My guess is that you are watering too quickly and shallowly. I use a
dripper system set up on a timer to do the job. The drippers are set to
let the water soak deeply and spread evenly.

I don't know anything about the B&B mix, but some soil components and
amendments are slightly hydrophobic when they are allowed to completely
dry out. They need to be soaked for quite a while before they take up
appreciable water. Peat moss is a good example of that. Clay particles
tend to adsorb water and swell, and while this can be great for sealing
ponds and landfills, when present in soils it helps increase their water
retention capacity. There are synthetic polymer products that will
retain even more water, but they break down after a couple of years and
don't contribute any minerals.

You don't say how much square footage is available to each plant. My
beds are intensively planted this year, so on days that are extremely
hot the plants themselves transpire so much water they dry the bed out.
The timer helps to manage that situation too, but the real solution
there is to thin out the plants.

Regards,

Mitch Amiano


Mister Sensitive wrote:
We built raised beds for veggies this year. First try with raised beds. We
got soil from B&B topsoil mine, with which we've had great success in the
past. We tilled the soil into furrows and planted veggies along the furrow
ridge. I water every day it doesn't rain, but the plants are growing very
slowly, if at all. We left a couple of plants in the valleys in their
nursery containers, to backfill failing plants. The valley plants are
growing much better. I also noticed after prodigious watering that the soil
is pretty dry just under the surface if I scratch the wet soil. The only
time the plants seem to grow is after these recent long drenching rains.

Have we created too much drainage for water and are depriving our plants of
water?

Thanks,

Hungry in Hillsborough