Wicking bed question

Hi   I set up 6 150 Gallon Rubbermaid livestock water troughs as wicking beds . I put 6' drainage pipe in as a water reservoir covered by a foot of sand . That is total depth of sand including the drainage pipe of 12" . Then landscaping fabric . The growing medium is 50% peat moss mixed with 50% cow/ mushroom compost . Also some vermiculite , perlite  and lime .   The wicking action is not great so i am watering from above as well as from below .Growing medium is 10" deep .

Did i make a mistake by using sand ? Would sand be OK if i used less in terms of depth ?

Your insights would be appreciated .

Thanks

I've never used sand so I can't say that that is the problem. I just lay the weed barrier on topand tucked it between my coils of convoluted tubing.  I just used the same planting mix on top of the tubing.

Francis, Welcome to the forum.

We tried doing a pipe like you are describing and it did not work.

I think of a wicking bed as being something like what I call my self-watering planters.

Somehow it would help if you had something that would hold water with soil on top.

Maybe a layer of pea gravel will work.

Something like is explained here:

https://permies.com/t/137129/Lava-Rock-wicking-bed

I am using some wicking beds this year for the first time. They are IBC containers, copied from Rob Bob of Youtube fame. They are wicking very well, in fact they are absolutely kicking ass!

They have some coiled ag pipe and pea gravel as a water reservoir and then sand on top of, and in between this reservoir. So the sand is the wicking material. Also, there is an inch of straw in between the sand and the dirt.

I would definitely recommend you look at Rob Bob's videos to see what I am talking about. I think he makes smaller scale ones as well. I am absolutely blown away at how things are growing in them.

I have many wicking beds/ containers and I never use sand or gravel.
Here's what I do use:

Wicking soil from top to the bottom of the container and surrounding the  inverted buckets I use for reservoirs.
I use strait peat below the waterline, then mix compost and peat.
I cut slits in the buckets to allow water to flow in and out while excluding soil.
I cut a horizontal slit in the side of the container as an overflow.
No landscape fabric needed.

Sand added to soil mixes is said to improve drainage.
This is kind of the opposite of wicking.
There is sandponics, which uses sand as a growing medium,  but I'm pretty sure this exploits sands ability to filter  water, not wick it.
Sandy soil that's low in organic matter  are not noted for their ability to retain water,rather the opposit.

I am not satisfied with the sustainability of peat but it wicking ability and price point are excellent.
I think biochar will be a good substitute but I've not followed through on implementing it.

Hi Francis, If you watch this 8 minute video by Geoff Lawton you can see how he builds his wicking beds. https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/humans-have-the-potential-to-turn-deserts-into-a-green-oasis/ Happy gardening.