Wicking Beds

After a successful "trial" deck garden this year, I decided on a more permanent design.

The sun exposure I get on the deck is better than in any of my gardens, especially in the latter part of the summer.

As these Wicking beds are going on the deck they, need to look nice and not just a box on legs, so I will be adding some design elements for aesthetics.

I decided to build the beds, "counter top height", @ 36", my logic is that if it is too high, I can always remove a few inches from the legs.

I designed this after Albopeppers wicking bed who was the main inspiration for this build. "Kudos Al"!

One thing I was adamant about when building these beds was placing the legs on the outside of the box. I see so many builds that they build with the legs on the inside, to me this causes more of an issue when lining the bed and interferes with placement of the perforated / corrugated pipe.

I also built these beds attaching the boards together from the inside, I did this for two reason aesthetics and to eliminate the chance of driving the screws in too far and risk puncturing the pond liner. The only screw holes showing are the initial 5 screws per leg from assembling the legs and the screws for securing to capping.

If you are reading this article and are interested in building one of these, I strongly suggest watching this first!

Like I said, this is an overkill build and you can build this much, much cheaper, but this is how I built mine.

Not sure how accurate my math is.

Entire Wicking bed Dimensions (Footprint)

49" Length
25" Width
37.5" depth

Actual Box "Outside" dimensions

45" Length
24" Width
22" depth (23.5" with capping)

Actual Box "Inside" dimensions

42" Length
21" Width
17" depth (18.5" with capping)
12.375" Soil Depth

Volume Calculator

Total Volume (FIX)

8.68 Cubic Feet
14,994 Cubic Inches
245.7 Liters
64.9 US Gallons

Water Reservoir

4.6 Reservoir and Air depth (3.5" water)
13.36 US Gallons
50.6 Liters

Air Volume

4.6 Reservoir and Air depth
551 Cubic Inches

Soil Volume

12.4" Soil Depth
47.3 US Gallons
179.2 Liters
6.33 Cubic Feet

Cut list for both wicking beds (only for legs, boxes)

2x4x36 (8) legs
2x6x36(8) legs

2x6x45 (16) Front panel
2x6x21 (16) Side panel

2x4x15 (4) Upright Brace

2x4x42 (4) Floor Support

I left some of the cut list out because its better to build the main components and physically measure each piece due to inconsistencies in the wood widths.

Here is my "box" cut list for the wood I had in my area, your area may differ.

2x6x10 #one 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #two 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #three 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #four 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #five 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #six 45" 45" 21" (9" off cut)
2x6x10 #seven 45" 21" 21" 21" (12" off cut)
2x6x10 #eight 45" 21" 21" 21" (12" off cut)
2x6x10 #nine 45" 21" 21" 21" (12" off cut)
2x6x10 #ten 45" 21"

Using a countersink Bit and 2-1/2" screws and clamps, I secured the 2x6 to the 2 x 4 with 5 screws in each leg.

How to do inside corner folds

The trial Garden got away from me.

I decided to clean up the corner a bit, removed some plants, and trimmed a bit.

I got smart for this project and setup a shop vac and my Saw station. I setup a jig to ensure all cuts were exactly the same.

All the wood is cut for the Legs.

2x4x36 (8) legs
2x6x36(8) legs

Legs are built using five 2.5" decking screws per leg.

Here I am just sorting through the legs looking for the best looking legs that will be seen.

Box fronts are cut.

Box sides are cut.

Selecting the best boards for the front.

Laying out the legs.

Best side of the boards facing down.

I decided to use Pipe clamps on this project. The clamps make the job much easier but do take forever to setup, but hey, its not a race!

Boards are clamped together for a tight fit. Boards are then screwed in place with 2.5" decking screws.

Front #1 completed

Selecting the next 4 boards and repeating three more times.

The fronts and backs are completed.

Clamping the top 2 side boards to the front and back panels.

Bed is flipped on its side and the other 3 boards are added then clamped in place and secured with 2.5" decking screws.

Repeat three more times.

Sides for the floor boards.

Floor Boards are added leaving about an 1/8" gap all around, this is done for drainage in case water gets behind the liner, which I highly doubt.

Both boxes are completed, however I go a step further, the following steps do add structural strength to the boxes and is also an aesthetics choice but is not needed.

There are no measurements in my cut list for these pieces because it is much better to measure and cut each piece individually due to the inconsistencies in the widths of the lumber.

And this is my little cheat.

I figured this area is in the back and up against the fence and wouldn't be seen, however I did add one vertical piece in the center for wood stability.

Next up was the water reservoir, but first I cut the 5' x 15' 45 EPDM rubber liner in half and placed the liner on the deck in the sun to soften a bit.

Then I cut 8 pieces of the 4" Perforated, corrugated pipe to about a half inch shorter than the inside width of the boxes.

I cut a 1" piece of the pipe for a template, laid all the pieces in place and measured a center mark at 3.5" from the botton

I drilled a quarter inch hole in the center.

Using a forstener bit I drilled a hole large enough for a 1/2" pvc pipe, following the previous drilled 1/4" hole as a guide.

Up next was the tedious task of working on the pipes. I cut some pond under lament to size, secured with electrical tape then secured with zip ties making sure that the zip tie ends were all in the same place, I used the green stripe on the pipe as a reference.

Pond liner is installed and we used an inside corner fold, if you know an old school nurse they will be able to help you, utilizing "hospital bed folds" lol.

After the liner was installed and secured with staples the PVC is pushed through the hole and against the liner, at the center of the pipe, using a knife, I sliced an "X" in the liner, pushed the pipe through about 5" further than needed,.

I then siliconed a good portion of the outside of the pipe and pulled the pipe back out 5". This made sure silicone was on both sides.

I then dabbed the silicone with my finger, after an hour I then added more silicone. While the silicone was curing I worked on the capping. Again there are no measurements for the capping, I felt it safer to measure each individual piece and install for the best fit.

After the silicone was semi cured I cut an "X" in the fabric right where the PVC was and slid the pipe over the PVC.

Now onto the Fill tube. PVC Pipe is cut on a 45° angle

Drilling the hole for the 1.5" PVC fill pipe.

Bead of silicone on the end before inserting into the perforated pipe.

PVC pipe is slowly slid into perforated pipe in a twisting motion.

Dabbed silicone with finger.

A piece of pond underlament is notched with an "X" and slid over top of the fill pipe and also covers the drain area as well. This is most likely overkill but the underlament wicks really well and I figured it wouldn't hurt the wicking ability of the bed.

Time to mix the Wicking media. My mix for the wicking media was as follows;

6 parts Peat Moss (60%)
3 Parts Vermiculite (30%)
1 Part Perlite (10%)

Media is mixed dry.

Mixing container with media is placed on top of the wicking bed and 2 gallons of water are mixed in.

Media is added to the beds. I used my 4 fingers as a spacer for insuring the wicking media would go between the pipes. After I worked the media in best I could, I used a gallon jug and poured water down the 4 sides and between the pipes checking spacing with my fingers and working the media in to insure good wicking action. I did this twice.

Mixing up the actual pottng mix

My "Rough Estimate" mix for the potting media was as follows;

14 parts Peat Moss (75%)
3 Parts Vermiculite (12.5%)
2 parts Pine Bark Fines (8%)
1 Part Perlite (4%)
1 bag of potting mix

I added 3 cups of Garden Lime to each above mix.

Added some embellishments

August 29th, 2020

Time to try out the new wicking beds. I dug out the first 4 inches or so and worked in some 10-10-10 and Blood Meal. I'll be planting 3 week old seedlings of Suzhou Bock Choy and Green Pack Choy. I'm also testing out the spacing. Now if the squirrels stay out of the beds, I'll be golden! I mixed up the seedlings so I'm not sure which is which.

More Embellishments

3 Weeks Old

3 X 6 (18)

4 X 8 (32)

Bok choy is started this is the left side bed with the exception of the first picture which is the right side bed

August 29th (20 days) Right side

August 31st (23 days) Left Side

September 11th (33 days)

September 20th (40 days)

September 30th (50 days)

October 1st (51 days)

This is the right side bed

September 1st (24 days)

September 7th (31 days)

September 11th (35 days)

September 13th (37 days)

September 20th (44 days)

September 30th (54 days)

October 1st (55 days)

October 3rd (57 days)

October 9th

October 22nd

Notes...

45-50 days seems to be the optimal harvesting time for the Bok Choy, The Bok Choy in the right side bed seemed to get a lot more leafy as opposed the the Bok Choy in the left side bed that got more stalk growth, this may be due to the spacing, but I'm not sure, but they seem to do OK crowded.

I had to top water often in the beginning to establish the plants, I lost a few seedlings the first two weeks and just plugged in new ones as I had a few still in the seed trays. I'm guessing that the wicking action for shallow rooted plants won't benefit as much as it would for deeper rooted plants.

Squirrels lost interest in the beds once the Bok Choy was established, I'm guessing that they were digging in the soil to cache some food.

The right side bed had some critter that I could not identify, chewing up the leaves, damage was minimal and I didn't want t o spray.

I stopped taking photos in late October but we were still harvesting Bok Choy till early December and never did harvest it all, there are still a few plants left but they are covered under snow.

I'm calling this a total success and feel confident growing Bok Choy as a fall crop, I'll be trying Spinach, Bok Choy and Snow Peas in early spring.

October 22nd

Yay snow

Now since the snow is out of the way it's time to update this page, The Fall crop done really well so I figured I would try an early spring crop.

Here is what we got lined up for our early spring crop.

Suzhou Baby Bok Choy
Parris Island Romaine Lettuce
Gigante D' Inverno Spinach

Soil Prep for each bed contains 2 cups of 10-10-10 and 1/2 cup of Blood Meal;

4 inches of soil is moved to one side and 1 cup of 10-10-10 is sprinkled evenly then covered, repeat on the other side.

Plants are put in and a depression row between the plant row is formed and a half cup of Blood Meal is sprinkled in this depression and slightly covered with soil.

The Spinach was ready to harvest sparingly at 53 days, to be more accurate it was actually 29 days from transplanting and 53 days from seed.

The Spinach was ready to harvest more aggressively at 59 days, to be more accurate it was actually 34 days from transplanting and 59 days from seed. A few heads of Romaine can be harvested and one or two heads of Bok Choy can be harvested.

By April 24th I had to get my Summer Crops in so I interplanted them with the greens and will harvest around the summer plants so they don't get chocked out. No fertilizer has been worked in yet.

A few things to be aware of with the Spring crop, it's best to terminate the plants mid May, late May at the latest, the reason is two fold. The summer plants get very leggy when interplanting with the greens and the Greens start getting loaded with pests.

Here is what was planted,

Left Bed Left to Right

Back Row Left Bed - California Wonder - Eggplant "Black Beauty" - Tomato "Box Car Willie".

Front Row Left Bed - Jalapeno - Lipstick Pepper - Hungarian Wax - Pepperoncini

Right Bed Left to Right

Back Row Right Bed - Emerald Giant - Eggplant "Rosita" - Tomato "Abe Lincoln".

Front Row - Jimmy Nardello - Jimmy Nardello - Jimmy Nardello

By April 27th, (38 days from transplanting) everything was ready to be harvested, however, we can't eat it all at once so we will have to see what happens. I don't stagger plantings because my cool weather crops bolt pretty quickly.

Two heads of Romaine and some spinach is plenty for a large salad for two, sometimes Laura will blanch and refrigerate some Blue Curled Scotch Kale for the salad.

The Bok Choy cooks down quite a bit so we will pick two full heads and that will usually get us three decent servings. Laura cooks it down but not completely, with some olive oil, a zesting of ginger, a pinch of salt then adds some soy sauce and sesame oil, we love it!

When full plants are harvested, the roots are removed from the beds and left to dry out, the potting mix is added back off into the bed by tapping the dried roots, the roots then go into the compost bin. The reason for this is, I don't want too much organic matter decomposing in the bed and adversely affecting how the wicking beds perform.

OK, So I know that Spinach, Romaine and Bok Choy do great in the early spring and that Bok Choy does great in the Fall, now we get to see how well these wicking beds do for some summer crops.

In the fall I'll add Spinach and Romaine to the Bok Choy and see what happens.

June 25th

Let's see how the wicking beds are doing with the summer crops. The summer plants were put in the last weekend in April when I was still growing my fall crop and the plants got a bit leggy. I snapped one of the tomato plants in half trying to straighten it, you can see the tomato plant on the right side of the bed in a jar of water. I just placed the top in a jar of water until I got a strong root system then replanted.

June 1st, I fertilized with a cup of 10-10-10 in each bed Early June. I dug in a trench about 4" deep in front of the plants, spread out he 10-10-10 and covered.

June 25th, added a 1/4 cup of sea minerals to each bed.

June 28th, I top Fertilized with 1/2 cup of Tomato Tone to each bed.

The beds have been filled on May 15th, June 28th so far

June 8th

L-R Back - California Wonder, Black Beauty Eggplant, Box Car Willie Tomato

L-R Front - Jalapeno, Lipstick Pepper, Hungarian Wax

June 8th

L-R Back - Emerald Giant, Rosita Eggplant, Abe Lincoln Tomato

L-R Front - Jimmy Nardello, Jimmy Nardello, Jimmy Nardello

(Dill in the far back)

June 19th

June 24th

June 27th

I really need to come up with a better support system. The Jimmy Nardeloo peppers are Sun Scalded pretty pad.

Lemon and a Lime tree

The left planter is a Meyer Lemon and a Lime tree, this goes inside every winter, the planter in the right is for whatever I feel like planting in the growing season, right now there is a white Tomesol Tomato plant in there.

I just installed a drip line to each planter.

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