Slow growth in my raised beds

[thewyatt]

First post... so a good fine morning to all out there and look forward to learning a ton from everyone and hopefully helping some folks out as well.

I have had raised beds for 3 years now. This year I added a 3rd. Every year prior I have had tremendous growth and awesome yields. This year I grew from seedlings from an organic website that seemed very popular. We did have a long period before I could plant my seedlings outside due to temps still dropping below 32 degrees F. Let me give you some background of my beds

They are wicking water beds. So I have my beds lined with 6ml plastic then river rock 4-6"'s w/ a tube through the rock then pointing upward to be the fill tube. Then a permeable layer to separate then next layer, sand for 2-3"'s, then another permeable layer to separate the soil (18" + of soil) composition. Soil is 1:1:1:1 of Mushroom compost, cow manure, top soil, and peet moss and when tested the soil is alkaline, real nice and dark green from the test kit. All 3 beds are built this way.

We are growing very similar to the last 2 years but swapped types from bed to bed: Tomatoes (cherry, roma, san marzano), Peppers (rainbow peppers, jalapenos, pepperchinis) cucumbers (pickling and a normal variety), Spaghetti squash, summer squash, and then new this year artichoke and asparagus ( I understand these two may take a couple seasons to yield fruits, especially the asparagus maybe 3)

We planted the seedlings finally the week of June 6th and with the rich soil I expected at least several inches to keep in line with previous years growth but it has been slower. I have been keeping the beds topped off with water at the fill tubes ( I do have drain tubes so we cannot over fill the beds too ) so the beds can wick and I have moistened the tops here and there. I bought some hay to place on top to keep the top soil moist at all times and putting that down tomorrow I hope.

My question is am I missing anything? I was looking into an organic fertilizer to maybe help 'bump' them with nutrients but again I feel the soil is nutrient rich. Should I add earth worms or any thing to help the soil over time? I am by no means an expert. Quite the contrary, I feel I am very much a novice here. Looking for any ideas or corrections to help me. I realize my focus on the soil year to year will keep growing great so trying to look for best ideas there to keep the beds fresh and nutrient rich.

Thanks in advance.

[applestar]

I hesitate to say anything because I don't have experience with wicking beds, though I've read about them, and I'm only one year into trying sub irrigated planters -- DIY storage tubs. But when I did my research for the SIP's there was strong emphasis on blending (extra large chunk) perlite and other large aggregate (composted small chip bark mulch) in the soil for aeration. So that's one thing.

The other is that I don't understand why you want the soil to be alkaline. - what's the actual number? - Many vegs prefer to be slightly acidic like 6.5 I believe, though there are some that do better in alkaline soil.

[rainbowgardener]

I agree about the alkalinity; I don't know why you wanted that.

And of course what ever you start with, over time it gets depleted as plants draw nutrients out of the soil and rain carries them away. So you have to have some program to continually be replenishing your soil. Earthworms are part of that as is mulching, adding compost, etc.

[thewyatt]

Sorry about the alkaline comment if it came across as I 'needed' that. I am sitting about 7. give or take. Over the weekend, it seems the plants are coming along a bit. Happy with the progress. The color green darkened up a bit and plants seems more strong, standing up a bit more on their own etc. Maybe I freaked too soon.

I did add some worms, rather my wife did, as she updated me on that. That was about the time of transplant. She spread them around. We also freshened up the beds that were already there with more compost, peet moss, manure, crush egg shells (only in 1 bed to see the diff in growth to the others). Need to put the hay down as I have not done this yet.

The soil is very 'fluffy'. Not sure if that is how you all explain it here. That is why we did the peet moss and compost to help let the soil breathe and aerate better. That is what I read on making these wicking beds was key. You don't want soil compaction so the water.

Do you guys think I should add anything thing like Azomite? or something to bump trace elements, essentially something different than just an NPK fertilizer? something organic?

Again, big time rookie here. Just watching youtube and reading websites... so please kick me in the proper direction.

[imafan26]

If the wicking beds are anything like the hydroponic beds over time they become clogged and plants grow smaller and poorer. Your soil is stiff fluffy so it may not be that bad.

wicking beds are like SIP only on a larger scale. I have done self irrigated planters but had the same issues as the aquaponic beds. The media on the bottom that is constantly wet becomes anaerobic and sour over time and so I just started replacing the media in the pots every time I planted to get around that. It may be more costly to do that in a wicking bed. But I think eventually the media will sour and become anaerobic from the buildup of decaying matter and silt, so eventually you will have to dig out the bottom and replace the media in the bed. Adding to the top is going to be a temporary fix only.

The media in the aquaponic beds last about 1.5-2 years before they start to have problems. Adding fresh media on top will help it for a while but the build up of silt, fertilizer and debris plugs up the air spaces and the beds don't drain properly leading to areas of pooling and a bad anaerobic smell. Algae grows on the surface. The media has to be removed and replaced. Some people flush the beds every year to get rid of the build up so they can keep the media longer.

I have not used wicking beds but we did use a wicking system that used pots.It is an autopot system. There were some problems that needed to be worked out. It worked fine in demonstration when there were only a couple of eggplant and it was tended to daily, but when it was expanded other issues occurred. It was not as automated as advertized. The reservoir was not very large (a 13 gallon trash container was used for the demo) as the plants got larger the reservoir would go dry so it needed to be filled daily. The pots were squat 3 gallon pots, not really suitable to contain large root systems. The roots ended up in the reservoir and it clogged. If there were a lot of pots in the line the elevation had to be fairly level otherwise some pots would fill and overflow while other reservoirs would not be filled enough. Large plants with root systems confined by the small pot volume had smaller leaves and yields. Media is still being experimented on coir. The media has to be replaced with each planting.
https://www.autopot-usa.com/

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2011- ... cking-beds
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-I ... king-beds/

[rainbowgardener]

Pictures always help. Let some more eyes look at your plants and see if we notice anything!