03/15/2025
Every day is watering day here at Mikey's Indoor Greenhouse 😅
Even with 300+ plants/propagations, I *still* plant/grow things in soil, and bottom water all of them... (yes, I'm a glutton for punishment, I suppose). As a result, my watering routine is rather tedious and basically doesn't end—by the time I've gotten through them all over the course of a few days, it's time to start over again with all the little baby plants.
I could probably just top-water them which would be faster, but that then wastes the water and the things I've added to it, not to mention the soil doesn't get saturated the way the roots need it. I have three 1-gallon jugs that I fill with water and then allow to sit out for 12-24hrs while it has a mosquito dunk puck in it (to make a tea that kills fungus gnats larvae in the soil), and then I add liquid silica and a small amount of fertilizer (20 mins after adding the silica though, to allow it to bond properly before mixing in anything else). I fill up the tray I use and then begin! As the day goes, plants go from soaking in the water bath until they're sufficiently saturated, to then draining on a towel, to then being put away again where they stay while growing. There is definitely a more efficient way of going about the bottom watering but I am still trying to figure that part out as I go!
So now you may be asking, why bottom watering? As mentioned, it saves water and the materials I've mixed into it so that there's less waste; all of the water I mix up in the jugs ends up being used, none of it goes down the drain. The other reason I choose bottom watering is because it allows the plant to soak up the water even if the soil has become hydrophobic! Depending on the materials you use in the soil—particularly peat moss—it can make it so that the soil becomes so dry that water just runs right over it. With bottom watering, it allows the soil to absorb the water over a period of time rather than expecting it to absorb the water instantly.
What's your watering routine for your plants? :)
