think I got some at Home Depot some at Walmart and Sam and I went through and bought some containers last night and some potting mix because we're running low on our on our reserves so we're gonna show you what we do to plant in containers and this year I'm doing squash I'm gonna use a method that I've learned from Garriott to Rusted gardeners - thanks Gary and I'm gonna modify that just a little bit because I don't have all the all the things that that he suggests but I've got enough things that we can make our own go at it so we're gonna see how squash grows in containers this year I've got some seed started but I've also got a couple plants that I bought because I wanted some variety and so let's get to planting as for size you can grow in smaller containers but you have to take care of your plants a little a little more attentively you have to keep on top of watering you have to keep on top of fertilizing this is about the size container I like for a single plant that will give me a much better much better performance throughout the hot summers but you got to watch out on these containers because they usually come with no holes on them this is a small version but you can also buy larger versions of these and you've seen them they don't have any drainage in them now a lot of people and me included will drill holes in the bottom and let them drain out the bottom but you can also drill holes in the sides and get yourself a water reservoir some people will put these in an actual tray and what put pour water in that tray and water from the bottom and that forms the water reservoir as well but I'm going to form a reservoir in the bottom by drilling my holes about an inch a couple inches up the side you got to watch out though some of these that you buy already have a water reservoir built in and so this you can see has holes down in the bottom and these holes allow for drainage but it drains into this tray and it's a built-in tray and I'm not sure how effective this is but we're gonna try it and I'm not gonna drill any holes in this one we're gonna use these containers as is if I find that I need to drill some holes it's an easy matter just come in and take your drill and punch some holes in there but I've got these other containers as well let me show those to you I have these I have these plastic containers that I got at the at the Walmart now I don't really like Walmart but they had good prices of containers here and and they feel like they're pretty thick and that's what I need any thick around here because that container I just showed you there's gonna last me three years max because the sun's gonna brutal that plastic up and it's gonna crack there are no holes in the bumper if I could get this up so I'm gonna have to drill some holes in here and I'm gonna drill them just above here about about two inches up and that will allow us to have a reservoir in the bottom of this container [Music] now I don't think I want to go any higher than this that's about three inches right about there that's gonna be my my deepest water reservoir at three inches I said first I went with some hardwood mulch down on the bottom of these containers and I've done this with all my container plants and it just forms a nice little absorbent absorbing area where the water can collect and and it retains moisture really well so I put about an inch down in there and it also helps to keep if you got some fine potting stuff if you're planting in a little finer potting mix it helps to keep from going out your holes now this stuff is pretty fine and it's hardwood so it really holds on to the moisture and this has really begun to compost a bit I can feel the heat in there and that's good too there is a downside to that I'll talk to that in a second the downside is that as your wood breaks down it competes with the plant and takes away nutrients from your soil so I'm gonna put some fertilizer down in there just a basic all-around fertilizer I've got a lot of this doctor earth and so I'm going to put about a cup a good handful down in there that will help compensate for the nutrients that that process of breaking down that wood ties up so the plant will have all those fertilizer available to it when it gets down there what I'm going to add next is just some of my last year's garden mix potting mix it's kind of depleted so I'm gonna mix in some compost with it as well [Music] we're gonna add some garden lime to provide calcium for these plants because like I said this the soil is last year's garden soil which was depleted of most of its nutrients I've added in some some compost to this but I'm also gonna put in a like a little handful of garden lime and mix that in I use this brand and use any brand you find that's just what my local garden center carries and so I'm gonna put in a good handful of it then I'll mix that in really well garden loom is a good quick way to make calcium available to you plants now I'm just going to top it off now bring it up to about two inches from the top maybe three inches from the top I got to leave some room for for mulch and you want mulch on top to help you know retain moisture in here [Music] go ahead just a little bit more cuz it's fertilizer just to the top I'm gonna mix that in I know there's some earthworms in here I saw them they came out of the bin that I keep my my recycled materials in and I got a lot of earthworms in there cuz it's good a good heavy organic material in there those worms love it so now in a few worms and here's not gonna hurt anything back to be really good for the garden so let's get to plant this is black beauty zucchini it's an heirloom there appear to be two plants in there I'm going to plant them both right now and I will probably trim this one out of there once they get established but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stress them out just yet I'm gonna see which one really takes off [Music] now we want to put some mulch in here and I'm gonna use the same hardwood mulch that I used for this mulch will also help to minimize soil splash you don't want your soil with all the all the microorganisms growing down and they're splashing up on your plant when it rains and so something about mulch is that it really helps to minimize that you'll get a little bit but not as much as you just had bare soil there the mulch is always always always a good idea it does a good job of retaining moisture and keeping you weeds down now we're not really gonna have much of a trouble with weeds considering this plant is going to grow enormous it's gonna spill out from the sides of this container and we may want to support it with a tomato cage it looks big enough and keep these leaves kind of going upward and that will help with pests and disease but yeah there we go that's mulch and that's what we're gonna do on the honeys and that's all there is to it I'm gonna water it in using a mild fish emulsion fertilizer this is high in nitrogen it's a 5:1 one these are already growing plants and I want them to really get a good start in this I want this to be readily available to the plant and so a water-soluble fertilizer is readily available to your plant you don't have to wait for the biology in the soil to break down your fertilizer like the stuff we put in there earlier that's going to be kind of slow release and it's gonna release as the organisms in the soil work down that fertilizer and release the nutrients but this stuff is available right away it's also very attractive to dogs so keep that in mind [Music] now you can't apply fish emulsion as a foliar feed so I'm just gonna put it all over and not worry about it getting on the plant here it might seem savage to come in here and take out one of these two plans but this container really will only support healthy growth for one whole plant so whichever these really looks the best I suspect that one's gonna be it I'll come in and take the other one out by just snipping it off at the ground and yeah we're gonna let that one grow up because it's gonna fill this container it's gonna need everything in this container and we'll do the same for that one over there gutter squash in so I've got several more but I got to wait for those little seedlings to come up and get true leaves and establish themselves before I plant them in those square containers but yeah follow us and watch the progress I'm going to update you on on how these do over the season and we're gonna watch and see what kind of pests we get thing with squash is that you almost always around here almost always you get borers and those are those little worms that bore into the stem down at the base and they destroy your crop real quick and so it's really a race to see if you can get fruit before the bugs find it so hopefully maybe this will help us and tending it and caring for it will help us to maybe avoid some of the common problems you get with squash and and well we'll see so follow our channel and look for updates throughout the growing season on these squash plants and we'll keep you updated and later in the season we'll also have some recipes and cook some of this stuff cuz man that's good stuff thanks for joining us on black gumbo please subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already that really helps us and encourages us like us on Facebook and Instagram and we'll see you next time take care you [Music]

Channel: Scott Head

Views: 479,754

Keywords: Gardening, Vegetables, Texas Gardening, Zone 9a, Black Gumbo, Squash, Zucchini, Container Gardening, Planting Squash, Growing Squash in conntainers, Growing in containers, planting squash in containers, black beauty zucchini

Id: 4CgBmj89D8M

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2019