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Syracuse, NY

I've been seeing vids on YouTube about growing mediums (Ha Ha - Maybe that's why MY 'Medium'-sized pumpkins) and it's been said by ME that 'large' spaces between soil particles may exhibit less contact with roots in general, so, my SUPPosition it that the finer the particles the better and supposedly impenetrable earth may be beneficial to some extent. Also, see this example of an AGs roots extending to 27.5 inches in 2023, experimentally.
My PB, lol---eric g

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=336524

1/17/2025 5:44:18 AM

Grittyville, WA

Yeah I think they'd easily grow this deep out in my patch if they could. Fortunately for me they're also good at spreading laterally and if I can encourage lateral spread it might make up for the lack of depth. But I really like your experiment. I could set up a pair of tubes, kinda like that, to test whether mixing my soil or leaving it stratified (hopefully the correct fancy geology word) would give a better result.

[Last edit: 01/17/25 11:06:31 AM]

1/17/2025 11:03:40 AM

Syracuse, NY

Funny that I just yesterday checked that structure I made and the soil (Probably Jiffy-Mix with Myco in it) has shrunken enough to leave a 5-6-inch gap between the top chamber and the start of the SS Mix in the downtube, and therein it is also still wet from that long ago. I'd suggest to anyone to improve the potential for airflow through their own contraption. On mine, I'd drill about a dozen holes into the bottom container and the entire GOAL of this was to get the roots to get to the bottom and grow in a mass down there. THAT woulda made my day! I had said in my Diary that maybe the root stopped growing downward because it 'hit' 'paywater';
No sense looking under the Happy Meal?
'Food 4 thought', lol---eric g

[Last edit: 01/17/25 7:30:36 PM]

1/17/2025 7:29:13 PM

Grittyville, WA

I think if we studied roots we'd see they can act moderately intelligent. Why not keep growing? Well I guess it had its reasons.

1/17/2025 9:09:37 PM