The great 2024 wicking bucket/pot experiments

[21hens-incharge]

Last year between working full time and our dry climate my garden was largely a bust. The tomatoes succumbed to disease and splitting, bugs got my strawberries, peppers were stunted by lack of water and likely nutrients. Lets not even talk about the squash bugs.....nasty life sucking things they are.

This year I plan to try again with a few modifications.
While I still love my raised beds keeping things well watered was challenging.

I need to replace the wood on one raised bed. That means digging the soil out. I see that as an opportunity to experiment. I have watched many videos on wicking boxes, tubs, buckets and pots. I think that it just may work for my peppers and even strawberries.

Things in the boxes are still frozen if I try to dig down more than a few inches. This is giving me time to prepare wicking buckets!
I haven't set seeds yet so bonus TIME!

Follow along as I attempt this in zone 4-5 in Colorado's dry climate!

Step one will be sorting out the greenhouse and setting up pots/buckets. That begins this afternoon.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I forgot to update on Sunday.

Hubs filled my buckets and planted the sweet peppers while I dug in the raised beds planting lettuce, spinach, peas and tomatoes.
We are incredibly windy so all the planted buckets are hanging out in the greenhouse.
I have 2 gigantic pots and a rubbermaid stock tank I plan to make into self watering pots. The stock tank will have strawberries for sure.
I still have about a dozen peppers on the grow station that are not hardened off since the greenhouse is full of plants needing planted out soon.

 

[21hens-incharge]

My previous vertical self watering strawberry set up was based off this video.
My wicking medium failed (rotted off) in the late season. I plan to try again with a similar yet different set up. This year I will use hydroponic net pots filled with soil as the "wick" into the 6" pipe and larger pots for the plants. Bare root strawberry plants are first available here the beginning of April.

 

[Sally PB]

The only way I know of to curtail the squash bugs is to go out every single day and kill any that I see. And look for their eggs too.

I'm going to fool 'em this year by not planting squash. I haven't gotten enough to make it worth the space, and the few I got this year were not very good.

 

[Sally PB]

 

[21hens-incharge]

It's going to be a loooong summer.
Spring is taking forever to get here. This morning we are under a foot of heavy wet slushy snow.


Thanks for following along @LTAY1946!

It will be an adventure that I really hope works. I work long hours often 6 days a week so self watering is a real need if I am going to see any yield.

I have a small plastic wheelbarrow that doesn't really work as intended. I plan to try doing squash in it hoping to limit bug pressure. I will set it up with a different self watering system and document it along the way.

I grew butternut squash on a cattle panel years ago. It did well. I did have to make support slings for them as they are heavy. I look forward to seeing how the yellow squash vines do @LTAY1946. Please do let us know.

I had pollination issues last year as well. It was odd as a neighbor keeps bees. I will be planting borage and several other bee friendly things in the garden to hopefully draw them in.

I have been reading up on poly culture gardening and think that is how I want to go.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

I put in some dill and some catnip, but I don’t know if those are bee-specific much less honeybee-specific, I planted them at the recommendation of the Pollinator Pathway group in my area and they tend to be more ‘native pollinator’ focused than anything in particular. I found a few dead honeybees around my hummingbird feeder during a drought a few years ago, but I haven’t seen them around it in better seasons and anyway, that attracts wasps too.

I can’t speak to squash bugs, I’m still trying to find something I can plant to lure in more predators for aphids.

View attachment 3768777

…yup, guilty as charged. I’ve got some raspberry seeds and a blueberry I planted ‘to see what happens.’ If they actually sprout, I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with them.

 

[Sally PB]

I also keep a shallow large diameter waterer with pebbles and a piece of sandstone for the bees.

12 food grade buckets

Check with an ice cream or donut shop. They get fillings in 5 gallon, food grade buckets. I buy mine for $1.50 each, and that includes the lid. Sometimes the lid is sold separately in a store.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Check with an ice cream or donut shop. They get fillings in 5 gallon, food grade buckets. I buy mine for $1.50 each, and that includes the lid. Sometimes the lid is sold separately in a store.

Mine are stingy. They either won't sell them or they want $10 each.
It's why my chicken feed is in HD buckets.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I'd really like to study for a way to use clean disease free soil and circulation to also grow tomatoes and peppers. Both are so susceptible to disease it should be worth the cost of setting it up. I think soil grown tastes better than hydroponic. Hydroponic is more disease free. The way you are planning is interesting for those two reasons too.

It is! It gives so much more control hopefully.
Each one that I set up in a different way will be documented to share here. I also plan to.post throughout the growing season.
It will be a busy summer at work with 2 huge orders coming so I will make Sundays the update day.
Of course if anything weird happens to the plants in between I will be sure to post it.