I would recommend a soil wick rather than a fabric wick. The primary reason is that most of the SWC designs that people are familiar with use soil wicks.

If you want/need help using a soil wick based SWC you will find far more people with experience than with fabric wicks.

You may already be realizing this given how long your post sat without a response ;) It's not due to lack of folks wanting to help, it's due to lack of folks with the experience (with fabric wicks) to help.

I have been using SWC for many years and love them, but couldn't offer anything regarding the use of fabric based wicks as I don't use those.

Hi - I am using fabric-based wicks in my felt self-watering container. I am doing this on a small scale - herbs - 1 gallon containers. The wicks move the water to the soil effectively. I am going to try a larger fabric container to see if I get the same results. It sounds like you should try one of each to see what works best. My fabric-based wick is actually landscape fabric (weedblock). Best wishes - LC

I am using both wicking soil AND wicking cords. They seem to work OK until the beans, peppers and tomatoes get about 45cm tall.

When the the plants are bigger, I water from the top AND bottom. That would suggest that the 4 wicks/per container have a limited benefit toward drawing water to the middle and top of the container.

Maybe others can share a better technique.

Thanks Justaguy2. (I thought I'd made a terrible gardening faux pas in my first post and that's why people weren't responding. :) )

Perhaps I'll try one of each for the big containers as LC suggested and can then add to the knowledge base. For the small ones I'll probably use wicking material as it's fairly common.

VrKelley, what size are your containers (5 gal?) and what size are your cords? I wonder if the wicks would work better with something bigger than a cord, e.g., an old t-shirt.