Plastic pots vs fabric grow bags on my balcony - fabric won by a mile

I used to swear by those cheap plastic nursery pots for my balcony tomatoes. Thought fabric bags looked kinda dumb and floppy. But after three straight summers of my soil staying too wet and roots getting all tangled, I grabbed a pack of 5-gallon fabric bags from the hardware store for like $12. Huge difference. The air pruning thing is real - my pepper plants grew twice as bushy because the roots stop circling and branch out instead. Plus the bags dry out faster so I water more often but never get root rot. My basil got huge too. Only downside is they drip a bit more onto the balcony floor when I water. Anyone else find certain plants hate fabric bags?

3 comments

3 Comments

rivera.henry21d ago

Oh man, you just reminded me of my own fabric bag discovery. I had this one cherry tomato plant that I moved from a plastic pot into a 7-gallon bag halfway through the season - it was maybe late June and the plant looked sad and yellow. Within two weeks it perked up and started putting out new leaves and flowers everywhere. The roots must have been suffocating in that plastic pot. I still keep some herbs in regular pots though. My mint actually seems to prefer being a little rootbound in plastic, it gets too wild and leggy in the fabric bags for some reason.

the_robert21d ago

Mid-season transplanting usually kills weak plants, but yours bounced back that fast? That's wild. The roots must have been absolutely desperate in that plastic pot to explode like that after the swap. Mint getting leggy in fabric bags is weird though, mine tries to take over the whole yard in those things.

the_derek21d ago

Dude, I was EXACTLY like you, thought fabric bags looked cheap and dumb. Completely derailed my whole setup. I had a sad little jalapeno plant in a plastic pot for TWO MONTHS, it just sat there yellow and pathetic. Finally swapped it to a 5-gallon fabric bag out of pure frustration and it turned dark green in under a week. The air pruning thing, never believed it until I saw those white root tips poking through the fabric, crazy. Now I'm slowly converting everything slow. The only thing I still keep in plastic is my snake plant, because that thing thrives on neglect.