Wicking Bed in the Hoophouse

In the past couple of years I have only grown in the middle of my hoop house because that was the easiest place to reach.  I am planning on digging it down 10 to 12 inches this year to allow for more head space and growing space for the tomatoes.  In addition I wanted to add some thermal mass to the edges to keep heat in and block out wind.


In building the retaining walls for the earth mound that was to be at the the edges I realized that I could put a raise bed in there.  So I dug it down and used this opportunity to try a wicking bed.

Caveboy in the 2014 hoop house in May. Except for this hydro bed, all the growing has been in the center.  

What is a wicking bed?
A wicking bed is a method of planting which allows for maximum water usage when growing in soil.  It is more efficient even than hydroponics, assuming one actually replaces the water in their hydro system as often as recommended.

How does it work?
One of the biggest problems with growing in soil is water loss.  Water is lost into the air when watering from the surface, and water is lost into the ground as well.  Mulch can help prevent water loss into the air, especially if you use a drip system.

Wicking beds address both of these issues by watering from below the bed from a reservoir.  The only way for the water to go is up, into the soil where the plants roots are.

A typical layout looks like this:

http://www.earthanedge.com/earthan-beds-how-they-go-together/
(I don't  have a fish pump.  I just fill it with water)

The reservoir underneath is usually filled with small gravel or sand which move water upward through capillary action.  Between the soil and the reservoir there is usually a barrier of some sort to keep soil and roots from getting down into the gravel, but it isn't always used.

As the soil above dries, the moisture is drawn up from the reservoir.  In this way the plant regulates soil moisture to whatever level it prefers.

You can't over-water these beds because there is a drain at the top of the reservoir.  Once it is full, it is full.

Instead of piling soil here, I decided to dig down several inches: maybe 3 or 4 to set the reservoir in ground a bit.  In order to use runoff from the hoophouse, and overspill from the wicking bed I dug a shallow ditch to direct excess water into one of the swales in my berry patch.

North edge of the hoop house

Digging in clay is fun. 

Reservoir Liner
After digging out and leveling the reservoir, I lined it with landscaping plastic.  I placed some old roofing tar paper I had in my shed below it to prevent puncture from rocks and roots below.

Tar Paper

Staple it up

Adding water to check level, and troubleshoot the drain.

Reservoir Medium
The next step was to add the gravel.  I used the pea gravel from last year's hydro set up.  I'll be using river rock this year for hydro because it is easier to clean.  The PVC tube sticking out is  for watering. It connects loosely to another 2" pipe and then a 1" pipe to disperse the water slowly into the gravel.

I will only grow on one edge, so I have indented there for more soil contact during initial watering. 

Happy berries

Dividing Soil From Reservoir
Then I laid the weed guard across the top and stapled it to the board that defines the inner edge of the bed.

Weed guard covering the bed and the watering hole

Peat Moss
For good transmission of moisture upwards, soil high in organics is best.  I have clay so I have amended the soil a little.  First to make sure moisture is transferred easily I added a layer of peat moss to the top of the division.

A thin layer of peat moss

Soil Mixture
As I mentioned, my soil isn't the greatest.  I won't be fertilizing this bed for a couple of years so I added some mulch and chicken coup mix (complete with feathers and mummified mice) and hoed them together with soil I dug up from the middle of the hoop house.

Poop. Dirt. Mice.

With each layer I added a little more peat moss to ensure good moisture transmission.

All full! 

Get it Wet!
The last two steps are to make sure the entire bed is wet to start the capillary action and to cover with mulch.  I plan on growing peppers in here. If I'd had this bed before, they'd already be growing.

 The next step is to actually plant some peppers.  I'll let you all know how that goes.


I'll write about the berry patch project soon, but I can tell that one of the swales is working nicely.  I've taken the other out to try to figure out why it wasn't holding water.

Water stored below the mulch in the swale between berries and rhubarb.  Like a wicking bed, this water will move into the planting mound as it dries.  

Death in the Meadows

This Wednesday we went for a hike with the Nature Tribe group at a natural area in the city.  Before we started out I found this dead vole with her still living babies suckling from her lifeless body.  

Caveboy wasn't interested in learning about it.  His favorite book these days is Who Pooped in the Park so I thought he would be excited to actually see an animal up close, but the tall grass was making it hard for him to walk and he just wanted to get back to the trail so he could run.

I didn't try to press the issue too much because I could see that he wasn't going to be able to pay attention.  We found plenty of tracks and scat later on the hike to talk about.  We saw some horses too.

He wasn't ready to focus on this little animal in the grass, but the older children were (ages 3-9 or so). They looked at the scene and discussed the meaning of it with each other.  One mentioned that he wished an owl would just take it.

That is part of the fun and the purpose of these hike: to build my children's village with people who take an interest in nature are willing to think about these things.

Kids: there are more interesting things in the ditch than on the trail

Later in the hike Caveboy did his best to keep up with the big kids.  Part of raising a conscious child is having the right big kids to try to keep up with.  Thank you to the NoCo Nature Tribe for letting us be part of the tribe.

Garden Season

Spring is here and I haven't posted anything in the past couple of week because I have been busy getting the garden ready.

Gardening in Colorado can be tricky business.  The first frost is usually in September, and the last in May.  The summer can be brutally hot and dry, or very cool. Nearly every year there is hail to contend with.

Glacial advance during hail storm of August, 2008

Additionally two of our neighbors have cottonwood trees near my fence line. Cottonwood roots make it nearly impossible to grow in the soil within the reach or their roots.

Over the past few years I have come up with a few ways to deal with many of these problems, which I will go over at some point.  For now here's what I've been up to.


Mulch

Free mulch from the City of Fort Collins

In the past I haven't been too good about mulching, except where I have used black plastic mulch.  With free mulch from the city, one would be foolish not to use it.  Here in the desert we must do everything we can to keep the moisture in the soil.

Irrigation 

I can not grow in the portion of my yard that used to be designated as the garden due to the neighbors cottonwoods, so a few years ago I built these raised beds and moved garden soil to them.  They have been great for a lot of reasons, but I have been watering them by hand.  After a few weeks I find I just don't have the patience to do it properly.  So this year I added irrigation to each planter.  

I realized after putting it in that this wouldn't work.  I needed a 90 degree bend. 

This should work better

Beauty.  That's much better. 

This year's Bok Choy, planted in March

It should be a lot happier under mulch and with its own irrigation

Berries

Avis' Permaculture Homestead

A friend posted this video on Facebook awhile back, and it inspired me to plant a berry patch.  Apparently Calgary has a similar climate to Fort Collins.

My first berries. I will add many more soon. 

The "Before" of the berry patch

My rhubarb will be happy that it will finally be getting some attention because of its proximity to the berry patch.  I will talk about the trenches, the "swale trails" in future posts about the berry patch.  Of course it involves a lot of mulch.

The Boys

Get 'em working young. 

 Of course what I am really trying to grow in my yard are my two young sons.

Danger baby

Hydroponics/Aquaponics

Last year's setup during the Mother's Day snow

I built the hoop house in the portion of my yard where the cottonwood trees are.  In order to continue to use it, I would have had to move it or figure out how to grow out of the ground.  I decided to try my hand at hydroponics, and with some trial and error, I had some awesome success.  It turned out to be a great year to do it as it was really cool, and many peoples tomatoes did not ripen until late September.  I had ripe fruit by early August, most of which was eaten by my older son.  

August tomatoes. Easy picking for a 2 year old. 

The day before Mother's Day, 2014

Mother's Day, 2014

Possible Aquaponics Experiment

 I grew peppers and basil in this tray last year on the same system as the tomatoes.  I will try an aquaponics, deep water culture, system with this small reservoir for greens.


Other things to talk about
This post is getting long, so I'll cut it off here.  I do want to talk about some things that Colorado gardeners might find interesting like:

How to over-winter spinach

Planted in September, 2014

Chicken Poop

Cleaning out the coup for fertilizer

Beer

Probably not, but here's the first hops of spring

That's all for now.  Enjoy and please let me know what you'd like to hear more about.