I have my plants planted in 5 gallon buckets and have had negative results ever since they have been in them. I have seen everything from severe yellowing(which I know was over feeding on my part, so I flushed everything), to very curled and wrinkled leaves, to now one of my plants has officially dropped all leaves. I was reading some other posts on here of similar problems and it seemed like the only thing I hadn't done was repot with rocks in the bottom and add more and larger drainage holes. So this last weekend that is what I did, I went from 1/2" drainage holes qty of 12 to 1" drain holes qty 17 with about 1-2" of rocks in the bottom of each bucket. When I dumped out the dirt to do this the bottom few inches were sopping wet despite me not having watered them for at least a week. I have noticed that is does not appear that my soil dries out near as quickly as everyone of here talks about( I can leave plants outside for hours and the soil less than an inch under the surface is very dark where as the top layer is very dry looking. The soil I have is a 50/50 mix of fox farms ocean and coco coir, the FF already has quite a bit of perlite in it and with the added rocks in the bottom should provide plenty of drainage, my question being why does it appear that the soil does not drain as fast or as well as everyone else on here seems to indicate their soil does?
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soil Soil Drainage Issue
- Thread starter trwoolsey07
- Start date
Coco coir retains a lot of water and may be the reason why your plants are sitting in a lot of water. I'm not sure, but I believe Fox Farms Ocean has a lot of Peat moss which is also going to retain a lot of water. If your goal isn't to retain a lot of water or if your plants aren't getting that much water you might be better off remixing the soil altogether. If you simply add rocks or sand at the bottom the soil will just stay just as wet, but on top of the rocks and sand and your plants will continue to drown.
Like LGHT said coco coir and peat both hold a lot of water. IMO it's a good idea to add extra perlite if you're adding other things to the potting mix, especially in that amount (50%). The rocks in the bottom aren't really necessary and may be counter productive.
How big are the plants? If you have a small root ball in a large container you have to be especially careful about watering too much since there are no roots to take up the water in the bottom. That's why I like to pot up several times before they go in the 5 or 7 gallon containers.
How big are the plants? If you have a small root ball in a large container you have to be especially careful about watering too much since there are no roots to take up the water in the bottom. That's why I like to pot up several times before they go in the 5 or 7 gallon containers.
Pepper-Guru
eXtreme
ok, everything you guys said is correct about the FF(lots of Peat to retain moisture, and the coco of course). Plus the size of the root balls tells me a lot about what I'm seeing in the bottom. Looks like I just need to let them dry up real good I guess before I water them again.
Pepper-Guru
eXtreme
That and add an aerator. Verm or perlite.
any good places to get perlite or vermiculite for cheap? I was at walmart yesterday and they had small bags of perlite for around $6! Is that normal and I'm just being a cheap a**, or is there somewhere I can get it for cheaper?
Pepper-Guru
eXtreme
local nurseries or hydro shops. I by a HUGE bag of both for around 16 bucks each.
very good, I have both a local nursery as well as a hydro shop in town so looks like I know where I'm headed after work.
Thanks Josh for the article, lots of good info there, my local hydro shop was selling their perlite in 1 gallon ziplocs so I got one bag each for the containers. Remixed everything this evening and the soil already seems to be getting air better. Before I could water and leave and get home with the top layer being compacted and almost like a crust, this stuff hasn't been mixed in but maybe 3 hours now and teh top layer of soil is already looking dried out and it is staying pretty loose and fluffy. Hopefully this is the end of my troubles, thanks guys.