Nicko, don't make too big a thing out of monitoring moisture and nutrients.
For most garden vegetables, when the first inch of soil surface is dry, it's time to water. To monitor you just push your finger into the soil to about the first joint. It's that simple.
Fertilization can either be done on a scheduled basis, or when the plant tells you it's suffering a deficiency (most of the time it's very apparent what's needed). And the Earthboxes do not make fertilization easier or harder. You have to add nutrients as with any other container.
Frankly, I can't see how the Earthboxes would be any more or less flood resistent than any other container. Flooding is normally a problem with ground level in-situ gardens, not containers.
For instance, when I grow in containers I mostly use either 5-gallon pails or 20-gallon tubs recycled from cattle feed supplements. The pails are 15 inches tall, the tubs 20. If there's enough rain and runoff to cover either of those, I'm in big trouble regardless. The last thing on my mind would be the state of my tomato plants.
I don't recall the Earthbox dimensions, but don't believe they're even as tall as the 5-gallon pails.
And, as an aside, I do not believe that any market grower is using containerization as his/her standard growing method, let alone something like Earthboxes. It's just not a cost-effective way to go.
A market grower whose land is subject to regular inundation, and who couldn't move, would more likely go with berm beds than containers.  |