Saturday, May 16 and our little pepper friends are telling us it’s time for their first watering.
Previously: The First 3 Days. Or, start from the beginning of The Pepper Project.
It’s 9:30am, so the sun is up. But it’s not at peak yet.
The plants are still upright overall, with decent color and intact growth tips. But the leaves are definitely tightening and hanging more than they were yesterday morning.
What it looks like now is not “collapse,” but increasing evaporative stress. The plants are spending more of the day in defensive posture instead of growth posture.
And since this project is about “Can compost biology and moisture management establish a productive crop without conventional inputs?” and not “Can peppers survive abuse?”, it might be time to manage that moisture.
And here’s the real evidence. When we look at the soil moisture readings, they all seem to be hovering around the line between “moist” and “dry”.
What would we do without our trusty cheapo moisture meter?
In these early phases, preserving momentum matters more than testing toughness. So it’s time for a maintenance watering. No emergency soak, just enough to get that meter back up to the high end of “moist”
We ran the hose at the base of each plant for about 8 seconds. Nothing major.
And here they are at about 10:50am, only about an hour after watering. Even though the sun is higher now, they look better already.
What’s important to note is how quickly they responded to a relatively modest watering. That usually means:
- roots are functional
- the soil is accepting and holding moisture properly
- oxygen levels are likely still good
- the plants weren’t damaged, just approaching their comfort threshold
Good timing.
Another important observation about our system: the mulched inter-row zones are still reading high moist. That means our system is doing a good job so far of holding onto moisture.