Martin Fish tests new ways with watering
It’s essential to get it right to keep your home-grown crops healthy
Watering container-grown tomatoes and peppers through the summer can be a problem, especially if you’re not around during the day or at holiday times. Erratic watering can lead to all sorts of problems with poor growth and lack of fruit, so it’s really important to try and get it right.
This summer I’ve decided to give one of the self-watering kits a go and the one I’m trying is the Quadgrow Planter from Greenhouse Sensation (www.greenhousesensation.co.uk, tel: 0845 602 3774) which is basically a reservoir on which four deep pots sit to grow your plants. Although self-watering, it’s not hydroponics as, with this system, the plants are being grown in compost and irrigated, whereas in hydroponics the plants have no compost and the roots grow in a water and nutrient solution.
With the Quadgrow, the reservoir holds sufficient water for up to 14 days, depending on the size of the plants and temperature, and will water the plants evenly at all times; ideal if you’re going to be away from home for a while.
I’m growing two tomato plants and two peppers. Setting up the kit is very simple – all you do is insert a feeder mat, that acts as a wick, through the hole in the bottom of the pot and down into the water tray. The four pots sit on the tray (reservoir) and are filled with multi-purpose compost and planted as normal, making sure the feeder mat is in contact with the compost.
The plants are watered from above initially and after a few days the water and a nutrient solution that’s supplied with the kit is added to the reservoir tray below. Water and feed is drawn up into the compost through the feeder mat to keep the compost constantly moist and the plants supplied with nutrients.
I’ll keep you posted through the
summer on how the system’s working!