container garden

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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