So good!Hello youI just posted at the same time you did. Hope your first shift went well!
So so good.
Couldn't Resist A Christmas Auto Grow
- Thread starter Carmen Ray
- Start date
So so good.
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- #142
What would you do to mix the soil up? I guess I can tip it out onto a plastic sheet and try to get a decent mix going but what a pita.
I just use a big plastic flower pot with the holes duct taped to keep the soil from spilling out. Mix some of each and transfer it to the working pot, then mix the next batch.
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- #144
How sensible
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- #145
The following excerpt is from Sweet Sue's thread, SWICK Watering Systems: Letting the plant water itself, 8th April 2015.
"MAKING THE SWICK WORK
There are some guidelines that make this system work smoothly.
1. When you mix up your soil, go overboard on the aeration, to the tune of up to 25% more in volume. This will assist the wicking up through the entire pot.
2. Keep the water level to 1-2" below the bottom of the pots, whether sitting on the surface or snuggled into the perlite. You want to avoid the roots sitting in water.
3. A SWICK will work best with perlite. The smaller particulate matter wicks the water up more smoothly than larger pieces, but lava rock will work well too. Once the water has begun wicking up it maintains a continuous flow on demand. If using hard pots, go with perlite.
4. Go as deep as you comfortably can. This system is designed to eliminate the stress of watering. A deeper reservoir means less frequent topping off. A shallow reservoir might need replenishing numerous times a day. If you travel regularly choose a deeper reservoir. We know of one case where the grower went away for a week and his plants didn't skip a beat.
5. If you use big pots you might want to consider lazy susans under them. Think of how easy that will make maintaining and grooming your plants.
6. Fabric pots act as additional wicking agents, pulling the water right into the matrix. If you use hard pots you need to nestle them into the perlite so that the soil comes into contact with the perlite through the drain holes.
7. After the system has set itself you will notice an eerie consistency on water draw by the plants. I have no explanation for this, but it's held consistent all through my grow. When they were ready to harvest water draw dropped by almost half about three to five days ahead. This makes it easier to prepare for harvest.
8. You can tell if the system is working by checking for wetness along the bottom of the pot. Not wringing wet, but obviously moist.
9. Roots exiting the pot can be scraped off without any damage or stress to the plant. These are only water roots. You can also leave them until you harvest and scrape them off as you reset the pot for the next planting. Incidentally, when you see those exiting roots you should expect a growth spurt to occur.
10. Consider one large SWICK for numerous plants. The plants apparently communicate with each other in much the same manner that those sharing a soil matrix will. This is a subtle thing and difficult to quantify, but plants sharing a common SWICK seem to be happier and healthier. There is so much we don't understand in this wonderful world of ours.
That's all I can think of. We have a limited amount of time to edit this, so if anyone has any other pointers, please let me know and I will edit."
Unfortunately Sue is not around to ask her questions. @Azimuth you seem to have you head around the different wicking methods. If I used the plant saucers to hold the perlite, couldn't I use two 2 liter plastic milk cartons to fill the saucers wick from the bottles on demand? Diagram to follow as soon as power is back.
"MAKING THE SWICK WORK
There are some guidelines that make this system work smoothly.
1. When you mix up your soil, go overboard on the aeration, to the tune of up to 25% more in volume. This will assist the wicking up through the entire pot.
2. Keep the water level to 1-2" below the bottom of the pots, whether sitting on the surface or snuggled into the perlite. You want to avoid the roots sitting in water.
3. A SWICK will work best with perlite. The smaller particulate matter wicks the water up more smoothly than larger pieces, but lava rock will work well too. Once the water has begun wicking up it maintains a continuous flow on demand. If using hard pots, go with perlite.
4. Go as deep as you comfortably can. This system is designed to eliminate the stress of watering. A deeper reservoir means less frequent topping off. A shallow reservoir might need replenishing numerous times a day. If you travel regularly choose a deeper reservoir. We know of one case where the grower went away for a week and his plants didn't skip a beat.
5. If you use big pots you might want to consider lazy susans under them. Think of how easy that will make maintaining and grooming your plants.
6. Fabric pots act as additional wicking agents, pulling the water right into the matrix. If you use hard pots you need to nestle them into the perlite so that the soil comes into contact with the perlite through the drain holes.
7. After the system has set itself you will notice an eerie consistency on water draw by the plants. I have no explanation for this, but it's held consistent all through my grow. When they were ready to harvest water draw dropped by almost half about three to five days ahead. This makes it easier to prepare for harvest.
8. You can tell if the system is working by checking for wetness along the bottom of the pot. Not wringing wet, but obviously moist.
9. Roots exiting the pot can be scraped off without any damage or stress to the plant. These are only water roots. You can also leave them until you harvest and scrape them off as you reset the pot for the next planting. Incidentally, when you see those exiting roots you should expect a growth spurt to occur.
10. Consider one large SWICK for numerous plants. The plants apparently communicate with each other in much the same manner that those sharing a soil matrix will. This is a subtle thing and difficult to quantify, but plants sharing a common SWICK seem to be happier and healthier. There is so much we don't understand in this wonderful world of ours.
That's all I can think of. We have a limited amount of time to edit this, so if anyone has any other pointers, please let me know and I will edit."
Unfortunately Sue is not around to ask her questions. @Azimuth you seem to have you head around the different wicking methods. If I used the plant saucers to hold the perlite, couldn't I use two 2 liter plastic milk cartons to fill the saucers wick from the bottles on demand? Diagram to follow as soon as power is back.
I've not seen that post but it sounds like she is not using connector material (rope, cotton, etc.) at all, but simply nestling her pot down into a container of perlite that has water in the lower part. If so, a saucer won't be deep enough to hold any reasonable amount of water.
Her's sounds more like a modified Hempty pot.
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- #147
I don't know Hempy, but this is what she is calling a Swick. Never mind the terminology for now. I am interested in the principle and the efficiency of self-watering plants. Please take a look at my diagram below and tell me if you think this could work.
The fabric pot is resting squarely on a mound of perlite which serves as a wick between the reservoir and the fabric pot. There is a wick leading from a 2 liter feed bottle into the saucer of perlite to wick water from the bottle into the perlite mound. Can this work?
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- #148
I was browsing through journals and came across the following post from StoneOtter in his review of a new ViparSpectra light. This is extremely valuable information and I wanted it on hand. StoneOtter is a 420Mag legend so be sure to check out his journal links.
swick uses an external res. hempy uses an internal. there's not a lot of difference between a sip system and hempy. hempy works best with neutral media where sip systems can be used with soils or peat based media.
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- #150
Bluter, do you think the setup in my diagram can work? Will the water wick from the bottles to the saucers?
it'll wick water. the question is will it be at the correct rate ? will it be too much ? will it not be enough ? there's a danger on either side of the equation.
have you got any perlite ?
The perlite itself will have some wicking properties, just not as much as the cord wick. With your setup I would be concerned that the wick would move water faster from the 2L bottle than can be used by the plant and the excess would overflow the saucer.I don't know Hempy, but this is what she is calling a Swick. Never mind the terminology for now. I am interested in the principle and the efficiency of self-watering plants. Please take a look at my diagram below and tell me if you think this could work.
The fabric pot is resting squarely on a mound of perlite which serves as a wick between the reservoir and the fabric pot. There is a wick leading from a 2 liter feed bottle into the saucer of perlite to wick water from the bottle into the perlite mound. Can this work?
You could just skip the fabric wick entirely and set the fabric pot on top of a bucket of perlite and then determine how far up the perlite will wick adequately vs how deep your reservoir is. That's basically the concept with Hempy which is a bucket with a hole about 2 inches from the bottom that defines the reservoir capacity. Those seem to wick water high enough in the bucket to keep plants quite happy along with plenty of oxygen because the bucket is simply filled with either straight perlite or a mix of perlite and vermiculite.
The saucer of perlite won't likely hold enough volume of water for your trip by itself so you'll likely need something larger.
As I've said, the fabric wick idea is well tested and if you google holiday watering for plants I'll bet you'll find plenty of examples to look at. But, if the plant is large enough to uppot right before you leave, a larger soil volume will easily sustaing it for a week since we usually wait about that long for the first true watering after pot up anyway.
if you got perlite just put them in a tub of the stuff with a couple litres of mild feed. you'll have to open the bottoms of the cups they are in to contact the perlite. either use a bunch more holes or cut the bottom and use a screen etc.
this is close :
needs a bit more perlite and more contact with the grow media.
this is close :
needs a bit more perlite and more contact with the grow media.
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- #155
I hear you. I might experiment a bit.
Not much, I'd need to buy more if I was to adopt that method of watering.
How about if I inserted the wick into the plant pot itself and fed directly from the 2 liter bottles?
Is that a reservoir underneath the plastic?if you got perlite just put them in a tub of the stuff with a couple litres of mild feed. you'll have to open the bottoms of the cups they are in to contact the perlite. either use a bunch more holes or cut the bottom and use a screen etc.
this is close :
needs a bit more perlite and more contact with the grow media.
yes. it works better with fabric pots. this is a larger swick set up on a mature plant.
other swick pots will go in to it and share the res
a lot of swick folk still top feed, but will remove the buckets to drain. the res is left with straight water, or a mild feed solution. some folk bottom feed from the res, most wait til late veg or flower.
Yes, that is the concept I've been suggesting. Then the issue becomes how high do you place the 1L bottle as the level of the water in the bottle will determine the flow rate, the higher the bottle, the faster the flow, and that will slow as the water level falls in the bottle.
Keep the entire reservoir below the pot like in the "pot susppended over a bowl" idea, and you'd get a fairly even "flow" rate.
Keep in mind that hempy is top fed rather than relying strictly on wicking action to keep the top roots moist.
some guys just use a towel draped over a riser dipping into a res bucket underneath. the pots sit on the towel.
it's not a hempy.
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- #160
Thank you Bluter! These systems are big and I think they would be problematic on the dining room table, which is where the plants get grown. I am interested to see if I can scale it down. What if I were to use a plastic dish washing bowl full of perlite with the fabric pots directly on the perlite?yes. it works better with fabric pots. this is a larger swick set up on a mature plant.
other swick pots will go in to it and share the res
a lot of swick folk still top feed, but will remove the buckets to drain. the res is left with straight water, or a mild feed solution. some folk bottom feed from the res, most wait til late veg or flower.