Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi
More questions sorry

Been reading tonight about soil.
Most growing seams to recomend free draining soil but to keep it well watered !!
To me thats a bit contradictive as how do you keep it free draining but still keep it well watered ?. The crop they were explaining was radishes.

atb
Mark.

It just means they like a good drink of water, but not to sit in it.

Dear Mark,
the roots of most land based plants have pores through which they take in oxygen from the air in the surrounding soil. If you fill up these tiny air pockets with water for long enough the roots "drown" and rot causing the death of the plant. This can also be done by compacting the soil too hard around a plant's roots and crushing out the air pockets.

Thus you need to water to provide moisture but not all of the water will stay in the soil if you put too much on. It is easy enough to tell in pot plants as excess water comes out of the bottom of the pot but harder in ground grown plants.

Once you start going into any more detail than this it gets very complicated very quickly.
Regards Sally Wright.

Cheers Folks

atb
Mark.