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This experiment began on 9/7/15. Have been wanting to try sand for awhile so here we go.
The sand is coarse, filter grade I got from the local sand plant. It was rinsed prior to using but not sterilized.
The buckets are probably 3 gallon. It doesn't say anywhere on them. I got them from a local baby food manufacturer.
As the photo's show, the wicking bucket bottoms were modified to have a screen and four wick holes. I'm not certain the screen was even necessary but for some reason I thought it might be necessary to have a drain. Any case, no water drains from the screen hole.
The wicks are a heavy yarn type of material. Honestly I don't even know what it is but it was in the garage. To test the wicking of it I simply filled a glass half full of water and stuck a 1 ft long piece of it in the water. Within a minute it was wicking out on the cabinet so I figured it would work. There are four wicks per bucket, 1 ft long.
The reservoir buckets were linked together with standard irrigation hose that's the same size as aquarium air hose, just brown in color. I drilled the holes for the pieces of tubing small so the tubing fits tight. It's not under any pressure and there are no leaks.
The cut bucket reservoir is a handy indicator of water consumption and shows the level in all the buckets. Records indicate that roughly 1/8 of an inch is evaporating from this system every 2-3 days, void of growth. Remains to be seen how much it uses once we have growing plants.
After it was all put together, the sand went in each bucket equally. So there is enough in a 50 pound bag to fill my eight buckets to 2.5 inches depth. The cuttings were laid in each bucket horizontally and covered with sand and then they were watered with the kitchen sink sprayer head to level the sand and settle it around the cuttings. Each cutting is within the top inch of sand in each bucket.
That light is the 2ft x 4ft eight bulb I just got recently and it's just sitting on the top of the buckets for now. I have been picking it up every morning and evening for the past few days to check for any activity. First sign of growth this evening from a Valley Black cutting I got from Brian. I hope the rest follow.
This sand wicking has really surprised me. I had no idea sand would do this, especially coarse sand. As long as the surface isn't disturbed, the sand stays moist from the wicking action. All of the sand. If the surface is disturbed, that area will dry out. There is evidence of this in some of the buckets where I poked my finger in, trying to see if the sand was moist. It is, all the time. I was afraid it might be too moist and it still yet may prove to be. There is a bond between the granules of sand from the first watering/settling. If it is disturbed the bond is broken but may be re-bonded with using a spray bottle to soak the sand. I did this a couple of times being curious and digging some.
The eight lucky varieties for this are from photo view, far back row left to right...
Valle Negra - Valley Black - Longue d'Aout - Salem Dark
Front row left to right...
Vashon Violette - Gillette - 3 Lobe Unk - Abebereira
The couple of times I sprayed the sand after disturbing it, all the buckets got sprayed with 10 squirts of the sprayer bottle. Inside the sprayer bottle is the fertigation recipe I borrowed from a thread by Pete on f4f http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox....igate&trail=50 (Miracle Grow All purpose). Starting with 1/2 teaspoon / gallon of water for newly rooted cuttings.
I figured it wouldn't hurt and if they did sprout they would need something by the way of fertilizer since sand has basically zero anything. So they have been sprayed equally with the diluted solution. I will continue with this weekly and observe.
That's about all I can think of for now. Welcome to the experiment.
The sand is coarse, filter grade I got from the local sand plant. It was rinsed prior to using but not sterilized.
The buckets are probably 3 gallon. It doesn't say anywhere on them. I got them from a local baby food manufacturer.
As the photo's show, the wicking bucket bottoms were modified to have a screen and four wick holes. I'm not certain the screen was even necessary but for some reason I thought it might be necessary to have a drain. Any case, no water drains from the screen hole.
The wicks are a heavy yarn type of material. Honestly I don't even know what it is but it was in the garage. To test the wicking of it I simply filled a glass half full of water and stuck a 1 ft long piece of it in the water. Within a minute it was wicking out on the cabinet so I figured it would work. There are four wicks per bucket, 1 ft long.
The reservoir buckets were linked together with standard irrigation hose that's the same size as aquarium air hose, just brown in color. I drilled the holes for the pieces of tubing small so the tubing fits tight. It's not under any pressure and there are no leaks.
The cut bucket reservoir is a handy indicator of water consumption and shows the level in all the buckets. Records indicate that roughly 1/8 of an inch is evaporating from this system every 2-3 days, void of growth. Remains to be seen how much it uses once we have growing plants.
After it was all put together, the sand went in each bucket equally. So there is enough in a 50 pound bag to fill my eight buckets to 2.5 inches depth. The cuttings were laid in each bucket horizontally and covered with sand and then they were watered with the kitchen sink sprayer head to level the sand and settle it around the cuttings. Each cutting is within the top inch of sand in each bucket.
That light is the 2ft x 4ft eight bulb I just got recently and it's just sitting on the top of the buckets for now. I have been picking it up every morning and evening for the past few days to check for any activity. First sign of growth this evening from a Valley Black cutting I got from Brian. I hope the rest follow.
This sand wicking has really surprised me. I had no idea sand would do this, especially coarse sand. As long as the surface isn't disturbed, the sand stays moist from the wicking action. All of the sand. If the surface is disturbed, that area will dry out. There is evidence of this in some of the buckets where I poked my finger in, trying to see if the sand was moist. It is, all the time. I was afraid it might be too moist and it still yet may prove to be. There is a bond between the granules of sand from the first watering/settling. If it is disturbed the bond is broken but may be re-bonded with using a spray bottle to soak the sand. I did this a couple of times being curious and digging some.
The eight lucky varieties for this are from photo view, far back row left to right...
Valle Negra - Valley Black - Longue d'Aout - Salem Dark
Front row left to right...
Vashon Violette - Gillette - 3 Lobe Unk - Abebereira
The couple of times I sprayed the sand after disturbing it, all the buckets got sprayed with 10 squirts of the sprayer bottle. Inside the sprayer bottle is the fertigation recipe I borrowed from a thread by Pete on f4f http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox....igate&trail=50 (Miracle Grow All purpose). Starting with 1/2 teaspoon / gallon of water for newly rooted cuttings.
I figured it wouldn't hurt and if they did sprout they would need something by the way of fertilizer since sand has basically zero anything. So they have been sprayed equally with the diluted solution. I will continue with this weekly and observe.
That's about all I can think of for now. Welcome to the experiment.
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