Wednesday 13 February 2008

Wicking Box Gardens

On the weekend I made some wicking box gardens to put some early autumn greens in.
See the full instructions here.

The water is poured into the drainage hose at the top to feed it through to the bottom layer which acts as a reservoir. The rest of the soil in the box is watered by the 'wicking' action whereby water is pulled up through the growing layer.

The compost worms live in the growing layers to keep the soil healthy.
The soil is allowed to dry out between waterings and the drainage hole in the side prevents flooding during rainy weather.

From the Waterright site: (Click here for link)
"The wicking bed is the most important,
it enables us to grow food with a lot less water,
it can be used to harvest water otherwise lost
and particularly it can actually capture
carbon from the atmosphere."

1 comment:

Kate said...

After reading the Waterright site In can see some further uses for this wicking system. Thanks Scarecrow for introducing this to us. I wonder if it will need to be rebuilt each year to maintain fertility (the beds not the boxes, I mean).And how it will go over winter if you have plenty of rain - then the water harvesting side may be useful.I love experiments and new ideas in progress.