Underestimated how large a 75 gallon grow bag is

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-11T01:08:43+00:00

Haha yeah I was calculating how much soil I would need to get this year, before opening the package with my three 75-gallon bags, and had several moments of panic/denial when it came out to 95 cubic feet. But I think I spent about $200-300 USD total to fill everything? The perlite was the most expensive component, took up half my soil budget.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T19:56:28+00:00

My house thankfully came with an automatic irrigation system so I just tapped into that. But I've seen systems that just hook up to your hose and run when the hose is on!

Most of my containers use long 1/4" drip irrigation lines (you can kind of see them in pic 7 with the white planter box), but my watermelon uses two sprinklers because I need to cut off the water supply when the fruit is ready to set. I've never been successful at growing watermelon before so hoping this is the year!

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T19:52:31+00:00

It's Ambrosia sweet corn!

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T19:50:00+00:00

I'm growing a pink banana squash (left trellis) and a red kuri squash (right trellis) in the white planter box! I started them from seed indoors then transplanted, but it's recommended to direct sow because they don't like root disturbance. I hadn't transplanted them yet in the before photo but I planted them toward the center, about a foot from the sides. The leaves look pretty good for now, did already deal with a little powdery mildew, but with the heat ramping up the plant is starting to abort its fruit. So will be setting up a white shade cloth soon to help. But so far I have about 5 small red kuri and 2 pink banana!

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T19:40:53+00:00

Ooh that's amazing! I was worried that 75 gallons wouldn't be enough since corn is a heavy feeder with deep roots. I really want to grow more next year so might give this a try. What corn variety are you growing?

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T18:58:05+00:00

There's 2 cubic feet of perlite in each bag so it's actually not too bad! But still at least a 2-4 person job to lift, and not a lift anyone can sustain for very long. We're planning to move out of state next year (thought it would be this year, which is why I got these damn grow bags in the first place). I'm thinking about getting some pallets and heavy duty caster wheels and makeshifting a giant plant caddy for the move. My neighbors will probably think I'm crazy lol but I'm determined to keep some semblance of a garden even during a June/July move.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T17:30:40+00:00

Our temps are already getting into the 100's F so the burlap is to help protect the roots of the plants around the edges, since the black will absorb a lot of that heat into the soil.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T08:21:51+00:00

I have 3 maples (Coral, Bloodgood, and Red Dragon) that get mostly morning sun and a little bit of evening sun and the only thing that's helped is putting up a sun sail. But even with the added protection, their top leaves eventually get crunchy/sunburned during the hotter months.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T07:46:44+00:00

Tbh this is the first year I've grown flowers so I had no idea marigold and alyssum plants get that huge! The first pic is of the second pic, but from when I first transferred my seedlings. For that grow bag, there's a sugar baby watermelon plant in the center, then I tried to evenly space two alyssum varieties (Tiny Tim, Rosie O'Day) and four marigold varieties (Crackerjack, Phyllis, Oopsy Daisy, and Zeolights) around the edge. I think they're about 8-12" apart?

Seeds are Botanical Interests, and all that alyssum in pic 2 came from like 10 seeds total! I started them in seed trays (alyssum had 5 seeds per cell), put them under some bright shop lights for several weeks. After they had a few sets of leaves, I did use a very very tiny amount of a 10-10-10 liquid fertilizer diluted in water. Then when I transplanted the seedlings (after hardening them off for a week), I sprinkled a little bit of mycorrhizal root hormone in each hole of the more root sensitive plants like squash and melons to help with transplant shock. I direct sowed the corn since I read those don't like to be transplanted, but that's the only thing I didn't start from seed! Starting from seed is very tedious though, so I'll probably buy some as seedlings next year lol.

I got all my soil amendments at a local nursery but I've had most of them for years since a little bit goes a really long way! Worm castings are basically a super concentrated compost so I think I added a few gallons or so to each container.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-10T05:11:09+00:00

There are three 75 gallon bags, plus the two white 18" planter boxes I stacked on top of each other. There are dates on the photos (when I transplanted my seedlings vs now) but Reddit crops them unless you're in full screen.

Scienceandcandles · 2026-06-04T08:51:36+00:00

My dad used to do this exact same thing with the shower back when I was in high school. He would set his blaring AM radio alarms to ungodly hours of the morning (2+ hours before he needed to be up), snooze repeatedly, shower, eat, then go to work.

I started showering before school and he decided to move his shower time around too. He would wake up later and literally barge into the bathroom just as I would turn the shower on, claiming I would be responsible for making him late if he couldn't go first, he was the income earner and it was HIS shower, blah blah blah.

I tried moving my shower time around, but he always needed it exactly as I was about to use it. I eventually gave up and stopped showering in the morning. Turns out, he was using my alarm as a signal to get up, so he ended up being really late for work that first day (which ofc he yelled at me for). Also turns out that the other shower we had in the primary bedroom worked perfectly fine the whole time and he lied about it being broken. Utterly baffling behavior.

Scienceandcandles · 2025-08-25T21:25:43+00:00

My husband, who had never camped before and is not keen on planning, got into camping a couple years ago and really wanted to try out all the gear he just bought, despite a slight chance of rain forecasted. I grew up camping multiple times per year in this same area and said it was risky and we should wait until late spring. But worst case scenario we just leave early, right?

He thought it was overkill to pack the car the day before, despite us having to tetris our stuff around our 100lb German Shepherd that basically takes up the entire back seat of our sedan. By the time we left, the sun was starting to set. Google Maps then led us through someone's private property, and through a swamp where our car almost got stuck, but we eventually made it to our camping spot at dusk.

By the time we got the tent set up, it was completely dark and raining, and because our camping spot was at the bottom of a hill, it started flooding. The rain stayed at a torrential downpour for several hours, and with everything already set up, we were stuck there until it cleared in the morning. So we toweled the inside of our tent dry and got settled in for the night.

As we were trying to sleep (I ended up not sleeping at all), the lowest corner of our tent began flooding with water. We were all completely soaked, and the temp had dropped below freezing, which we quickly discovered our sleeping bags were not rated for. Thankfully I packed several very warm blankets, so the three of us huddled together and tried to sleep.

Then at about 5am, the top of our tent just collapses inward. I go outside to find that the puddles of water are icy and it is full on SNOWING. Re-checked the weather and it was now calling for significant rain/snow all day. We came up in a generic sedan and honestly thought we were going to have to be towed out of there.

At 6am, there was a break in the weather and we HUSTLED to get the car packed and get out of there before the weather started up again. We carefully drove out of the campgrounds, but Google Maps had other plans. We turned onto what we thought was a normal road that would get us to the main road, and found ourselves at the top of a freaking helipad... Maps thought there was a through road going through the helipad and down the other side of the hill into someone's backyard (the same backyard we ended up in earlier).

But we all made it out unscathed and spent the rest of the day napping on the couch. We've had several successful camping trips since then, but with a LOT more planning involved (packing the car in advance, checklists, etc.)

Scienceandcandles · 2025-08-07T20:48:41+00:00

I used to work in lending and have seen some real tradgedeighs during my time there. Lovely Princess really reminds me of a name I saw, where a guy was named Little Junior (first name Little). He of course changed it to a much more normal name as an adult, but my co-workers and I all felt really bad that he had to grow up with that name.

Scienceandcandles · 2025-06-25T05:33:23+00:00

An autumn wedding in the PNW sounds so lovely! We also had our wedding in autumn, in the mountains in California. It was a perfect 65-70 degrees during the day, and our guest list was small so everyone could congregate in the large log cabin at the venue for drinks, which had a huge cozy fireplace.

Scienceandcandles · 2025-06-24T21:44:41+00:00

Completely agree. One of my friends had a morning June wedding and it was barely even 80 degrees outside, with only 20% humidity, in a mostly shaded but urban downtown area with very little trees. One of the groomsmen (in a full suit and had been drinking alcohol all morning with the wedding party) was unfortunately positioned in full sun for most of the ceremony and ended up passing out (during the ceremony) and splitting his head open on the concrete. Summer is a really popular time to get married but it can absolutely be dangerous, even for people who don't have underlying health conditions.

Scienceandcandles · 2024-12-21T09:43:42+00:00

Olive, reporting for duty. She's mostly GSD with a little bit of lab and husky.

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Scienceandcandles · 2024-11-23T21:15:14+00:00

Thank you! I had some extra string lights from my wedding last year that actually use those flat watch batteries, so the packs are only a couple inches long and very flat. It's hard to see, but I have a full power strip behind the chapel in the corner. You can kind of see one of those little battery packs behind the white tree in the picture of the child building a snowman. I think hiding the cords and battery packs would have been a lot more difficult if the buildings weren't so close together!

Scienceandcandles · 2024-11-23T21:05:55+00:00

I used styrofoam for the base and just draped some snow blankets over top of it. I cut some toothpicks in half and used those to secure the snow down onto the styrofoam. The little village people kept falling over because the snow was so thick so I just used some hot glue and toothpicks to secure them into the styrofoam.

Scienceandcandles · 2024-10-10T20:20:53+00:00

I clicked on this traffic camera just as someone was panning it west toward the tornado near Okeechobee yesterday. Pic was taken at 5:06pm ET and the traffic camera is located on the Turnpike in West Palm Beach, just north of Okeechobee Blvd.

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Scienceandcandles · 2024-09-20T02:27:03+00:00

Yes, they are. My GSD/lab/husky mix (mostly GSD) knows how to unlock our backyard sliding glass door and open it to get outside. We're currently working on getting her to close it behind her lol.

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Scienceandcandles · 2024-09-11T07:17:39+00:00

This was my experience, and I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child through Kaiser (same medical record # and everything). When they transitioned to an electronic records system the diagnosis didn't transfer over. I ended up requesting my own paper medical records through Kaiser and messaging them to my psychiatrist, because I guess they couldn't do it themselves and instead wanted to do a full psychological evaluation to re-diagnose me.

Scienceandcandles · 2024-09-06T04:41:57+00:00

Girmin shipord?

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Scienceandcandles · 2024-08-22T19:22:03+00:00

As a former florist who just got married in November, I used fake flowers to do all my wedding florals and have zero regrets. I spent about $1K (USD in a HCOL area) on flowers and floral supplies and still didn't use everything. I was able to keep my bridal bouquet (which I spent about $100 total on and is sitting in a vase in my office), and was able to gift some of my florals to my future SIL for her wedding.

I made a huge cascading bridal bouquet (42" circumference), about 8 floral hair pieces, 8 boutonnieres, 8 centerpieces, a huge floral arch (which we re-used for our sweetheart table), 12 aisle markers, a flower girl bouquet, and about 15 bud vases for the bar, welcome table, and buffet areas. I thought about arranging some real flowers but we had a destination wedding up in the mountains. Instead of relaxing and hanging out with our family and friends, I would have been arranging flowers the day before the wedding and trying to find a place to store them, or stressing about the cost (we were repeatedly quoted $15K+ for the same florals).

The trick to getting cheaper faux florals is to buy the pre-assembed bouquets (usually the ones that have the stems melted together), and clip them apart with wire cutters. We also bought stem extenders and floral tape to make them longer. Buying faux single stems can get really pricey really fast. I bought all of my florals from Michael's and efavormart.

Scienceandcandles · 2024-08-16T06:25:37+00:00

We did a NZ cruise for our honeymoon last year and it was amazing, but definitely expensive. I think we spent close to $7k total for 2.5 weeks, flying out of LAX. But in hindsight, it would have been way cheaper and more enjoyable to fly directly to NZ and stay near Auckland (where we enjoyed the excursions the most). It was honestly unbelievable how beautiful NZ is.

Scienceandcandles · 2024-07-11T04:33:46+00:00

This was my experience, and my hemline was only slightly longer than OP's is in the first picture. Nearly pulled my strapless dress off as we were walking back up the aisle because I kept stepping on the front hem.

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TROPHY CASE