Wicking Bed Irrigation Systems

[Senseimillan]

I don't know about you, but I want to spend as little time maintaining my garden as possible so I can spend more time enjoying the fruits of my labors!

My first grow was hand watered soil over 17 years ago. I tried drip irrigation, flood and drain, and dwc, and around the time everyone was taking a step into the future with aeroponics I was looking for an easier way.

The reason I stepped away from hydroponics was maintainence. Even when, or perhaps especially when, using the most sophisticated equipment, there's a lot of parts involved. Hoses clog, sensors fail, and as Murphy would have it, it's usually when you have 3 days left on that vacation you have postponed all year to take. No one wants to get a call from the cat down the road telling you shit's hit the fan.

I have been using sub-irrigation since my own personal horror story occurred and I can tell you that I spend most of the time in my garden relaxing and thinking about improvements, not reacting to and solving problems or performing endless rounds of general scheduled maintenance.

Please, share your systems and techniques with us here.

 

[Senseimillan]

I started prepping these pots last night. In the bottom of these LDPE totes I put 2L of chunky activated charcoal to act as a home for beneficial microbes. The chunkiness doesn't really matter much in my opinion but I wouldn't want to use carbon sand or dust. I added a healthy sprinkle of dextrose to feed the beneficial microbes and help their population explode. I added 5 gel caps worth of a humic and fulvic acid from the health store because it's impossible to find at the local garden stores. I added 5 gel caps worth of a multi-probiotic.

I will add pea gravel on top of this and fill to a little (1 to 1.5") under the line. If I had clinoptilolite on hand I would use a 50/50 mix of the two. These bottom layers will act as the reservoir for sub-irrigating my plants. I will fill with non-pH checked pre-filtered water. My local water only has chlorine, no chloramine or fluoride, so a simple carbon water filter is all I'm using.

2L Activated Charcoal
approx. 10g dextrose
5 capsules Humic/Fulvic Acid
5 Capsules Multi-Probiotic
1 scoop fermented whole body nutrition with greens supplement

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A PROVEN FORMULA AND I DID NOT FIND IT ELSEWHERE. I AM USING THIS MIXTURE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT WILL WORK FROM MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES AND BECAUSE OF ALL THE RESEARCH I DO. ADOPT THE USE OF THESE PRACTICES AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I am charging the reservoir with bacteria as an experiment based on some things I observed while growing hydroponically. I have never tried this before but here we go.

 

[Eyes on Fire]

good luck.

 

[L0wbob2017]

I started prepping these pots last night. In the bottom of these LDPE totes I put 2L of chunky activated charcoal to act as a home for beneficial microbes. The chunkiness doesn't really matter much in my opinion but I wouldn't want to use carbon sand or dust. I added a healthy sprinkle of dextrose to feed the beneficial microbes and help their population explode. I added 5 gel caps worth of a humic and fulvic acid from the health store because it's impossible to find at the local garden stores. I added 5 gel caps worth of a multi-probiotic.

I will add pea gravel on top of this and fill to a little (1 to 1.5") under the line. If I had clinoptilolite on hand I would use a 50/50 mix of the two. These bottom layers will act as the reservoir for sub-irrigating my plants. I will fill with non-pH checked pre-filtered water. My local water only has chlorine, no chloramine or fluoride, so a simple carbon water filter is all I'm using.

2L Activated Charcoal
approx. 10g dextrose
5 capsules Humic/Fulvic Acid
5 Capsules Multi-Probiotic
1 scoop fermented whole body nutrition with greens supplement

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A PROVEN FORMULA AND I DID NOT FIND IT ELSEWHERE. I AM USING THIS MIXTURE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT WILL WORK FROM MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES AND BECAUSE OF ALL THE RESEARCH I DO. ADOPT THE USE OF THESE PRACTICES AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I am charging the reservoir with bacteria as an experiment based on some things I observed while growing hydroponically. I have never tried this before but here we go.

Looks pretty nice and the ideas you collected are pretty good. Maybe i can give you a tip about something i just found out.

I read about a dude that is using fishheads in his soil. After some research and a discussion with @TheMongol we decided to give it a try.
We buried 4 fishheads at about 50% depth and gave them a layer of mycos ( about 5 - 10g per fishhead [ depends on thew size of the head] ) in a 140L growbag outdoor. The result can be seen in mongols thread at the moment ( sadly the plant had to be harvested early because of the cornfield status and the weather ).

After the harvest i decided to empty the growbag and search for the fishheads and the big surprise was that only some fishscales were left surrounded by roots. No bones or skulls were found, only some scales that rotted pretty heavy. The plant never had any problems of nutrient lack. This technique will be used by me in future a lot if not always. ( Next try will be blending the heads and adding this to the soil instead of the unblended head. I hope there will be more surface for the mycos/bacteria to react. Also i am going to increase the amount of fishheads because 4 of them were almost completely gone so i think more would be better. For some time information the plant was about 1.5 months old before it was transplanted into the 140L growbag. also it was a photoperiod plant.)

 

[TheMongol]

Yep, fish heads work, excellent N delivery!!!

 

[bklyndiaz]

Hey @Senseimillan, how is the SIP working for you so far? I started a sip on my last grow and never looked back!
I currently doing a 5 gallon bucket SIP, I just need to find a good mix to use as a Wicking Agent, right now I'm using the same wick as last grow, GrowStones, but I know I can do better then them stones. Anyways......

 

[Senseimillan]

Hey @Senseimillan, how is the SIP working for you so far? I started a sip on my last grow and never looked back!
I currently doing a 5 gallon bucket SIP, I just need to find a good mix to use as a Wicking Agent, right now I'm using the same wick as last grow, GrowStones, but I know I can do better then them stones. Anyways......

View attachment 814352

I love SIP, I'm chewing on an idea on how to make one without the use of chemicals (plastics or epoxys) that also isn't as involved as hand making a stone planter or expensive as buying one.

My favorite res wick filler is horticultural pumice but I wasn't able to source any at the time so I used pea gravel.

@L0wbob2017 that's a cool trick with the fish heads, I'm adding that to my trove of lore.