Quote:
Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie
Have you tested how much your media will act as a wick all by itself? You may not even need the rag, if you just let part of the media touch the moisture. I know that a 5-gallon bucket, when placed in a consistent inch or so of water will wick that water all the way to the top of the media. It would be an interesting control for your experiments if you just bottom-watered one of your bins. You wouldn't maintain a completely consistent moisture level, but I would theorize that the plant wouldn't care. And if so, it would save you some work not having to make wicks.
Good luck with all your experiments. That's what makes gardening fun to me - not knowing exactly how things will turn out. Predictability is boring.
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Hi...Time goes so fast ..I think it was 3 seasons ago when everything turned bad on me ..Everything was diseased ...Now the previous season to that My plants ( in planter bags ) were sitting on a slab of polystyrene in a plastic or polystyrene tray ...the slab of polystyrene had a capillary cloth on it that drew water from the tray which I regulary filled but never cleaned cause basicly it was too difficult and the plants would no doubt get damaged ...Now things went not too bad so I carried on with the same the next season and everything went really bad and after getting no help here locally except from two people who both had opposite views (one too much the other not enough of water)so thats when I joined Tomatoville seeking help...Then later I began to suspect that my under watering was not a good idea and was basicly creating all my problems ...It took me a while to accept this...Then I dumped the useage of planter bags but even at the start of last season when I started using drums ...I put them in steel trays and watered the trays and had wicks feeding the soil but I realised something was happening again and lifted the drums out of the trays and put them on the concrete ...You see I was manually watering from above also which was going through the soil into the same tray I was putting fresh water into so It was IMO just a continuous of the breeding of diseases I had the previous season.....So thats when I thought of watering above somehow with fresh water and got rid of watering from underneath completely..I now clean my greenhouse with an electrolux and although I continually think if my Ideas are wrong I still think my drum method is a really healthy way to grow Tomatoes and now that I think I have the wicking solved from a reservoir that is actually part of the drum...I am getting more convinced than ever...Of course I am not advocating wicking as a complete answer ...To me its a method to free up time between the 7-10 day period when fertilisers are applied ....It may well be that the reservoirs do not not handle enough water to get through the period of that long but I do know that underwatering is far better than overwatering having seen a planter bag burst open on moving when it had been sitting on a capillary cloth ....Even then looking back ..I never caught on that basicly my plants in planter bags were basicly swimming in soil watered from a capillary cloth.....Cheers Ron