I am growing in fabric pots. I have large SUV cargo trays to catch runoff. My question is should I leave bottom of pots sitting directly down on trays or should they be raised so they are not sitting in runoff. I’ve noticed that within a couple hours all the runoff seems to be absorbed. I just don’t know if this is a good thing.
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The pots should be up a few inches to allow air flow and stop the uptake of runoff salts. It will hurt the plants if left in it. Some folks put screens or a grate underneath.
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I have my pots in large plastic bins. They are raised off the bottom with sections of pvc pipe. Simple and cheap. You don’t want them sucking the runoff back up. It also helps with airflow.
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Thanks my instincts was telling me that I should raise them. I think that when I saw that it was being reabsorbed that it would be OK. Didn’t think about salts and other type of contaminants.
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I did some electrical work this summer. I have plenty of PVC pipe left over. I will go and cut some up directly and remedy this thing right now.
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Depends also on what you are feeding them. Are you using salt based nutrients or natural nutrients?
Some water from the bottom on purpose along with top watering.
If your nutrients are salt based then you don’t want them sitting in the run off.
If your just using water with a super soil than watering them with some run off is ok as long as the run off is wicked back up within an hour or so. Either way you don’t want them sitting in water / run off for very long and should suck up any left over in tray after awhile.
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Do you think it matters whether its organic or synthetic? Bottom feed systems like ebb & flow or autopots seem to run great on synthetic nutrients. I would say results would be more a matter of what you’re trying to do. On a top feed system if you thoroughly soak pots you would want them to dry out in order to get roots air before next watering. Excess water/solution to wick would slow that process down. There’s a lot of variables from there, but I don’t think being organic would eliminate them.
Easy fix is to place something under pots to keep them off the tray.
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