what are you using for a potting mix? The even moisture shouldn't be a problem unless the mix is holding too much water.

Hi, emgardener, Don't give up so easy, just read about my bucket garden just above your post and try 2 or 3 buckets made like mine and I thimnk you will really get into bucket gardening and like it. Won't hurt to try. DAN

Actually I am going to continue using SWCs, as I've been doing for more than a decade, just going to water them by hand next year.

Justaguy,
The mix used was 1/2 sphagnum peat moss, 1/4 bark fines, 1/4 volcanic rock/pumice. I made it more aerated than the Earth Box recommended, since I didn't want to take any chances of too much water with an automatic refill.
I did let the soil dry out a couple times to see what would happen, the plants looked better temporarily, but then I turned the automatic watering back on and they continued to look not so good.

HAS ANYONE HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE (LOTS OF VEGETABLE HARVEST) WITH A FULLY AUTOMATICALLY-WATERED SWC. I'D REALLY LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT IT OR SEE YOUR PICTURES.

EM, If you go to earthbox.com and look at their forums you will find a lot of people using their automated watering system. I really haven't heard any significant complaints.

It seems odd that your tomatos did poorly, but your peppers were OK. If the issue was too much/consistent water I would expect the peppers to be among the first of your plants to complain about it.

Certainly I am not trying to convince you to use an automated watering system (I don't), rather I am trying to wrap my brain around what went wrong and why.

Justaguy,
Actually I'm not really sure about my peppers. I started from seeds this year way too late. So the plants look fine but are quite small, a few peppers about the size of a quarter. Was just assuming they would have become big given enough time. The beans doing poorly were the biggest surprise to me. I'll check out the EB forum.
regards

Just returned from the EB forum, where I posted about this problem and got several shrill responses.

However, one poster challenged me that the bark fines probably reduced aeration. Think he was right and I'm posting/copying the messages from that thread in case it is interesting to anyone else. Or if anyone has additional insights.

Donald1800 reply:

The basic problem that I see is your use of "Forest Biproducts" in the form of 'Bark Fines'. It would seem to me that this woody ingredient would absorb too much water, be very slow to release it to the plants, end up being way too heavy/dense, and settle down with a limited amount of air space, resulting in an ideal 'swamp-like' environment for fungus/mold and bad anerobic bacteria. And, although 'Powdered Volcanic Rock' may be a good soil additive for trace/micro nutrients, not at the 1/4 rate you are using. I would only use 1/8 - 1/4 C per EB. At the rate you are using it, it would only add to the weight/density of the mix and compound the problerm.

This "system" you have developed may work alright in traditional in ground, typical containers, etc., but with a constant water supply is only siutable for growing celery. If you are convinced that your "system" is fine and the AWS is at fault, try growing celery in the EB you keep with your mix and AWS - if it grows just fine, I have proved my point.

Don't feel to badly about your experience. As an old time organic gardener, I too thought that I knew what I was doing when switching over to the EB. However, I soon learned that everything 'I knew' could not be transferred to the EB. As such, I have been highly recommending that ALL new EB gardeners, with previous gardening experience or a noob should start out with EarthBox's Complete Kit that includes everything needed except the AWS or Staking System. This will give everyone a full season of good experience that can be compared to future single box experiments that everyone wants to do. This is what you should have done, as the EarthBox system requires a different environment to work right. Trust me - your set up is disaster for plants in the EB with AWS.

Donald1800

emgardener reply

Thanks Donald1800,
Your bark fines comment could be it. I had read on another chat board, gardenweb, about a well aerated mix using >50% bark fines. However with that much bark fines the mix won't wick well so I reduced it to 25%. Thinking about it now, the peat moss totally surrounds each bark piece, so the bark really doesn't add to aeration like it does in a mostly bark mix (where the pieces touch each other leaving air gaps). Interesting. Oh well, this is what keeps gardening a continual learning experience.

On the volcanic issue, I actually washed the dust away and didn't use it in the mix, only used the pieces left. I did catch on that dust would really make a soggy mess.

Regards

Donald is the 'resident expert' there, but he is factually incorrect due to conflating pine bark fines with 'forest by products'.

If pine bark fines were forested by products he would be correct. With forest by products what you get is what you get. Lots of inner wood, some bark but from who knows what. The bark of pine and fir is unique in that it is suitable in containers and will offer more aeration than peat based mixes.

Next spring I will use an EB recommended mix, plastic cover, & AWS on 1 bean tub and 1 tomato and then compare to hand watering on the other 3-4 tubs and see what happens.

Maybe this fall I'll even get around to measuring the porosity of the mixes with the technique you posted several months ago.

Cheers