I must've gone through 4 vegetable garden designs since I joined the site. The biggest problem I have being the great crop of weeds I keep getting, and with the office hours I am just not getting to it. So now I'm trying the self-watering bucket system. It's the middle of winter over here, but the carrots and broccoli seeds actually sprouted!! So I'm very positive about the whole experiment. I got more buckets which I'll prepare this weekend, and I just can't wait for spring! This was stage one. I have since moved the gutter away from the roof and added another one. The buckets in the back has beetroot I took from the ground. They weren't very happy with the move but most of them have since recovered. (The way it works is that the bucket has a hole underneath with a yoghurt cup sunk into it. The yoghurt cup has holes in it and the water gets pulled up through there.) So the whole point of this post is that I'm really trying to understand how the whole plant-water thing work. Google doesn't seem to understand my question. I got to the osmosis explanation of the water in the plant having to equal the water outside and something about density and the ground acting as a membrane and that all makes sense in a way. But how far can plants "pull" water then? My dad thinks my buckets are too big, since most of the veggies do seem to have shallow roots, but it made me wonder how this hole thing actually work. Am I making them work to hard? Should I put less ground in the buckets?
Hiya 102, May I comment on your situation, in as much as I understand it? Personally I do not think that plants actually "pull" water. If you have a water source underneath a potted plant the dryness of the soil in that pot will draw moisture from a wetter source. You could see this as a pulling action, as it were. This is a sort of sponge-like action where "dry" attracts "wet". See what I mean? As long as there is dry soil in the pot, it will "pull" water until it is also wet. Now then, as for the plant: Some plants have indeed shorter roots. So then if enough water is given, the water will reach the shallowest of roots....I repeat--"if the pot gets enough water". On the other hand, it is the nature of a plant to form more roots to try and grow downwards and reach moisture (if it is there), even though deeper root development may not be their their nature. It is a survival attempt. Shallow-rooted plants do have limits as to how deep they can or will develop supplementary roots. Once there is sufficient moisture around the roots they will take it up. The plants themselves do not actually pull the moisture up from the depths, they absorb it via the special cells. The moisture either rises or the roots grow to it. Often it is a combination of the two. Raining or watering from the top helps this procedure if the subterranean gap of dryness is too great. From what I see, your pots do not seem too deep; but you must ensure that enough water is available to be drawn up by the dryer soil inside the pot. Periodic water exposure is best, otherwise you will have a continually waterlogged soil, and that isn't good either. Generally I believe that giving water to potted plants from below is preferable, otherwise you can get "lazy" plants that only have very shallow roots. This is especially dangerous because if you miss giving the plants water on time, the shallower-than-normal roots will dry out....sometimes to the point of killing the plant. Having said that my preference for giving water is to give it from the bottom, I do believe that a good dousing from the top is important from time to time--it allows the plant to have water all around it and the superficial feeding roots can remain viable. Additionally, it mimics nature. I hope that this makes sense to you. If not we can have a discussion and discuss it further.
Thanks Sjoerd it makes a lot of sense the way you explain it! With our summer temperatures I doubt if those buckets will ever get truly waterlogged, but since its all new to me I will make sure to keep an eye on it, it may just surprise me! It's just amazing how nature works, this whole process is just fascinating.
