does anyone out there put a mesh or a screen in the bottom of their grow containers to keep the soil from coming out of the drains holes ? and what works best ? 
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container screen in bottom of containers ?
- Thread starter moruga welder
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Nah, this all I do :-)
I just use a piece of weed barrier. You can easily make it any size, any shape and there's usually some layin' around. Works great.
if you like a very heavy mix... weed fabric might actually be TOO impermeable... such that when you have heavy rains, it might not drain fast enough and overflow your container, dragging perlite and soil out of the container.
not too likely though.
not too likely though.
Small layer of cinder or gravel does the trick.
Haven't had that problem myself. Drains well. 'Course maybe you use better weed barrier than I use.queequeg152 said:
I have two types of landscaping cloth, one is very permeable and the other is not. So I use the permeable in my pots and the other in my flower beds. In the past I have used gravel in pots and it also works well. I switched to cloth because gravel was harder to seperate from the soil, if I wanted to reuse the soil.
I use packing peanuts
Last year I used weed barrier cloth but primarily to stop the fungus knats from getting in through the drain holes like they were. It worked but I soon found out I needed to lower my watering amounts to those plants, the fabric looks like it would let water right through but doesn't really, I was over watering those plants with it for sure.
Because of wind (Kansas) rock and gravel/w sand works best
so are you folks cutting like giant 3/4" holes in your pots? if so why?
if not i guess i dont understand how this is even an issue? are you folks runnning sandy mixtures?
i grow in bags, with peat or coco lite, and with holes maby 3/16 inch? almost nothing falls through when im loading them up... and after a week or so the bottoms are filled with roots with the lower part of the bag being fully or close to fully consolidated.... even less material escapes.
even my cactuses, which take many weeks to fully consolidate loose zero potting mix when im moving them around... picking them up or what ever.
if not i guess i dont understand how this is even an issue? are you folks runnning sandy mixtures?
i grow in bags, with peat or coco lite, and with holes maby 3/16 inch? almost nothing falls through when im loading them up... and after a week or so the bottoms are filled with roots with the lower part of the bag being fully or close to fully consolidated.... even less material escapes.
even my cactuses, which take many weeks to fully consolidate loose zero potting mix when im moving them around... picking them up or what ever.
Peppers don't like wet feet
the holes in the containers are 1/2 holes in my 10 gal. containers .queequeg152 said:
moruga welder said:
and you lose lots of potting mix through them?
is your mix sandy?
only comes out some when i first put it in until it gets wet , but my new pots have 5/8 holes haven't grown in them yet . just got them . i seen where someone had put a mesh in their containers , so i thought i would throw it out there . no big deal bro . i know one thing mama don't like it fallen on the kitchen floor !queequeg152 said:
I would say use cheap screen door type screen but you never know what will leach out of that stuff. Maybe burlap?