thanks all.
drainage did seem to be somewhat problematic in the past so that is why i did not water them each day like you would tomatoes or eggplants, both much larger with higher water requirements.
additionally, i never considered this until just now but these pails have 5 or 6 5/8" holes drilled into the base of the pail and 5 or 6 around the pail about 3" up from the bottom. the pails are about 20-22" tall so as you can see the drainage holes are way down at the bottom. i think it would be wise to drill holes up the sides as zana suggested.
these pails were originally used for tomatoes and eggplants that would sit on a warmer base in full sun. now they worked fine for the eggplants on asphalt with the same soil mixture and fertilizers but again tomatoes and eggplants (i stopped growing tomatoes in 5 gallon pails) did fine so i assumed this setup was ok for parsley too. however, parsley is a much smaller plant even with 3 per pail so water and fertilizer requirements would be much less.
seems i read that parsley did like to be fertilized a lot as it is a heavy feeder? maybe the manure (1/3 of the soil mixture) and the osmocote (never added during the season just when making the soil mix) is too much. perhaps a spray with fish and seaweed emulsion 1 time a week is enough? it does stimulate good growth, doing that every 2 weeks gave me less parsley.
now for the surprise. while all the above maybe valid and i think it is, shouldn't that then effect all plants in all pails? yes, it should but some plants do ok. i looked in my gardening book and found what i think is the answer to 1 plant collapsing immediately while others in the same pail do not - carrot rust fly. while my carrots don't seem to be effected, the description of the death is text book perfect. they suggested covering with floating row covers and sprinkling some wood ashes at the base of the plants to prevent the fly from laying eggs. i know for a fact that root maggots on various plants die if watered with some wood ashes in the water.
next year i will just put garden soil and compost in the pail skipping the osmocote and manure, i'll drill more drainage holes this week in all 6 pails, could use frc as i have a lot of the stuff. i have a lot of new plants already up i could start 3 more pails with just soil and compost and i think the carrot rust fly may be at the end of the cycle but i can cover these. i suspect that the new pails will not have any problems.
thanks,
tom
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