Some years back living on base and not allowed veggie plants in yard, my neighbor planted a couple cucumbers in a small 1 gallon flower pot by the chain fence that seperated us right by the faucet that they left slowly dripping into the pot during the day . Crazy people I thought. Well those darn plants grew and vined the whole fence...and produced enough cucs for the whole neighborhod. Good lesson I learned. I've 200 five gallon buckets that I use, depending on what veggie has my fancy.. Last year I was asked if I could do some extra tomatoes for a CSA...sure I said and planted 50 some cherry, some reg, and 50 containers in sweet peppers. I did a 7 foot fence by our polebarn to support the tomatoes, and had the buckets on either side. I don't do 511 anymore, way too much work and Fafard (medium mix) does the same for me, I do add a slow release fertilizer(organic) plus have to water twice a day in our scorching NC summers. I harvested more tomatoes and peppers then I could use, both for the CSA, Farmers Market, our use -and we use ALOT, plus literally giving our chickens a bucket of tomatoes to eat whenever I was overwhelmed. This year I won't be doing tomatoes or peppers in containers. I need a year break....I am still so sick of tomatoes that I can't even buy a fresh one for my salad! Am still using salsas, marinera sauces, spagetti sauses, etc....from last year and have enough sweet peppers chopped and frozen to last another season! I plan on cucumbers, squashes, and eggplants this year.....

For a wicking device, I like to use a 3 or 4 in dia PVC pipe. That way you have sufficient strength to support the top bucket higher than it's normal nested height. This does 2 things. More water capacity in bottom bucket and better air to the bottom of the top bucket. I am currently developing system so that a series of BWB's are hooked up to my well with timer. Tried it with 3/8 ID plastic tube and stopped up with trash to easily. Now using 1/2 ID and it is working fine with 3 BWB's . Will put a couple more on line soon. One advantage of mounding the "soil" and a plastic sheet cover is that your tomatoes does not split when you have 6" of rain in 4 days due to too much water. Know that is not a problem to you guys in the desert, but Florida is DIFFERENT. Tom, I missed JAG's fertilizing method. Give me a connect to it, thanks bernie

its all about the ability of the buyer... the neighbor lady .. bless her soul ... made the donation ... and promptly stuck them in the fridge.. since that is what the instructions told them to do.. go figure on that ... i got them from her the next day ... and told her the fridge is not the place for them.. period .... she said she didnt really want them.... and i said i would experiment with them ... it was probably 4/1 or so ... i took a one gal pot.... with a mix of 50% peat media and 50% wood chips.. and proceeded to plant them all bundled together, jammed into one pot .... and then leave them on the driveway, in the shade on the north side of a structure for the rest of the summer.. they got very bright light.. and direct sun for the last 2 hours of the day ... and watered whenever the whim struck..... 9 of ten budded out .... i left them there all summer.. bringing them to the north side/front of the house in fall.. meaning to plant them.. but never getting around to it.. they are going out to the barn for winter ... i got them to live.. i presume many of us 'experts' can make them live ... but the bigger problem is that 'we' usually wont buy stock from such.. the Arbor D buyer is usually a novice .. who with all good intentions... has no clue what they are doing... they want to save the earth .... but they really dont know how to properly plant a tree ... nor how to properly pot a tree... nor how to care for either ... if said person wants to succeed ... we are here to help ... and can do so .... within certain parameters ... there is a right way to do it ... for some semblance of success .. 1. lower expectations ... i.e. consider the source of your stock to begin with ... 2. timing is everything with tree/conifer planting ... that is early spring or late fall ... 3. no plants belong in a pail of water or in the fridge for any extended amount of time ... 4. proper planting.. is an art ... a bit more than digging a hole... and includes mulch 5. and proper aftercare is IMPERATIVE .... they will need to be properly watered for 2 years .... so.... jed ... if you want to go for it... we are here ... make the donation .. and do a new post in february .... and we can get you going then ... a few weeks BEFORE they arrive .... does your ground freeze?? .... and when is the approximate thaw date .... for me in zone 5... we expect thaw around the third or 4th week of march ... and that is planting time .... hope to 'talk' with you then ... and if they arrive.. before the soil thaws .... first thing to do.. is call and make a complaint and demand replacement.. should they fail ... and then we will discuss potting them up.. holding them in the pot.. ONLY until the soil thaws ... working in pots .. is one of the hardest things to perfect ..... good luck ken

That's not an easy question to answer in a generic way and here is why. The amount of water any plant in any container will need is going to vary highly depending on what kind of soil mix you use, how well the mix holds water or how quickly it dries how, and how often you set the timer to come on. Are you going to water once a day in late May or early June but three times a day in early July? It obviously varies with the weather. You can't put your system on a timer in May or whenever the regular spring rains stop (if they are falling at all) and just leave it there until frost hits. You have to adjust your watering schedule to match the real-life conditions. The way I water in a drought year like 2003 when less than 19" of rain fell is very different from how I water in a better year like 2004 or early 2007 when annual rainfall might be in the high 30s or in the 40s in inches, and different still from how I water in a wet year, like 2009 when 52" of rain fell here and I really only had to irrigate intermittently in July and August. So, I don't really know how to tell you how often to water because I have no knowledge of your soil mix or weather conditions and when setting up any irrigation system, you have to consider not only the soil mix and its ability to hold water (or not), the amount of rainfall you're getting, the temperatures you have but also your humidity. I have to water a lot more often when it is 100+ degrees outside and the humidity is in the teens or the single digits than I do when the temps are in the 100s but the humidity is in the 40s or 50s. I watch my local pan evaporation rate to get an idea of how quickly evaporation is occurring and if you do that long enough and compare it to what you're seeing with your plant, then you know how quickly your soil moisture is evaporating compared to what the pan evaporation rate shows. Containers that are more exposed to high winds dry out more quickly than those that are sheltered from high winds, and those that are exposed to full sun dry out more quickly than those that get a half-day of shade. To set up your system, consider all the variables faced by your plants, and then watch your plants closely. By watching the plants and their color and growth rates, you'll learn how quickly they dry out and that will tell you how long to water and how often to water. It isn't something someone else can tell you because their soil mix might be different from yours and their weather conditions will be different too. Different plants in different places on my property even have different watering needs, even though they're in the same sized containers. Consider plant size too. A large determinate tomato plant that gets 3' or 4' tall and produces tomtoes that are 12 to 16 oz. each in size will use a lot more moisture in a container than a dwarf plant that gets 12-18" tall and produces 1" cherry type tomatoes. You need to zone plants of similar size/water requirements together so you aren't overwatering the smaller plants or underwatering the larger ones. Most pots (unless they are really, really small, will need several emitters per pot. Otherwise, the area near the emitter gets good moisture but areas further away don't. You need an emitter every few inches so all the soil gets wet. The only pots I have that have only one emitter are hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch and I think I get away with only one emitter in them because they are on an east-facing porch and are mostly shaded so they don't dry out quickly. If you have a soil-less mix that holds moisture well and the plants are somewhat sheltered from excessive sunlight, heat and high wind, you only have to water for a few minutes at a time but how many times a day will vary depending on your weather. Hope this helps even though it didn't say something like "water them 3 times a day for 10 minutes at this rate". You'll have to figure that one out for yourself because of all the variables involved. I've linked a website that talks about setting up a drip irrigation system. They have info specific to containers in a paragraph on containers. Some companies, like Dripworks, will work with you to design a layout for your garden. Even they, though, have no way of knowing what your soil-less mix in containers will be like, how quickly it will or won't dry out,etc. so you have to work with your containers, watch them to see how quickly they dry out and learn from them how much they dry out in different conditions and take it from there. Finally, be very careful when selecting or mixing up a soil-less potting mix for containers. Our highly variable weather makes it really hard to know what soil mix to use so at planting time you have to look at that year's regular weather pattern and try to choose the soil mix you want to use based on what you're seeing happen with the weather. The first year I planted a lot in 5-gallon buckets was 2003 (the year we had less than 19" of rain here) and it never, ever rained and I had to water nonstop, having used a general potting soil mix like Miracle Grow potting soil. So, the next year, I used a "Moisture Control" mix thinking it would hold moisture better and I could water less. Guess what happened? In 2004 it rained all the time, (I specifically remember about a foot of rain falling in a 3 week period in late June and early July), my "Moisture Control" soil-less mix stayed much too wet just from rainfall alone, my plants suffered terribly and some of them died. So, the next year, I dumped the Moisture Control soil mix into the veggie garden and mixed it into the ground with all the regular soil. I bet you can guess what happened in 2005? I used a regular soil-less potting mix and we had a drought year with only 23" of rain. My plants would have done better that year with the Moisture Control mix. Nowadays I mix my own soil-less mix and attempt to tailor it to the expected summertime weather conditions, but I don't have ESP so all I'm really doing is guessing. Growing in containers seems like it should be easy, but in our climate, summertime gardening is not easy no matter whether you're growing plants in the ground or in containers. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Setting Up A Drip Irrigation System