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Garden

Help water go deep into soil

By JOHN A. STARNES JR.
Published July 1, 2006

Have you ever been frustrated trying to hand-water a garden plant, only to watch helplessly as the water beaded up as if on wax paper? Join the crowd. Prolonged drought causes a dust barrier in our sandy soil, so even a rare welcome rain dampens only the surface. Get sweet gardener's revenge with a few cheap and easy solutions.

Despite the soaking from Tropical Storm Alberto recently, and the start of our summer thunderstorms, you may find your soil is still dry. My rain gauge recorded 5 inches from Alberto, but the next day, when I planted several rows of vegetables, I hit pockets of dry soil near the surface.

A short-term fix is to apply a surfactant to your soil to help that water penetrate. For many years my favorite has been the increasingly hard to find dishwashing liquid Octagon Crystal White, drizzled lightly directly onto the soil just before a deep watering or downpour. One bottle will do a 10- by 10-square foot area. Any clear store brand of dishwashing liquid free of antibacterial agents or grease cutters will work. Never use Dawn in the garden; it can fry plants. So will a mild budget shampoo like Suave.

Or you can drop a bar of Kirk's Castile soap into a 5-gallon bucket of water and let it sit in the sun a few days until it dissolves, then splash the soapy water onto that water-repellent soil. That first good deep watering will rinse these surfactants down into the soil so the water can follow.

But the long-term solution is to avoid bare soil. A thick mulch shades and cools the soil to prevent deep drying in the first place and acts as a water-retaining wick to reduce losses to evaporation.

As a nice mulch of "coastal hay" from a feed store or chipped mulch from a tree trimming service (my favorite) decays, natural soil-wetting agents are released by beneficial bacteria and fungi. Mulching annually will turn your funky sand into dark, humusy soil (imagine that, in Florida) that defies drying beneath that protective blanket of organic matter.

I use the Octagon Crystal White in my portable dishwasher. I set a plastic dishpan in the sink to catch the gray water and pour it into a 5-gallon bucket so I can spot-water dry areas in my gardens with this surfactant-laden recycled water. The bits of food waste in the water help to feed the soil as they decompose. (Don't use regular dishwashing liquid in an automatic dishwasher; you'll have an explosion of suds.)

Don't try this at home with conventional dishwasher powders. Most if not all are loaded with sodium, which is very damaging to plants.

I think we are looking at a future in Florida of increasingly less available water. It makes sense to turn our sand from wax paper into a sponge beneath our landscapes and gardens.

John A. Starnes Jr., born in Key West, is an avid organic gardener and rosarian who studies, collects, cultivates and hybridizes roses for Florida. He can be reached at johnastarnes@msn.com.

[Last modified June 30, 2006, 10:17:48]