Root Depth ?

[Bexy]

I will have a good look i did get a large pot from asda for £4 for my butternut. im sure i can find somthing

[singleseeder]

Bexy, has anyone mentioned Freecycle yet? People are always getting rid of pots, buckets etc.

[snohare]

Call me eccentric or unduly laterally thinking, but if you have your bucket/container with a courgette in it connected to a large enough supply of water, be it via capillary matting or just sitting in a large trayful, will that not solve most of your problem ? I know they are gross feeders, but if you put nutrients into the water...? I have no experience of doing this, so I would love to know how you get on !

[lottie dolly]

just sitting in a large trayful,I know they are gross feeders, but if you put nutrients into the water...? I have no experience of doing this, so I would love to know how you get on !

last year i had peppers,chillie,aubs,and a cue,standing in trays to hold the water,so much easier,i put a few chicken poo pellets into the water,they did fine,will be doing the same this year,but am going to desolve it first in the watering can and add a drop to the water tray,this could be done with what ever your choice of feed,

[rpt]

last year i had peppers,chillie,aubs,and a cue,standing in trays to hold the water

Do you mean the plants were in pots of compost as normal but the pots were stood in a tray that was permanently full of water? Sorry if I'm being a bit dim!

[snohare]

That's certainly how I always water my plants in pots rpt, works a treat if you have to go away for a couple of days (or are as forgetful as me !) If they are sitting outside, it also has the advantage of keeping slugs out (moats are a great slug drowner ) and any rainfall is multiplied by the surface area of the tray, rather than being just what falls directly onto the plants.
Indoors you can have a strip of capillary matting with one end dipped in a dish or bucket of water, the other end under whatever pots you want to water, and that does the trick - but I'm not sure that it would work well enough with plants as thirsty as courgettes...

[rpt]

So there's no risk of over watering plants when they sit in a tray of water? Or do you only use it with those that are big drinkers?

Richard

[snohare]

Sorry for the delay rpt, I was away for the weekend.
The plants will only suck in as much water as they want. The process involved here is called transpiration, whereby the moisture being evaporated from pores in leaves is replaced by moisture that is sucked into the roots and up the stems, by capillary action. Interrupting this process will usually kill the plant; the first signs of water deficiency are the leaves curling up at the edges - wilting.
All that sitting a bucket of soil in a tray of water, or on damp capillary matting, does, is replace the moisture that is being lost from the soil. Of course in the ground outside, normally the soil some distance down always has a certain amount of moisture, not least because there is a huge volume of soil, so it never runs out, and once the roots get to it the plant is relatively safe; we are trying to mimic that situation, or improve upon it.
That's my theory, anyway...

[Potstubsdustbins]

Last year I watched my next door neighbour drown 6 Toms that I had given him. They were in buckets stood in trays outside. During heavy rain the trays were never empty therefore the compost was saturated. This prevented the air/oxygen that the roots need reaching them, result dead plants.

Colin

[snohare]

Yes, good point Colin, I should have said that the pots must come out of the water once in a while to enable the moisture content to drop and air gaps to re-develop.
It hadn't occurred to me until you posted, but yes, after the recent heavy rain, I carefully took all the pots out of the tray sitting outside my window, and "rested" them, so that they would not become waterlogged.
And that, rpt, is the peril of forum advice...sometimes you find someone like me who forgets to mention a vital detail !

[jacob]

I try to get early courgettes from pots. I have them in huge planters: a) the roots go to the bottom on the 18-24" deep pots in no time, then grow through the hole in the bottom sufficiently to stick the pot to the ground; b) even with feeding they eat the nutrients in no time and I get a smaller crop than I do from outside.

My advice, if you like courgettes, do a plant in the grow bag asap and another outside for later...