Self Watering Wicking Garden Bed

Simply line the bottom of your container or bed with the pipes allowing a little space for wicking medium potting soil to be squeezed in.

Self watering wicking garden bed.

Our raised cypress garden beds or instant veggie crates are also the ideal container for wicking projects. I ve grown tired of incomplete or even faulty tutorials. Water is drawn up into the soil via capillary action from a reservoir in the bottom of the wicking bed. After years of testing i m ready to share the most important elements that every self watering wicking bed needs to have in it.

The basic idea is that the bottom of the bed contains a reservoir where water is held until needed by the plants. They were developed by colin austin a retired engineer living in queensland australia. The self watering planter boxes themselves were gorgeous they kept rabbits and other critters from munching on the greens and we went for weeks on end without having to water. Building sip raised beds.

Self watering wicking bed design principles. Crates tanks baths troughs and drums can all be used to create a wicking bed. Watering from the bottom up prevents evaporation of surface water which occurs when you water beds from the top. Its easy its cheap and works.

Make a wicking barrel self watering garden bed a wicking barrel or wicking bed is a great way to garden in both a water and nutrient efficient and responsible way. Self watering pots have been around for decades and are based o the principle of sub irrigation where the water supply sits below the. In self watering garden planters the perforated drain pipes are very easy to use and are quite adaptable to a variety of sizes. We look at a simple design that shows how to build a diy wicking garden bed using second hand galvanised iron tanks.

The basic design is for a 50 cm high garden. Wicking worm beds have built in water tanks located below the soil and built in worm farms where the worms have access to the whole of the growing area as well as the worm farm itself. The results of the diy self watering system were amazing. We watered three times all summer long no kidding and we had garden fresh salads until frost.

I typically allow 1 2 inch to 1 inch max space between each pipe. I can t keep silent any longer. Wicking beds are an especially great system to use in community gardens because they save people from driving every day during hot weeks to water their beds. Wicking worm beds are similar to raised vegetable garden beds.

Think of them as a giant self watering plant pot. A wicking bed is a self watering raised garden bed and even though the design is a relatively new innovation that is catching the attention of many produce gardeners worldwide it is essentially nothing more than a large scale version of a self watering pot.