Capillary Matting

[sandersj89]

I am trying to make a few things easier this year and one of them is watering in the greenhouse.

Each year I grow a selection of chillie peppers, about 20 plants, in pots on greenhouse staging. Each pot is sat in a saucer to hold a bit of water through the day.

I am thinking that if I laid capillary matting one the bench I could stand the pots of this making watering easier.

Would it work if I rigged up a water reservoir at one end of the bench and anchored one end of the mat in this so the water is drawn across the whole bench?

Would the water move along the whole bench which is about 1.5m long?

Do I need to lay a tray on the bench or will the matting work just as well across the slats of the bench?

Would the matting supply enough water for the plants in the heat of the summer or is supplementary water from above required?

Thanks for any input or ideas.

Jerry

[MikeB]

In the attached picture the tray is 4' long, the reservoir at the end supplies enough water for two of these trays for one day in high summer.  I normally use a much larger reservoir, but as is the way I couldn't find it.

[sandersj89]

Thanks Mike

Interesting to see you have a tray for the matting, I take it too much water would be lost if the matting was just laid on the bench slats?

If I cant find a tray I guess a layer of plastic would help under the mat.

Jerry

[Jitterbug]

Where would you get this matting from.  I bought a mini unheated propagator last year and it worked well with raising my seedlings.  However once I had planted out all seedling I could not get it clean and threw it out.  Now I sit with a propagator and no matting.

Thanks

[sandersj89]

You can get it in garden centres or online from places such as Kays.

Put "capillary matting" into Google and you will get loads of hits.

Jerry

[myrtle]

I use capillary matting in those trays that are sold to hold grobags on my benches and have a 'wick' (the bit I had to cut off to fit the tray) leading to a bucket of water. Seems to work well.  I notice in B&Q the other day, they sell capillary watering kits but I think they are expensive.

[MikeB]

I originally just started with the tray, but as the table was not 100% level the pots on one side were not getting watered.  If I raised the water level to correct for this then some plants were getting over watered.  This compromise works really well, I use a plant trough as the reservoir and pour a diluted feed into it every second day during the ' height of the growing season'

[sandersj89]

Thanks Mike, this is looking more and more a goer.

I am also going to try a small irrigation dripper set in the rest of the greenhouse for the tomatoes, peppers, aubergines etc.

Wont be so worried now when I go away on holiday!

Jerry

[tim]

This is our bench, Jerry. It is heated as well.

[sandersj89]

Tim

Do you use water troughs at both ends of the mat? Cant quite see!

Nice set up though.

Jerry

[tim]

One end only - 2x1 gallon. On a hot day, it can go through all that!!

[Rose.mary]

I think the same idea will work on individual pots using string. Just put one end of string in bowl of water and bury string in pot next to plant and eh presto.

Rosemary

[Roy Bham UK]

Hey Rose.mary that sounds great have you used this method and does it work? If it does then I would put it in the "Top Tips" section and on Wiki, brilliant

[lorna]

Jerry. I have used capillary matting for about three years. The mistake I made was not using a tray (it may have been Mike who put me right on that one last year). At first I just laid polythene on a shelf (plywood) and laid the matting on top. I used a trough each end and  placed a length of matting in to the water. Works great if you have a tray, if not like me you will lose water by running off the edge.

[Gardenantics]

I've set up a system using two trays that nest into each other, the inner one being about 2cm. smaller all round. The inner small tray is turned upside-down, and the matting cut to fit on this. The larger tray is then the reservoir, and wicks are placed around the edge, and tucked down the gap. You just fill the lower tray up, and it holds lots of water, and if you spot a dry place, it's easy to just put an extra wick in that spot. I have bits of aluminium L-angle 2"x2" cut to 2" lengths that sit under the inner tray to stop it sagging under the weight of pots. They came out of a skip, and I think they were baking trays , 30"x18"x2" for the larger tray. The system works well if you are on holiday, and you can also rig up a dripper to feed into the lower tray to fill it automatically. Hope it makes sense!

Brian

[Roy Bham UK]

Excellent thanks

[sandersj89]

Thanks all, I will be sorting out a tray soon by the sounds of it.

Jerry

[Gardenantics]

Forgot to mention that I had to cut out a strip of metal from the side on the inner tray to stop it being air-locked, so as to get maximum water under the tray, only about a quarter of an inch on one side.

Brian

[tim]

Forgot to say that we have polythene on top of the heat pad.

And DON'T FORGET to use a woven fabric over the matting - to keep it clean & to stop the roots settling into it.

But useful as this method is, it does preclude the air-pruning of roots??

[Gardenantics]

Tim's right about rooting into the matting, and moss can be a pain too, commercially they have a layer of perforated black plastic over the matting to stop these problems, but never see it for sale in small amounts. Your idea of an additional cloth over the matting does the same Tim?

Brian