Use perlite, not turface/floor dry. These are very efficient wickers and hold lots of water. My own SWC mix is pine bark based and I add Turface to get the bark based mix to wick more efficiently instead of adding peat. Previously I used 5 parts bark, 2 parts peat and that worked out fine too.

If you are starting with a peat based mix and finding it too wet I think perlite is your best bet, but I think it's going to take quite a bit.

You have to keep in mind the finer particle size of the peat and vermiculite in the bagged mix is going to do everything it can to fill in the air spaces the perlite creates.

Hi RAYBO!!! I am glad to see you back or should I say READ you again.

I think I can actually add my two cents since I have experienced issues and came up with a solution. I built 4 self-watering containers using MG Potting Mix and a knock-off brand of potting Mix in at least one of the boxes. 3 were covered with plastic, one was not. They were soppy messes. Mushrooms grew under the plastic and the plants were stunted at best. So here is what I did, I first went without covers and that helped a bit the plants even grew a wee bit. Then, I added to 2 of the boxes Lowe's soil conditioner. (The plants were still in the box.) - I worked it in as best I could. I used probably four dry oatmeal containers worth. It helped a bit. I waited a week and then added Expanded Shale and it fixed those two boxes all of a sudden everything took off like a shot. To the other two boxes I added the Lowe's soil conditioner, (5 oatmeal containers worth) - perlite (3 oatmeal containers worth) and vermiculite (1/2 - 1 of an oatmeal container). Again ,I worked this in around the plants. Suddenly my boxes were better - no more saturated containers - plants were thriving.
My fifth box is totally Al's Mix. It is my best box of all. I have had no problems with sogginess and the plants are the heartiest in those boxes.
One of the expanded shale ammended boxes needs to be ammended a bit more but I think I am going to dump it out in a flower bed and start again with Al's mix. Using expanded shale is great; however, it is like putting baby rocks into your box. It can and does impact the shape of root crops.

My two newest Earthtainer boxes that I am finishing now will be filled with Al's mix. They have one wicking chamber the size of a large sour cream container. I had to fashion two sour cream containers together to make it go to the bottom of the water chamber. I drilled holes into the wicking chamber. I don't use a pipe for water . . . rather I use water bottles with the bottoms cut off. They fit inside each other. I put a length of panty hose over it to keep out the bugs.

I am using Al's mix in my felt-containers. As I mentioned in another post, I am strongly considering making a larger size felt-container for the sake of the experiment. These containers dry out so quickly. I have top dressed two of the felt containes with compost as a way to fertilize the plant. I see no ill effects. I would NOT add compost to a full plastic container as it could be a huge draining problem.

So I would consider ammending with perlite and Lowes's soil conditioner. - I am curious to hear what Al thinks about your question since I hold him in such high regard.

LC

P.S. Anyway up for 105 + temps?

LC,

Thanks for the information. I am testing one earthTainer where I have removed the moisture barrier completely, and the leaves are staying perfectly green, and fruit are properly shaped. Big Beef:

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When you say "Al's mix" specifically what is the SWC formulation you are using. I know he has perfected more than one for different applications.

thanks,

Raybo

When you say "Al's mix" specifically what is the SWC formulation you are using. I know he has perfected more than one for different applications.

While it's not me you asked, I thought I would point out that the basis of the 5-1-1 mix is pine bark. The size and degree of compostedness of that bark will have to influence the exact mixture.

Think of the composted/fine portion of the bark as being the equivalent of peat in terms of how much moisture the mix is going to hold overall.

If none of the bark is composted I would recommend, based upon my experience, 2 parts peat. If 10% or so is composted I would recommend 1 part peat. If 20% or more is composted I would recommend no peat at all.

Hi, guys. I think JaG is right about the perlite vs. Turface/calcined DE. They (the later) aren't going to cure your soggy soil situation.

Something else I was thinking about, too .... if you're attempting to set down a broad recommendation that includes pine bark, you're probably going to run into the same thing I do over & over, and that's the wide variance in particle size from product to product. Because of the wicking factor, consistency is much more important to your design than it is to conventional containers, because those, you just water more or less to accommodate the soils water retention.

Conifer bark definitely has a cost advantage, but for what you're trying to do, the variance in size kind of trumps the attractiveness of the cost. Most of the products like Haydite, Soil Perfector, and other products with limited internal porosity are usually commonly available too large in size to be much help and too expensive to be attractive, which brings you full circle to perlite again.

Rockwool has it's problems. Formaldehyde foam beads are a possibility, but again, availability is probably a problem .....

It looks like it would be a whole lot easier to establish some kind of standard so you can tell people what to shoot for than to try to offer a 'one size fits all' recipe.

If all you were looking for is something that would just 'work', and if I knew you weren't so concerned about factors like cost and availability, I would suggest Haydite or pumice in a size range from 3/32 - 3/16", if you could find it. No matter what you decide, it appears that the cost will escalate considerably once you've departed from a peat/perlite/bark trinity.

Not much help, I know. Sorry.

Al

Al and justaguy,

You have been very helpful!!

I am on a quest where "Joe-gardener" (or Jane-gardener), can go to Lowes, Home Depot, or a Garden Shop to gather the materials they need for a happy outcome. This will probably take me several seasons of trial and error to find the optimum composition of ingredients, but no commercial potting mix I've tried yet really controls moisture content to my satisfaction. Yes, the plants and tomatoes grow large - - but I would like to see green plants, top to bottom throughout the growing season.

Raybo

RAYBO - I think your tomato plant looks amazing. I love all of your pictures.

I use the following:

5 parts (Lowe's Soil Conditioner)
1-2 parts (perlite)
1 part (peat moss)

Right now, my best box has 1 cucumber that is obnoxiously growing me out of house and home and it also has a sweet 100 tomato. No barrier cover. I have beautiful leaves top to bottom and even some fruit despite the 100 + temperatures. Even when it rained (which I really can't remember when I last saw rain ) my best box - Al's Mix - drained out the water in a beautiful manner. I won't go back. I am an AL's mix convert. One other FYI - I did not screen my Lowe's mix as I was in a hurry to rescue plants from drowning and yet they are beautiful.

I think it would be interesting to conducting an experiment with adding more perlite to MG mix in one box, adding more pine bark to the MG mix in another box, using AL's Mix box, and then a straight MG mix box.

On another note I would dare say that my wicking chamber is smaller than yours just because I try to use recycled material wherever I can.

Today - I cut back my 100's in order to root some new plants for the fall.

Be well in the sunshine,

LC

but I would like to see green plants, top to bottom throughout the growing season.

AFAIK this is not possible. Indet plants tend to produce near the bottom first with production moving upward over the season. It seems that when this starts to happen the lower leaves tend to yellow and eventually fall off.

While this *can* be caused by too much moisture, I have always regarded it as normal with indets. I will have to pay more attention this season as I am not yet to the point where I would expect some yellowing on the bottoms.

Is this the kind of yellowing you are seeing or something else?

hi raybo,

from the look's of your plants they do not apear to being
in two wet of potting ? how come you have come to the
concluesion they are two wet after all the years you
have been useing m.g.

to me your pictures look like they are very healthy plant's.

les matzek

LC and Les,

The photo above is my Big Beef in a 'Tainer where I never used the black mulch moisture barrier. These are now the healthiest looking plants in my 'Tainer "Farm". My other Big Beef in 'Tainers where I did use the moisture barrier have old shaped tomatoes, and the bottom leaves have wilted. Coincidence perhaps, but my "nose" is telling me that tomato plants prefer a slightly drier medium without the moisture barrier.

As I do want to keep the moisture barrier to minimize evaporation, etc. my quest is to slightly reduce the overall wicking of the 'Tainer Mix. Make sense?

Raybo

Just wanted to share my experiences with a variant of the fast draining mix I am trying this year.
I have dabbled with self watering containers for tomatoes a couple of times and have used peat based mixes in the previous years.
I travel for work and I like the fact that you can set up automatic watering and a fertilizer strip at the start of the season and from then on, you only have to provide occasional inputs.
I used a 5:2:1 mix and added the fertilizer strip but had issues with stunted plants (see link below). Jag helped me out and my plants have been doing great. I still water them using the drip but weekly I add a gallon of MG at half strength. The plants are robust, dark green with lot of flowers and now fruit set. I did try to replenish the fertilizer strip in one of the containers but without fertilizer in the reservoir, the plant growth comes to a halt. I wonder why a fertilizer strip will not work with a fast draining mix. I guess the only way to set up an automated system is if you use a fertigator and provide a constant nutrient supply into the reservoir. I know what I will be getting for my b'day this year :)

Here is a link that might be useful: previous thread with soil mix issues

You can search the word 'isotonicity' for a thorough explanation of why the fertilizer strips don't work in fast soils.

Example: If you have a container with a half cup of solute (fertilizer, salt, sugar ....) suspended above and connected to a gallon of distilled water by a wick that can lift water to the solute, the solute will completely dissolve (except what sticks to the sides of the container it's in and doesn't get wet) and end up thoroughly mixed into the water. If the wick is dry, nothing happens & the water remains pure & the solute intact.

There must be a water connection between the fertilizer strip and the rest of the container for it to diffuse throughout the container. If the top layer of soil is dry, as it often is with a fast soil - no connection no diffusion.

Al

Al and all, thanks for the replies.

So here is a "visual" on my situation:

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Two separate issues. One, my potting mix is running too moist, even though I had reduced the size and height of the wicking basket this season. Two, I added Dolomite Lime PLUS Epsom Salts this season, and I am getting a reading of about 5.7 on the pH Meter. Last season, I was getting a reading of 6.4. So, I need a suggestion on how to bring up the acidity of the mix to the proper range. Diluted vinegar soil drench??

The more serious issue is how to get a "blend" of the Miracle-Gro potting mix with another commercially available amendment to have a better drained composite mix. I found this mix at Lowes today, and I am thinking about blending 1 cubic foot with about 2.5 cubic feet of the original Miracle-Gro potting mix.

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Here is a close-up of the ingredients:

{{gwi:44914}}

I am a bit concerned about the "sand" content in a SWC type of eco-system, but I am willing to experiment with any additive to reduce the moisture retention of my blend. What do you think?

Overall, the tomato plants are doing fine, but I would like to have less leggy, more robust, healthy foliage top to bottom:

{{gwi:44915}}

Raybo

Sorry, meant to say REDUCE the acidity and raise up the pH to the 6.4 range.

Raybo

On the topic of bringing up pH, I would first double check with another test to make sure the meter reading is accurate.

Vinegar would not increase the pH, it would decrease it. Lime would be the standard means of bringing up pH, although it's already added so the question is what is making the mix increase in acidity, if in fact it is.

The potting mix you are looking at lists 'forest products' as it's primary ingredient. I would never recommend it's use for this reason. I don't know what forest products are. I don't know how water retentive they are. I don't know what nutrients they will or won't provide. I don't know what other issues they may or may bring to the table. They are an unknown quantity. Even if this mix proved somehow to be perfect, you would have no assurance the next batch would be the same.

I think your best bet if sticking with bagged, peat based soils is to add a significant amount of perlite and see how it goes.

Al, that makes sense. I made a ridge 2-3" deep in the mix where I added the fertilizer strip. Most of the strip was dry even under the moisture barrier but I think there was some part which may have been moist. I wonder what the effect would be of burying the fertilizer strip deeper. But I am liking the idea of being able to control the consistency of nutrient concentration in the reservoir.
Ray, I am not sure about the reliability of the moisture meters either. I use visual indicators and you can do a poke test as well. Gather some of the mixture and squeeze it into a ball in the palm of your hand. If you slightly poke it with your finger, it should fall apart. I think I read it on one of Al's thread.
A related hypothetical question guys. If you have a container with a wick at the bottom, which is suspended into a reservoir of water. Would the moisture in the container be a function of the depth of water in the reservoir?
Hey Jag.

GS - you're kind of hijacking Raybo's thread, but since your questions are sort of on topic .....

"Would the moisture in the container be a function of the depth of water in the reservoir?"

No. Water depth would play an insignificant part in it for the purposes of this discussion. As long as the wick was able to draw water to the soil by capillarity, the capillary pull of the soil particles factored with the rate of evaporation + plant (water) usage would determine how much water was in the soil.

Raybo - Forgive me if you already know this, but what most consider an ideal container media pH is about a full point lower than the 6.2 or so we like to shoot for in garden soils. A starting media pH of around 5.0 - 5.5 in containers would suit me just fine.

If you're using an inexpensive moisture meter, its findings will have small relationship to the actual amount of water in soils. They actually measure EC (electrical conductivity). If you insert the probe into distilled/deionized water, it will read dry, but if you add fertilizer to the water, the needle will move toward a reading of 'wet'.

Also, at some point in the composting process, wood products that have lots of sapwood, heartwood, and/or hardwood bark in them spike very high in pH. That is one of the main reasons that these products aren't used commercially in soils.

Al

Al,

I will try the all-Cactus-Mix in one 'Tainer to see how it wicks, at one end of the spectrum, then do a 1/3 Cactus Mix with 2/3 Miracle-Gro potting mix in another 'Tainer, and then straight Miracle-Gro mix "diluted" with Perlite to then compare results of the three. Where is a good source to get Perlite? At Lowes yesterday they only had very small bags of it.

These moisture and pH meters are not good to rely on for absolute readings - -but I like to use them to gauge "relative change" as an indicator from one experiment to the next. It was interesting in the 'Tainer where I did not add Epsom Salts that the pH was reading 6.4 just now. Again, no faith in absolute numbers, but it indicated to me that the Epsom Salts in the one 'Tainer *may* be the cause as to why I am getting a lower reading on the scale in that one 'Tainer. Regarding tomatoes only, I had read somewhere that they did best in media that was between 6.2 and 6.5 pH. Do you not agree with this opinion?

I am tempted (again), to reduce the size of the wicking basket to a 4 inch square one, with a 3.5" by 3.5" opening in the aeration bench, as a simplistic approach to continue use with the standard Miracle-Gro potting mix, to try to constrain the flow of moisture up into the SWC. But at some point in reducing the opening of the orifice the 'Tainer might not fully wick properly, and areas of potting mix may run dry.

I guess I would rather find a potting mix (or a blend of two medias) that will exhibit the desired saturation characteristics ideal for tomatoes. Darn Hobby!!!!!

BTW, The Peppers and Corn both love the current design's moisture eco-system!

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Raybo

"I guess I would rather find a potting mix (or a blend of two medias) that will exhibit the desired saturation characteristics ideal for tomatoes."

I agree that this is where your answer lies, but I think it's probably not going to be the easiest solution.

When you say"... try to constrain the flow of moisture up into the SWC. But at some point in reducing the opening of the orifice the 'Tainer might not fully wick properly, and areas of potting mix may run dry." you can get a clear concept of why this is probably not your answer if you imagine a container with a hole in the bottom that you're supplying water to with a hose, and trying to regulate the flow of water so the container stays only half full. There is only one, extremely precise flow setting that will accomplish this goal. That is water has to be supplied at exactly the same rate as it flows out; otherwise, the container will not fill at all, or it will eventually overflow. See how difficult the water supply is to control via the wick?

I think the real answer lies with getting soil capillarity just right, but the obstacles of product consistency, availability, and expense seem to be the three things that loom immediate.

Al

Al,

I agree 100% with you that by "mechanically" trying to throttle the flow of moisture upward in a SWC is an exercise in futility!!

What I REALLY need to do is to find a "happy" combination of ingredients that will keep the tomato plants moist, and not wet. I also need to find this combo so that hundreds of people who are using the EarthTainer design can source and combine these ingredients from Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, or Nursery stores across the U.S. with easy availability. Cost is somewhat secondary as if you live in a Condo, or apartment in NYC, growing garden fresh tomatoes on your balcony is "priceless".

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So help me out, my friends in finding that elusive combo mix best suited for tomato growing. Hundreds of EarthTainer (and EarthBox users, for that matter) will be eternally grateful!!!

Raybo

Has anyone considered say, one part Gran-I-Grit (crushed granite)?

Pluses:
Readily available.
Reasonably inexpensive.
Doesn't retain moisture.
Surely doesn't contribute to wicking.
Helps with root aeration(?).

Drawbacks:
Weight.
Very slow to release any embedded nutrients/minerals.

What else?

Hi Ray - Amazing corn. I a jealous, but I am hoping my fall plantings might be so nice.

To answer your perlite question to AL. In Texas, a local garden center carries a 4 cubic yards (It think that is the correct term - it is big bag like my peat moss comes in) bag of perlite for around $22.00 - I am not sure if that is a great price but it was comparable to what I could find in my neighborhood. I did talk to my buddy at Lowes and he is checking on a price for me there. I buy little bags (MG branded 8 quarts I think) for around 3.96 from my local big box store that starts with a w and ends with mart.