Gardening

[HUON]

I love this time of year, that time when you start plucking the tomatoes from the vines or when you walk down the aisles of the supermarkets and you come to the vegie section, have a look at what's on offer shake your head and keep walking, thinking of all that scrumptious produce waiting back home in the vegie patch.

[pjt]

It sure is a good feeling, I haven't done so well this year, I tried a few different things this year, the wicking beds being one, they started out well but then the w. bed system seems to allow club root to become a serious problem so no good, then we get the rain and heat so mould has it's way, then damping off gets any seeds that get out of the ground
I put asparagus in this year and it has done well, no harvesting tho until 3 years old (next year) I'm thinking more asparagus as it doesn't require much attention once it's up and going.




Pete

[Berlin]

Pete, I'll use your post as a reason to kick off about wicking beds. I've got issues, not with the concept but the standard design you see all over the net, on Gardening Aus and Costas Gardning show... You probably addressed these issues but there are some fundamental problems with design as far as I can figure -
Firstly, water can't wick through gravel, or geotex for that matter, the texture is far too coarse, so the reservoir at the bottom would need to be filled to the brim all the time for any water to get into the soil. This means that a saturated anaerobic layer of soil would be sitting just 30cm (according to the common design) below you plants, which is a recipe for problems. Also, the reservoir is completely redundant if it has to be full all the time. The gravel layer may as we'll be 10mm deep!

Secondly the notion that water can only wick through a foot or so of soil is nonsense. It sounded like an oddly short distance so I looked into it and the actual max is more likely 2m, although it is highly dependent on the soil and the mineral content of the water. In nice tilthy soil full of organic matter I'd eat my hat if water didn't wick 50 or 60cm.

So, to work and grow well, I think the beds should be deeper, the reservoir should be of a suitably fine material to allow for capillary action to actually drain the reservoir (and for the reservoir to actually function as one) and the barrier layer should be either done away with or be fine enough to allow for some liaison between the reservoir medium and the growing medium.

I'm just a pleb and I'm probably missing something but I just can't see how they work if built as described in the how to's!

Phew... I needed to get that off my chest.

Matt

[pjt]

I have some issues with the ones I built and as a result of those issues I'll most likely dismantle my wicking beds, although I might leave them as well and I only had that thought as I wrote that I would dismantle them

I think the basic concept is good but based on my trials it seems that there are a number of factors that have to come together for them to work well.

With mine one big problem was what I think was club root, everything was going along fine then not, based on a bit of reading seems that the pathogen that causes club root is able to move about in the damp soil so with the constant supply of moisture it did it's work, hasn't worried the Lab Lab or the marigolds. So if there was something that you wanted to contain and was resistant to club root the wicking bed might still a viable option

I was seeing about 50mm of water depth be used up out of the reservoir and once the wicking stopped it seemed to take a while to get going again, I made my reservoir about 120mm and they could be shallower again I reckon.

I think the idea is that the water travels around the outside of the rock, and if another rock is touching that one the water then travels around the outside of that one as well and so on, I also put a course sand inbetween the pipes so water could also wick through this and up into the soil. Not sure if the sand was or wasn't better worse no difference.....

I used weed mat (which they say not to) I couldn't get anything else, it did let the water through and I'd be suprised if absolutley no roots got through into the reservoir, the soil did wick the water through about 200mm of soil depth.

[Berlin]

I think the idea is that the water travels around the outside of the rock, and if another rock is touching that one the water then travels around the outside of that one as well and so on, I also put a course sand inbetween the pipes so water could also wick through this and up into the soil. Not sure if the sand was or wasn't better worse no difference.....

.

That's the bit doesn't add up for me. The adhesion/cohesion matrix effect of capillary action only works in voids, tiny voids. I'd be pretty annoyed if water started flowing back UP my drainage lines


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[HUON]

Crikey

[Berlin]

Well it is drainage gravel, not wicking gravel. Water goes down through it, not up it. If water could just climb over the surface of a rock it would all be at the top of the mountains, not at the bottom. Am I taking crazy pills?


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[pjt]

Sophie (Gardening Aus) built a wicking bed and she used scoria which is full of small holes/bubbles so perhaps that might work better than ordinary gravel
I have what I think could be couple of chunks of scoria, I'll have to see if I can get them to wick.



Pete

[Berlin]

I'd be interested to know, Pete. When I get a chance I will do some experiments too. But we have a two week old baby and I am probably under-thinking things a bit at the moment!


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[fenderbelly]

This week sometime i will be moving in to my very own home, well mine and homestarts.
My son came up from the city and we moved all the heavy furniture in on Thursday, still got boxes and chairs stored in my friends shed but two days of moving stuff should see that knocked over.

I will have a fair sized garden which is a good size for me, there is a chicken run at the end of the garden and a 20' x 20' shed. woohoo
Most of the back garden is covered with limestone gravel which i will move to the front garden which is mostly lawn.
I plan to cover the lawn with weed mat and put the gravel on top of that.
At this stage i don't see any reason to water something i can't eat.
I will get a couple of chickens after getting advice from other chicken keepers in town.
when and if i get my PC working i will post before and after pics. I'm using my friends laptop to post this.
I will make a garden frame to grow seedling and I'm considering a small greenhouse using plastic and not glass.
I have no doubt i will change my mind and plans as time goes on.
A water tank will i think be my first priority.

[HUON]

Vegies starting outgrow the weeds at last.