Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
I love my tabletop reverse osmosis (RO) filtering unit!
Watering Twice
ArguablyoneofthemostimportantfundamentalpracticesinTLOcontainergrowingiswateringtwice.This
can have ahugeinfluence onroothealth as well as mineral absorption. Here's howit works: youwater with
plain water, lightly, until you see some water run out the bottom of the container. Then wait for at least 1
hour (I often wait a couple of hours) then water again until you see drainage from the bottom. This evenly
saturates the container soil mix and the roots. If you do not do this, the roots will actually start guiding the
waterflowthroughthecontainerandyouwillendupwithdryspotsthatarebadforroots,andbadforplants,
especially when container growing!
I like to have trays underneath my containers so that any water that drains out initially gets sucked back
upintothesoilmixthroughtheprocessofcapillaryaction.There'snorealneedtoflushwhengrowingTLO
container-style, unless you are prone to overusing liquid nutrients, or your water is fairly high in dissolved
salts/solids. If you overdose your plants with liquid nutrients, you can usually flush these out in time if you
catchtheproblemrightaway.HigherTDS/PPMlevelsliketheonesfoundincitytap,wellandspringwater
will accumulate salts around the root zones of the plants, and will end up strangling them if you don't do
regular flushing.
Great Tabletop Reverse Osmosis and Carbon Filtering Units
Okay, no more Mr. Nice Guy—just get one of these and you will solve so many of your problems if you are
using well, spring, or city tap water, and trying to grow organically in containers. If you have no problems,
then by all means, don't change anything, but if you do have problems, reverse osmosis filtering is likely
much easier and cheaper than you anticipate it will be. A countertop reverse osmosis filtering unit (R/O fil-
ter) comes with 3 filtering chambers. Two are used for carbon filters, and one is the actual reverse osmosis
membrane thatremovesdissolvedsalts/solids.Firstthewaterhitsthepre(carbon)filter, thentheR/Omem-
