For over a decade I have been reading about self watering containers being the future and people being excited about converting their setup to a self-watering one.
Yet I haven’t heard of anyone having long-term success with any of these systems and I can think of quite a few reasons they might not work.
Has anyone had any long-term success with growing fruit that way?
It’s a gimmick. Especially the tiny pieces of string that they claim will water the plants. It does not, especially not for a tree or anything that may be thirsty more often than a 5$ Walmart cactus.
For reference, all of my trees are in pots ranging from 35 - 15 gallons. During periods of warm weather, some demand up to a big smart water bottle- bottle or more of water. Especially when they’re trying to set fruit.
The best thing for them are these solar powered self watering devices x a bucket of some sort if you’re not wanting to water every day.
I’ve tried all the silly little gimmicks when it comes to watering. This is best
If you plan on making a setup based on SIP design it will work. But after a season you have to be ready to either refill frequently expand the water reservoir.
This looks fantastic! Thanks for the link.
The main reference I see to SIP is a guy on youtube (AlboPepper). Is that the system you like?
The location I have in mind is unusually difficult for regular irrigation but I can set it up so that there’s constantly water under the (preferably fabric) pots . I can just put one big water tank with a pipe that goes under all the pots.
Some possible long-term problems I see as a beginner are possible root diseases, capillary action medium degradation, and salt buildup. Are those not an issue with this system?
yes, there are multiple designs, Those 5 gallon SIP’s are popular with fig growers. I experimented with plastic corrugated drain pipes at the bottom of a large pot and a product from home depot called city picker (for vegetables). You’ll be amazed how much water 2-3 old trees can consume, some of my peaches, plums in 10 to 15 gallon pots need water twice a day if hand watering during mid-jury and August or they will start wilting. I have Figs in 5 to 7g containers that needs watering every day even now when things are cooling.
For your situation, my suggestion would be to plant them in raised beds like 4’ x 4’ and irrigate once every week or two weeks. Or setup a drip based irrigation where you water deep once a month.
I doubt fabric bags would work given they dry out much faster than pots. Check out Olla watering system as well, not sure how well it works.
