Re: [CH] plenty of water and fertilizer

T. Matthew Evans (tmattevans@yahoo.com)
Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:52:01 -0700 (PDT) 

Styx --

Even in large containers, I found that I needed to water every one or two days
(I don't live in Albuquerque anymore) and I used a water soluble (20-20-20)
fertilizer about once or twice a week.  I have since started to use 13-13-13
all purpose granular fertilizer ($5/40lbs at the Depot) in my potted plants at
planting time and have found that I need to use very little water soluble
fertilizer in addition to this initial treatment.

As for the rock mulch, evaporation is very much a near-surface phenomenon,
typically confined to the upper 6 inches or so of soil (although this depends
on several factors including pore size distribution, pore throat tortuosity,
and soil chemistry).  Thus, if one uses, say, a 3-inch layer of rock mulch on
top of the soil, the depth of the evaporative zone (in the soil) has been
effectively cut in half.

Another method that I used to steady my moisture content was to create a
capillary barrier in the container by using gravel at the base of the container
with the soil on top.  Contrary to intuition, this will cause the soil to hold
more water than if the gravel were not there (this has to do with the negative
matric potential of the moisture in the gravel pores relative to the negative
matric potential of the water in the soil pores).  Many have reported that this
will cause the soil to hold too much water, thus rotting the roots.  In ABQ,
this was certainly not a problem.  I did not mention this earlier because
Perry's plants are already in containers, so this piece of advice would do him
no good.

Matt

--- Styx <styx@gwi.net> wrote:
> Matt
> "plenty of water and fertilizer"
> What are you using for fertilizer?
> Down there I'd of thought that you would need to water a lot if plants 
> were in containers. If you were using water soluble fertilizer: would 
> you add the fertilizer once a week, or every time that you watered? How 
> often do you need to water peppers in containers down there?
> I don't want to start another thread about stressing out peppers, but 
> putting down a bed of "rock mulch will steady out the moisture in the 
> soil" doesn't this seem as if it would dry them out faster? In that case 
> you would be watering more and also fertilizing them too?
> 
> Styx
> 
> 


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