I planted four outdoors plants this spring and only one survived the incredibly hot summer. When the first three died, I just mournfully set aside their pots, which I think were probably 2.5-3 gallons, with the soil mixture I was using still inside them*. This was in late June or early July.
I was planting some vegetable seedlings out in my garden a couple of days ago and was going to pour the used soil mixture from these pots into the holes I was digging. To my surprise, the dirt in these pots was still damp! In Mid-October, after a blazing summer! These pots had drainage holes and I had even placed a thick layer of gravel in the bottom. I had included a good amount of perlite to the commercial soil mixture which did not seem especially heavy.
What's with that? Don't gravity and evaporation work any more?
There seems to be a lot of confusion in these discussions with people talking about indoor and outdoor plantings without being clear on which one to which they are referring, but I still get the impression that the idea is to get really good drainage in either case so you can flush out excess nutrient residue, etc.
OK, so I'm going to try my hand at a small, one-plant indoor Aurora Indica grow over the winter. I was thinking that I would go ahead and use soil until I saw this mysterious damp soil still in these pots. I then thought that maybe I should use coir instead. When I was getting ready to order a 10# brick, I saw in the description that among its advantages was that it "retained water," which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. My plan was to have the plant potted so that I could remove it from the grow box during the (relatively) warm afternoons and take it outside to get a few hours of full sunlight, air its stink out of the bedroom and bring it back in at night.
What should I do here to avoid this drainage problem?
Many thanks for any wise assistance!
*The sole surviving plant had been transplanted to an immense pot that probably held 8-10 gallons, which I thought was far too big. It was recommended to me by someone here, and I think that it alone was responsible for the survival and relative prosperity of this plant -- but that's another discussion.
I was planting some vegetable seedlings out in my garden a couple of days ago and was going to pour the used soil mixture from these pots into the holes I was digging. To my surprise, the dirt in these pots was still damp! In Mid-October, after a blazing summer! These pots had drainage holes and I had even placed a thick layer of gravel in the bottom. I had included a good amount of perlite to the commercial soil mixture which did not seem especially heavy.
What's with that? Don't gravity and evaporation work any more?
There seems to be a lot of confusion in these discussions with people talking about indoor and outdoor plantings without being clear on which one to which they are referring, but I still get the impression that the idea is to get really good drainage in either case so you can flush out excess nutrient residue, etc.
OK, so I'm going to try my hand at a small, one-plant indoor Aurora Indica grow over the winter. I was thinking that I would go ahead and use soil until I saw this mysterious damp soil still in these pots. I then thought that maybe I should use coir instead. When I was getting ready to order a 10# brick, I saw in the description that among its advantages was that it "retained water," which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. My plan was to have the plant potted so that I could remove it from the grow box during the (relatively) warm afternoons and take it outside to get a few hours of full sunlight, air its stink out of the bedroom and bring it back in at night.
What should I do here to avoid this drainage problem?
Many thanks for any wise assistance!
*The sole surviving plant had been transplanted to an immense pot that probably held 8-10 gallons, which I thought was far too big. It was recommended to me by someone here, and I think that it alone was responsible for the survival and relative prosperity of this plant -- but that's another discussion.
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