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[good idea/bad idea?] sub-irrigated wicking beds bridged to the actual ground

 
gardener
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Referring to the attached image, you've got your regular, awesome, sub-irrigated wicking bed.
They're cool because they regulate their own watering, etc.

But, what if you then add some large-diameter pipes going past the water reservoir from the soil in the bed to the soil in the actual ground below?

I'm thinking this would be an advantage because:
1) Allows nutrients/ions to exchange
2) Soil microorganisms can travel back and forth
3) Worm tunnel!

Could have problems though.  For instance:
Even if the pipe were well-sealed, I'm wondering if the ground were dry if it could still wick the water up and out of the reservoir(?)

Thoughts?
wiking-bed.png
[Thumbnail for wiking-bed.png]
 
pollinator
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First guess is that the ground may wick the water away, but why not test it.
But will the nutrients and organisms undertake the movement you are hoping to achieve.
 
gardener
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I've done this to some degree, but I did it by burying a Sub-Irrigated Planter (SIP) in the ground, next to a tree.
I could see do something similar in a raised bed, but  reasons to do so are less clear.
I build raised beds to separate my plants from the existing soil.
They generally stay moist on their own, because they are heavy in organic matter.
I could see adding a reservoir, kind of like a olla.
A buried SIP would be more resistant to freezing than an olla, and cheaper.

 
gardener
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Around here even if you have cultivated good garden soil you still might grow in a raised so to better control soil moisture.   As much as we are usually dry' there are times when we get things like tropical systems that inundated the whole area.  I think most of our rainfall ever year comes in the form of torrential downpours.

My mother built am earth ramp up and over the side of her wicking bed so soil critters could move in and out of the garden.
 
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Just thinking out loud here. Rather than go to the effort of installing the pipe in the bed, why not redirect the overflow. Wouldn't soluble nutrients exchange with overflow water?  Would the interface of pipe and water retaining membrane be a weak point for leaks in the system?
 
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