Will my growing medium wick water itself

11 years ago

Hi All,

I am constructing an SWC, and have only been introduced to the entire world of container gardening about 5 days ago. Please bear with me.

http://tinypic.com/r/107qrz5/6

This is a picture of what I would like to use as my reservoir. I would be placing 16 cut bottles upside down on the bottom of my SWC (don't worry about wood rotting and leaks, I have taken care of that). I am planning on packing the soil mix down in between each bottle, resulting in the soil acting as the wick.

The woman in this video talks about using the soil mix as a wick. (Go to 2:25)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=3INoLKg555w

Will this work? IF it does, I am afraid that there will be too many columns of soil mix in the reservoir (consider 16 bottles, there are 9 columns inside the square and then the border gaps that will be packed with soil mix). I am afraid that if there is too much wicking via all the columns, I will cause root rot. Please give me all your opinions. If I didn't paint a clear enough picture, please let me know. I am trying to learn as much as possible, and appreciate all your help!

-Mike

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Comments (3)

terrybull
11 years ago
depends on your soil. you wont have much of a water resevoir with the bottles upside down.

how does the lady in the video get water in the other 2 jugs?
MrMike999
Original Author
11 years ago
Since the bottom of the bottles are not physically connected to the bottom of the reservoir, as one bottle is filled up from the top of the container via pipe, the water will equilibrate with the soil and other bottles throughout the reservoir. I will have a 4.5 inch reservoir and I am planning on using Raybos 3-2-1 mix, which I believe is 3 parts bark, 2 parts growing mix, and 1 part perlite (can somebody please confirm this).

So will packing the soil correctly between my bottle reservoirs provide enough wicking power?
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terrybull
11 years ago
are you going to put something on top of the bottles? what you are creating is a giant wick. so you might have to play around with the soil mixture.