4-H project...

My son and I worked on his first 4-H project last weekend -- a pair of citrus trees (Murcot). The rules of the game state that we have to grow the trees in the approved black, two-gallon containers. Unable to resist the urge to tinker, I came up with these cache-pots, four-gallon food service containers that used to hold hard-boiled eggs (who knew?). The cache-pots should reflect some of the heat, an important consideration since roots typically stop growing when the temperature rises above ninety degrees. I used "Al's mix" (from GardenWeb) -- two parts pine fines, one part perlite, one part peat, lime, micronutrients, and slow-release fertilizer. There are two wicks in this set-up: One wick connects the medium in the black containers to a small reservoir of water in the white bucket/cache-pot (self-watering). The other wick runs from the black pots and out the white bucket (through a small hole I drilled two inches from the bottom of the white buckets; the hole serves as a drain for the white buckets). This wick makes sure that the medium never gets too wet. So, there are two "opposed" wicks: one brings moisture into the medium, the other wicks excess moisture away. (If you are interested in container growing and the use of wicks, Al's post is the place to start.)