Not sure about wicking action of my mix

[JamesL]

Arthur,
You might consider making a humidity tent for your plants so you don't need to humidify the whole room.

[ArthurDent004]

I built an aeroponics unit last year that I ran from my master bedroom until I had to shut it down due to allergies. I've put this plant in the closet of my master bedroom. I built a frame from 1 inch PVC pipe so I could hang Orca Grow Film around the plant. I suppose I could buy a couple of tarps and drape them over the frame. I would need to buy an inline fan for ventilation. Right now I open the bedroom windows for fresh air and have a small fan sitting in the door of the closet but I need to consider other options for fresh air exchange. I using a California Light Works SolarFlare 200W LED Grow Light and it puts out more heat than the 4 bulb T5 unit I was using for my hydroponic build but I must say the LED light is much brighter.

I wanted to ask you about growing using a 14 gallon Earthtainer. How many determinate tomato plants do you think I could plant in one of those. The varieties I have should grow no more than two or three feet tall. I have one dwarf variety whose description says it should grow to around 12 inches tall. What else have you been able to grow in one of these?

[JamesL]

You could get 3, possibly 4 determinates in one. Outdoors I have put 2 indeterminates in a 14 gal.

Don't give up on the 5 gal buckets yet. You could easily get 2 of the small determinates in there.
Read Raybo's inntainer and earthtainer plans and adapt accordingly to the 5 gal buckets.
Use a 2.5 hole saw for the wick hole.

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by JamesL

You could get 3, possibly 4 determinates in one. Outdoors I have put 2 indeterminates in a 14 gal.

Don't give up on the 5 gal buckets yet. You could easily get 2 of the small determinates in there.
Read Raybo's inntainer and earthtainer plans and adapt accordingly to the 5 gal buckets.
Use a 2.5 hole saw for the wick hole.

I wouldn't put two determinates in a 5 gallon container. By the time the roots of the one determinate are done growing it takes up most of the space in the buckets. Air flow is still needed between the plants as well.

[ArthurDent004]

I haven't given up on the 5 gallon SWC yet. I have space equal to a 3 by 3 grow tent so I think they will be easier to work with. This is a learning experience so I'm glad I have people with more experience to converse with.

It appears I'll need to pick up some different mix for the next bucket. I'll have to see what is available at the local garden store as the only products available at Lowes is MG and Sta-Green, while Home Depot offers MG and Vigoro. Jungle Growth is available for order from Home Depot using the deliver to store option.

I have a two inch hole saw and several three inch net pots to use as wicking containers. I was thinking I could increase air flow by adding some additional air holes to the bottom bucket and setting the overflow hole below these additional air holes.

I agree with Rockporter that only one of the determinate plants that grows to two to three feet would go in each container. I was thinking I could get two of the dwarf varieties in one container, since they are only supposed to grow to a height of 12 inches.

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by ArthurDent004

It appears I'll need to pick up some different mix for the next bucket. I'll have to see what is available at the local garden store as the only products available at Lowes is MG and Sta-Green, while Home Depot offers MG and Vigoro. Jungle Growth is available for order from Home Depot using the deliver to store option.

i grew tomatoes in a SWC last season with pretty good results. all of my ingredients came from home depot. i bought peat moss(compressed bale), pine bark nuggets(kind of big and chunky-bigger than whats recommended) and perlite. i also added espoma lime and fox farms tomato fertilizer.


one of my two containers i included the bark nuggets, the other container only had peat, perlite, lime and fertilizer strip.

both of the containers ran on the wet side and the plants showed minor stress(leaf curl) but as the plant grew they seemed as happy as could be.

i guess you could experiment and add some peat into your next bucket. maybe replace half of the coco coir with peat and see what happens

[TightenUp]

oh and i've never used coco coir so this might not apply

when using peat moss you must thoroughly wet it as you fill your container. if you fill up a container with dry peat if will never soak up water and get wet. could this be your issue with coco coir?

[ArthurDent004]

I hadn't used coir before myself. I was looking at media choices for indoor container growing and saw articles for and against using peat. I had hydroponic materials left over from a previous experiment and thought I could use them for this experiment. I picked coir because it's used in hydroponic grows and because I found some articles of people that had switched from peat to coir with good results. Looking back now I believe these were referring to using coir in drip and manual irrigation grows.

Coir comes compressed in a brick. I dropped one in a five gallon bucket with a gallon and half of water and it expanded to 2.5 gallons of media.

The mix recipes I found using coir indicated using either equal parts coir and coarse perlite or 2 parts coir to 1 part coarse perlite to 1 part coarse vermiculite. I choose the first recipe to start with but I realize now that I didn't water the mix as I layered it in the bucket and only packed the soil in the wicking container. When I did my first watering with a gallon of water after transplanting my determinate plant I saw the mix settle and heard the water draining almost immediately into the reservoir. I repeated the drenching with another gallon and almost all of it went out the overflow hole.

I was thinking of trying the other mix but I've seen come across some articles saying coarse vermiculite isn't good in container gardening because over time it can break down into finer particles and then compact the mix, cutting off airflow.

The coir I used was a blended coir containing 25 percent pine bark fines. This may have added to the problem as I came across an article yesterday where someone was using pine bark fines in place of perlite. They were using a 60/40 pine bark fines to coir mix to great success in a SWC. This may be something I'll try myself.

[Rockporter]

Pine bark fines will allow some air flow but I would add some perlite to the mix as well. You will still need to use some Dolomite lime in the mix because you want to make Magnesium and Calcium available to the plants. You don't want your mix to lock up your other nutrients either, this can happen when your mix breaks down and becomes to acidic. I know you have liquid ferts for this, but if your mix locks up the nutrients it won't help your plants uptake them.

The above is just my opnion of course and the direction you take will be what is available to you and what you ultimately think will be the best for your situation.

[dice]

I punched about 40 holes using a 3/16 drill bit in the wikding container. I saw one set of plans that said the holes in the wicking chamber should be 1/2 inch but that sounds too big to me.

I have used 4" tall pieces of 3" diameter abs pipe with 1/4 holes
drilled in them for a wicking chamber in some SWCs with no
problems, so I expect that your 3/16" holes would work just fine.
I line the soil support bench with a piece of fiber weedblock (the
cheap stuff that Bermuda grass grows right through) before filling
the container with container mix. I simply poke it down into
the piece of pipe or net pot or whatever, then fill it with container
mix or half-decayed compost or whatever. The weed block kind
of bunches up around the edge of the hole for the wick, but no
big deal, the weight of the container mix above it will press it down
flat once the container is filled. (My yard is half moss that puts on
a big growth spurt every spring, so my compost has plenty of moss
in it.)

The piece of weed block extending down into the wicking chamber
should help wick up water.

If your plant is growing well in your homemade mix but it is not wicking
efficiently, you could simply put something that wicks better in the
wicking chamber itself and the bottom inch of the rooting volume,
and then fill the rest of it with what you are already using. Most
people growing in SWCs have the opposite problem: the mix stays
too wet.

[ArthurDent004]

Here's a plant update. Picture 01 shows the plant on day one of transplantation. Picture 02 shows the plant under the LED grow light. Picture 03 is seven days after transplantation. I took off the bottom two leaves shown in picture 01. I top watered using 8 oz of half-strength nutrient solution on three nights this week. I also added some landscaping fabric and covered that with plastic from a trash bag.

[TightenUp]

looks happy

[ArthurDent004]

Thank you TightenUp.

Rockporter - I was in Lowes earlier today getting some Evergreen soil conditioner for use as pine bark fines and was looking for Dolomite lime but they didn't have any. They had 40 lb bags of lime, 30 lb bags of fast-acting lime, and 40 lb bags of Soil Doctor Pelletized Lawn Lime. Am I correct in thinking that lawn lime isn't the same as Dolomite lime and that the lawn lime shouldn't be used in gardening?

Is Dolomite lime the same as Garden Lime? I was reading an article where one person said they were one and the same but another person said that wasn't necesarily the case. My local Home Depot does carry Espoma 6.75 lb. Garden Lime and listes this as a Dry Plant Fertilizer while listing the lawn lime as an organic Soil Amendment. What brand Dolomite lime would you recommend using?

[TightenUp]

i used espoma brand garden lime last season in my SWCs and they did well.

i believe its hydrated lime you want to avoid

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

i used espoma brand garden lime last season in my SWCs and they did well.

i believe its hydrated lime you want to avoid

Correct, avoid hydrated lime and use Dolomite lime that supplies magnesium and calcium. Hydrated Lime will break down instantly and burn the roots of your plants, the Dolomite Lime will break down slowly.

I use the Soil Doctor from Tractor Supply.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/stor...imestone-40-lb