The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

Jon said:
I’ve been following this without comment but @Azimuth, I have a question. Based on everything I’ve read in this thread, it seems the downside to the SIP thing is exactly that you are confined to plastic pots. It won’t work with cloth correct? So it seems much of this is connected to even drying, and plastic is the last thing to provide that - top down as you note? Am I way off and if so I’ll slink back under my rock?
Click to expand...
I think you could totally build a SIP with a cloth pot. It would need a support frame to keep the fabric pot from crushing the wicking footer pot but that should be quite doable.

I have some 2 gallon cloth pots that I might experiment with like that in the future.
 
Gee64 said:
So I'm not trying to flip you to cloth, you love Sips and this is your hobby, you deserve to love it how YOU want to love it.
No wrong way here unless it gets to be something you no longer love.

I want to change your Sip approach to improve it for you.

This is too big for you, so scale this idea down but....

What if you took a 2gal plastic pail and used a dremel or hack saw blade to cut away almost the entire bottom and 90% of the sidewalls, leaving only a skeleton of the bucket, flipped it over, pulled a cloth pot over it, and used that inside a 5 gal pail as an airdome.

Do you think your roots would now have more oxygen than a conventional Sip?

Synergize that.

A Sip for Los.

High brix too.
Click to expand...
I've actually thought about something similar based on how I started my veggie seedlings this year. I used to start them in 6oz Solo type cups, then moved to Soil Blockers which gave me a better root ball (cube?) because of the air pruning on all sides including the bottom if the blocks were elevated on something like a cookie sheet cooling rack.

What I didn't like about the blocks was that they could be quite fiddly. It was a challenge to get the right soil mix for them to work properly. Too little moisture or too much aeration and the blocks don't hold together, too much and you drown the seedlings. And then watering when they first emerge was also a challenge as the water could wash away a soil block if the roots were not developed enough to hold it together.

But, when you get it right it's magic.

What I did this year instead was start them all out in 3" net pots. Now I can have a nice airy mix but in a pot that holds things together mechanically while still allowing great air exchange and therefore air pruning of the roots.

It worked so well that that's my new go-to.

So, naturally I thought about turning one of my buckets into a Swiss cheese type thing to allow air into the sides. I could easily line the inside of the bucket with root cloth or a fabric pot to keep the soil in.

And, I'll probably try that experiment once I get a few runs under my belt so I have something to compare it to.

Interestingly, that's the setup I use with my 1L SIPs. I used a soldering iron to make tons of holes on the sides of my 1L containers and I drop that into a slightly larger outer one. Watering from the top is a bit of a pain when the soil dries out since it all wants to run out the sides, but I've been mostly watering them from below.
 
Maybe I'll try a test fit of my 2 gallon cloth pots inside my plastic buckets and see what I see. 🤔

To test that design I'd have to get a new bucket as there's no way I'm ruining my current setup on a prototype, but that's easy enough done if the two fit together well enough.
 
Gee64 said:
BTW, has the growth rate on your younger plants started to accelerate yet?
Click to expand...
Not yet but those are with the expanded wicking footer design so they still stay too wet, too long. It's been about 2 weeks though and I can see new roots forming (my smaller containers are clear-ish) so I imagine the wet/dry cycle will start speeding up.

I'm debating whether I want to abandon the SIP pots for the initial stage and just accept the two week stall at pot-up and maybe account for that in the timing of the final potting into what I use for flower.

Though I'm thinking it might not even matter if I don't keep much water in the reservoir anyway.

But, first things first, and that's determining what the stick says about the soil in my old (now new again) design.
 
Gee64 said:
What if you took a 2gal plastic pail and used a dremel or hack saw blade to cut away almost the entire bottom and 90% of the sidewalls, leaving only a skeleton of the bucket, flipped it over, pulled a cloth pot over it, and used that inside a 5 gal pail as an airdome.
Click to expand...
That's kind of the design I have going now. I use a 1L food storage container bowl-type thing upside down with lots of air holes in it (sides and bottom (now the top)) with a couple of large holes drilled to accept my air/fill tubes. The food container footprint is about an inch smaller than the bucket bottom all around so it has pretty good coverage at the base.

The soil then gets draped around that so it has pretty good access to air but I think with that design there's too much soil sitting in water proving too large a surface area that's wicking water keeping everything too wet. Plus, no side holes in the bucket so no air access that way.

I went with that design thinking more soil with direct access to water beside the air chamber would be a good thing. And it does seem to serve that function quite well. Unfortunately, although the plants seem to love it, it seems to keep the soil too wet for the microbes.

So I think you're definitely right about the concept that organic SIPs should be treated in a bit of a different manner than their synthetic cousins.

If my fabric pots are slightly narrower in circumference than my bucket is I might not even have to drill holes in the bucket. I'll have to test fit and see.
 
Azimuth said:
I've actually thought about something similar based on how I started my veggie seedlings this year. I used to start them in 6oz Solo type cups, then moved to Soil Blockers which gave me a better root ball (cube?) because of the air pruning on all sides including the bottom if the blocks were elevated on something like a cookie sheet cooling rack.

What I didn't like about the blocks was that they could be quite fiddly. It was a challenge to get the right soil mix for them to work properly. Too little moisture or too much aeration and the blocks don't hold together, too much and you drown the seedlings. And then watering when they first emerge was also a challenge as the water could wash away a soil block if the roots were not developed enough to hold it together.

But, when you get it right it's magic.

What I did this year instead was start them all out in 3" net pots. Now I can have a nice airy mix but in a pot that holds things together mechanically while still allowing great air exchange and therefore air pruning of the roots.

It worked so well that that's my new go-to.

So, naturally I thought about turning one of my buckets into a Swiss cheese type thing to allow air into the sides. I could easily line the inside of the bucket with root cloth or a fabric pot to keep the soil in.

And, I'll probably try that experiment once I get a few runs under my belt so I have something to compare it to.

Interestingly, that's the setup I use with my 1L SIPs. I used a soldering iron to make tons of holes on the sides of my 1L containers and I drop that into a slightly larger outer one. Watering from the top is a bit of a pain when the soil dries out since it all wants to run out the sides, but I've been mostly watering them from below.
Click to expand...
Turns out they actually make a 8.35" wide by 5" deep net pot that looks like it'll fit the buckets perfectly and I'd just have to drill out the hole for the footer. The bucket would be big enough to allow air flow all around but also keep the mess contained and I wouldn't have to modify the bucket at all.

I think I'll order a set and try it.
 
Gee's rubbing off on me.

Every new thought I have I just start a new post, even if it's related to the post I just made above it and still have time to edit.

It's a good way to get your post count up if nothing else. :p
 
Azimuth said:
Gee's rubbing off on me.

Every new thought I have I just start a new post, even if it's related to the post I just made above it and still have time to edit.

It's a good way to get your post count up if nothing else. :p
Click to expand...

That’s vastly preferable to picking up his No paragraph break habit 😂

To be fair to him, he has gotten 100% better about it, until he gets amped up about something lol. Then all bets are off
 
Gee64 said:
Submerge them in a tub of water and soak for awhile, then drip them out. Be gentle.
Click to expand...
Yeah, 'cause that's just what I need, more water in my pots. :eek:
 
Azimuth said:
Turns out they actually make a 8.35" wide by 5" deep net pot that looks like it'll fit the buckets perfectly and I'd just have to drill out the hole for the footer. The bucket would be big enough to allow air flow all around but also keep the mess contained and I wouldn't have to modify the bucket at all.

I think I'll order a set and try it.
Click to expand...
As a fellow SIPer, I'm curious about this. Please keep us updated.
 

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