Water May Not Spread Equally In A Container Garden

This research article focused mostly on hydroponic water using “watering from below”. If you water your houseplants or containers by setting the pot in a saucer and then filling the saucer, it’s the same thing.

Turns out the water only goes up about 80% of the way in the container and the top 20% will remain too dry.

I have done this with my seed starting trays. I water them from the bottom so I don’t disturb the soil or the tender seedlings.  But I have noticed I do have to heavily mist the tops to keep them moist.

Now I know why and I’ll go back to watering up top.

(In the nursery, I had misting systems that kept the tops constantly damp so there wasn’t an issue but on the home scale, I learned something this week) 🙂

Bottom line: water from the top of the container.

The original research report is no longer available. Feb/19 

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April Garden Pictures 2022

Here are a few garden pictures for early April as the gardens begin to wake up and the gardener ventures out.

This is what a tree looks like when the deer scratch their heads on it to help remove their antlers. Took the bark right off. Note the protective wire on the bottom right. Deer got that too.
Rabbit damage. (They left a deposit)
Rhubarb nubs emerging. Note the black drainage tile at the top of the picture. I run it to the eavestrough downspout and run the water along the garden bed to water the entire garden. Otherwise the overhang and trees at this area take most of the water.
The dry stone wall at one end of the vegetable garden. This is the first layer and you can see the “hearting” stones in the middle of the wall to help space and hold it together. This is as far as I got last year before I blew out a Quadriceps muscle lifting a heavy stone. I’ll be working on it as soon as the ground dries a bit more
I’ll also be working in the vegetable garden. I laid out these 2×4’s to mark out the future beds and pathways and see how it all works. There’s little sense in building a garden only to discover it has to be torn apart again. I’ll have more of this area all summer as we not only build out there but grow.
The first hellebore bloom sticking up from the dead, overwintered leaves. Hellebore leaves will remain green in warmer areas but not here. But it’s a Bloom! 🙂

I’ll be posting a lot of garden pictures this year and if you’d like to know when I post, subscribe here

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