As this thread has become somewhat of project journal for my first container garden, I wanted to share what I tried today in regards to my concern over my potential perched water table issue. Newly acquainted with the concept of the PWT and still unsure of exactly what effect it may have later in the season, if any, I posted a few questions/thoughts in another thread about homemade soil mixes.
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=31658
I know many people grow in all sorts of poorly draining mediums, even the MG moisture control stuff I read is terrible, and are still able to have some success. I also realize that I will likely get some tomatoes, and hopefully the PWT isn't the huge issue it I thought it would be after reading the articles I read on the "other garden" web forum recently. I've already decided to change my growing medium next season and hopefully have a more successful tomato garden next year. I am still going to try to make the best of this season though too, despite using what I think to be an overly-soggy and under-aerated soil mix.
To get to the point, I decided to see if I could install some sort of wicking system (post-planting) for my tomato container to help this year be the best it can with a moisture-retentive mixture that likely lacks optimal medium aeration and will probably cause at least some root rot.
For anyone interested, this is what I did, though I am still unclear on the effectiveness of my method or even the necessity of it. I would truly appreciate any opinions or advice. Perhaps I am making overthinking again, but I see how the pros here strive for perfection and I think we all want that for our gardens
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So, my troughs have a 1' drainage plug on the bottom sides. As fonesca suggested, I removed the plug and using a screwdriver with a 12 length (not including the handle), I got past the rocks and weed guard and inserted a length of woven nylon rope into the medium at about a 45 degree angle as far as I could. Basically, I tried to get it to the center of the mix, and the angle meant it stretched through an area at least 6 or so inches above the rock/fabric layer. As the section of nylon I had was somewhat short, I let it dangle out of the opening and immediately noticed the part protruding was wet. To encourage the wicking process, I wrapped some very absorbent paper towels around the end of the wick (maybe this helped, or maybe not, but it seemed to make sense). Any suggestions on better/faster wicking materials would be great! Something that won't rot (like cotton) would be nice too if possible.
I was very curious to see how much water I might be able to wick out.
As I understand it, a fine-particle mixture like mine in a container surely has a PWT, and I wanted to see if I could make a difference as it seems that the more research I do, the smaller the PWT is, the better. It took around 3 hours for the paper towels to be totally soaked, and it was not near the volume of water I expected given my large container size. Perhaps one wick isn't enough, or maybe it just takes forever for the water to wick away given the mixture I used? I've read that fine particles don't want to release water easily, plus I have moisture-retaining peat, and course vermiculite instead of perlite. Although we received some brief rain earlier today, there was no water dripping from the drainage holes when I installed this.
Does anyone think this is an important thing to worry about, or that I am really doing any good with a single wick buried halfway into the middle of a 170 gallon container? Would more wicks be better, or perhaps placed/installed differently? Does the wick need to be in contact with the ground? Although the troughs are on castors and can be moved, it would be a pain - but not impossible - to get the wick into the earth due to how things are arranged on the patio and how my watering system was installed (before I even knew what a PWT was).
Sorry for all the questions, but I would really like to make this investment last me for years and to improve my method as much as possible. I am already looking at the more coarse 3-1-1 pine bark mixture for next year as the pine is easily available here, and the reasoning behind this famous growing mixture seems sound if you've read through Tapla's articles.
I plan to leave the piece of thin rope there for awhile, slowly wicking, until I can figure out if the PWT is truly the problematic issue I am afraid it could be, or until I can come up with a better methodology to reduce/remove the PWT short of starting over, which is not really an option for me at this point.
I have included pics of what I did, and I will continue to show the container garden's progress in this thread, assuming this is is the right place for it. I just noticed that most members keep their garden journals in the photo gallery section, so I hope its OK to just continue to post here. If not, please advise.
Any thought or advice is always appreciated!
Happy growing to all of you, I'm sure many of you are really seeing your plants start to take off!