Watering Mel's Mix

I love my Mel's Mix and my boxes but the buried soaker hoses haven't been working for me. I have still been running them a couple times a week but I didn't realize that for some reason one box doesn't seem to be getting watered.

I top water two of my boxes almost every day because I am trying to sprout seeds and the water from the soaker hoses doesn't migrate upward. The other box, I wasn't top watering and it is the same one that the soaker hose is having trouble. I used a probe to find out that it was getting pretty dry.

I will give some advice... don't let your Mel's Mix get totally dried out. It is hard to get moist again when this happens. I am not sure if it forms channels or what but this box took a long time to get moist again -- several days of repeated heavy watering to get it to register moisture of 3 or 4. (1 -2 is pretty dry).

In light of this information, I am also watering empty squares now because I would rather the entire bed stay evenly moist then to have dry spots that are hard to get going again.

What works with watering? Has the SFG store started selling their solution?

I found out early on that I couldn't just water the plants -- I had to water the empty squares as well. And even then I was having a lot of trouble getting the mix hydrated. Then came a lovely rain and the Mels mix is nice a damp. I'll keep it that way by using a hose-end sprinker. I believe it was SirTravers who said he waters his boxes lightly with a sprinker, lets them rest 30 minutes or so and waters again. That seems to do a better job than just one heavy watering.

I've been having water problems as well. I notice that, after a hot day, the Mel's mix has like a crust. So when I go to water it the next day, the water just sits on the top or rolls down to the lowest part of the box (mine are on a very slight incline).

What I've found to work is to water the tops heavily and then let it set a while, which saturates the crust. Then I go through again so that the soil under the crust gets nice and moist. It's not too hard with my two and a half boxes, but it would be a pain if I had more of them.