I don't know the answers to your questions because I don't use SWCs, but I thought I'd steer you in the direction of the many threads already in existence about this subject. You might find some helpful information in some of these discussions, if you haven't already read up on them.

I'm sure that others with personal experience will jump in here, too. Good luck with your endeavors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Let's go 'looking'....

I have done some more research, I am trying mixing the 5-1-1 with potting soil at a 1 to 1 ration, it should get close to the 3-2-1 mix I have seen suggested.

My brother had tried SWC's when he grew pot at a younger age and had a problem with mold in the reservoir, so I will keep an eye on that.

avepico, I'm not sure what you mean by improper watering, so can't answer the first question. But, it makes me think about why people use SWC.

So, I guess I'll explain why I use SWC. I do not have water where my deck is. I have to run a hose through my house, then put it away each time. If I had to do that 3 times a day in the summer, I wouldn't garden! The SWC allows me to run the hose every other day in the hottest part of the summer, which makes me much happier.

I can't answer question 2 as I've not tried a 5-1-1 in a SWC, but I do believe that others tried is, including one person who isn't a member here any longer. If I remember correctly, he noted that the 5-1-1 stayed much too dry. Search on Justaguy2 and you'll find some of his posts about it, though it may take a bit of reading. My guess would be that wicks would help and that you'd want them all the way to the top (the water didn't get high enough in the experiment using it), but I don't know how many you'd have to use. You could experiment with one prior to planting anything in it.

Regarding the fert - I've not worried about degradation and haven't heard of that as an issue. If it is, we'll both learn. I have been concerned that I'd end up with too much or too little fertilizer. I'm not sure what the best strategy is, but here's what I did. This past year I added the fert to the reservoir and waited until the reservoir was just about dry before I added more water. This way I didn't end up with a too high or too low concentration.

I am in Zone 5 and have used EarthBoxes for about 8 years, I guess. I've never had an issue with needing to clean them during the season. They are a bit dirty and often have root matter in them at the end, though, and I clean them when I remove all the dead plant material.

I'm certainly no expert, however.

avepico,

Here's my 2 cents after growing with SWCs for over a decade.

The optimal mix will depend on the mix height in your container, (the height the water will need to wick up).

I use 5" mix depth containers. A fast draining mix of 1:1 turface:bark did very well this year. But you must use a plastic sheet mulch so that evaporation will keep the top of the mix wet.

Raybo reports using the 3:2:1 with 30 gallon containers, these are much deeper containers and thus need more peat to wick higher. When I used 19 gallon totes & 5-gallon buckets, a 60:40 (fast draining substance):peat mixture was best. The fast draining material should have small size, i.e. turface, bark fines, perlite. Didn't work with larger pumice or lava rock pieces.

This year is the first year I feel I've optimized my SWCs. And it probably is the last year I'll use them.

I used regular 18 tubs to plant peppers this year and they out-produced my SWC peppers by several times, even though this was my best year for SWC peppers. The excess water & lack of soil oxygen replenishment really does limit production. Also my SWC peppers now have ants and aphids, the tub ones don't have any. Not sure why?

So why use SWCs? They do provide the easiest watering regime. I have all mine outfitted with floats in the reservoir, so they refill automatically. So I didn't need to water them the entire summer. Very convenient once set up.

To replicate the convenience, I've already installed a drip system on my deck for the tubs, so now I've got an automatic watering system for regular pots. It's still won't be quite a good, as I'll need to tweak the drippers in each pot during a grow season, as different plants/pots/tubs will use different amounts of water.

Good luck with whatever you go with.

emgardener, I had a similar epiphany this year. I love my SWC. I have a roof deck with no water supply and it's much much easier to hook up the hose and run it through my condo a few times a week than daily.

But, this year I potted a tomato in a 15 gallon fabric SmartPot. I was able to keep up with the watering easily until August without much extra work. The plant is taller, fuller, and out produced any other tomato I had. Now, it was also a different variety, one I haven't grown before. But, the difference was startling. Most notably, I didn't have nutrient issues. Not sure why as I used the same fert ratio in the SWC, just noticed it was different.

It was also my first year using a soil mix that I thought both wicked well and didn't stay too wet or too dry.

That said, I imagine I'll still use the SWC. There are only two of us, so yield isn't as important as it might be to someone else. As you noted, the ease of watering is very nice. I will, though, buy a couple more SmartPots and use them for the two or three things that I really want to maximize production.

It's all about balancing, isn't it?

lathyrus,

SmartPots, yes, I'll have to try them next season. Had thought about it but forgot. Maybe they'll make an additional improvement.

For a drip system, I put a splitter on my hose outlet. So I have a timer on one outlet and just the regular hose on the other. It took some time, but it is quite convenient now. You might consider a 1/2" drip line up to your roof. My peppers started doing even better when on the drip, they get regular water 3 times a day. Hand watering before was every few days and many times the plants wilted in between (I'm not a reliable waterer).

Also I put a extra timer on the end of the drip system, and timed them so that the line flushes out all the hot water at the beginning of each watering time. This way the plants get cold water in the middle of the day.

Still trying to optimize an automatic system.

Unfortunately, I have to wind the hose through my house, from the bathroom, through the hall, through the bedroom, out the door, to the roof! I can't leave it there all the time or hubby will divorce me, lol. I also couldn't lock the patio door (not a good idea in a city). I'm sort of stuck unless we move.

I think you'll like the SMartPots. I put a modified gritty in it - more like a 3-1-1. Worked very well.

Wow, that's a lot of work just to water your pots!

You could fill up a 50 gallon trash bin on the roof to cut down on the number of times you need to run your hose.

I ran 5 SWCs off a 50 gallon Brute Rubbermaid trash can. Only had to fill it up about 5 times over the summer.

You can also run drip lines off the trash can, as they work with low pressure, could even hook up a timer for the drippers.

The things we do do be able to grow, lol. Thanks for the idea.