So I either had a stroke of genius or just a stroke. But I've been fighting with this potting soil I bought, it just does not want to retain water. Yesterday I over watered and today they are back to barely damp almost dry again.
Then I remembered something a bunch of people were doing when I was playing around with growing magic mushrooms.
Orbeez.
Or just "water beads". It was $10 for a thing of 10k of them. Little polymer beads that soak up and then release water slowly.
You can get them even cheaper if you are ok with them being booger green or glow in the dark, because walmart is selling those airsoft type guns that shoot them now. But I got the multi colored ones from the craft section.
What are Orbeez?/Meaning Orbeez are super-absorbent polymers (SAP) made up of several molecules joint together and which grow to more than 100 times their size when immersed in water. And what are the Polymers that make up Orbeez? Synthetic polymers play important role in agricultural uses by...
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They were invented in the 1960s to do exactly this, help with agricultural water retention.
You can either put them directly on top, or till them into your soil. UV light will break them down, so I tilled mine in, but they do look fun on top, right?
Plus they help aerate your soil, as they expand and contract from taking in and releasing water.