No One Likes a Crusty Mound

We're now on the second year with this garden and yet with all the compost we've added to the soil, we still end up with an unpenetrable clay crust over all the beds after any rain. True, we haven't gotten much rain this year since we are in the middle of an "exceptional" drought, but still, this crust is making it very difficult for some of the seedlings to break through and survive. It's twice as difficult to water the melons which were planted in little mounds since the water runs downhill to water the weeds rather than the parched seeds.

My mother has been talking for years about the ease of burying water bottles, milk jugs, even five-gallon buckets with soaker hoses attached to make watering easier for the gardener and more productive for the plants by getting water to their roots where, of course, they need it most. I figured my crusty mound dilema and the necessity to reseed my melon beds was my chance to play around with this idea. And, in the interest of science, I decided to try three different container styles (along with a bed with no containers as our control) to rate their relative effectiveness.

First I gorilla-taped the cap to a one-gallon milk jug and cut around three sides of the bottom to create a type of flap. I figured this may help in reducing the amount of evaporation or keep dirt out of the bottle, but now I'm not sure how much good it's doing. I drilled holes manually with a threaded hook every couple inches around the entire bottle. This was buried so the dirt on the top of the mound was level with the top of the bottle.

My second container choice was a desperate attempt at finding some use, any use for a large styrofoam cup. (Of course, I've been stockpiling all our other styrofoam garbage for a future trip to Cycled Plastics.) I fully expect it to be the first one to get brittle and collapse, but I thought it would be useful to at least try. As they say, you never know what may spark another, better idea. I used the same manual method of making holes, which was easy enough, but I really didn't like all the itty bitty pieces of styrofoam this created. Next time (if there is a next time), I think I might try to heat the screw tip to see if melted holes create less of a mess.

Thirdly, I used a two-liter bottle which I cut in half for two reasons. One, because I wanted to test a container that wasn't so deep in the ground to see if it made any difference, and two, this way (if it worked) I could use each bottle for two mounds. Waste not, want not, right? Similar set up as the other ones, but the plastic was too hard to make holes manually, so I brought the drill out for this one. Much easier that way.

So here's the finished bed with the control bed on the left, which I reseeded at the same time. When the containers were watered from the inside, there was a lot of dirt settling around the edges, but I reformed the mounds and everything seems to be okay.

I'll still water the seeds manually until their roots grow, but I'm looking forward to seeing if these different watering containers make any difference as the season progresses. I'll keep you updated.