Feeding My Girls With Well Water

[Newbie2Yields]

Anyone else water their plants with straight well water?

 

[Oldchucky]

Yep

 

[Southernuncle21]

Yep, takes it no problem.

 

[Newbie2Yields]

Is your water considered Hard? I’ve heard / read that well water can carry high levels of calcium and magnesium, which can lock the roots up from the necessary nutrients.

 

[Southernuncle21]

Is your water considered Hard? I’ve heard / read that well water can carry high levels of calcium and magnesium, which can lock the roots up from the necessary nutrients.

Never had a problem. I don't even worry about pH. I grow organic and make compost and compost tea from scratch. Down south and up north never had a problem. Indoor grows included. Idk if hard water is a problem where you live. All I can say is take a guinea pig plant and give it straight well water and see what it does.

 

[Oldchucky]

I think all well water is probably considered hard. My friend brought up a blue lab and I checked it for the first time this year. Around seven pH. With an EC of .3. And checked with a nitrate strip and almost no nitrate. Was pleased with those results but the plants were going to get it whether they liked it or not. What you are growing in makes a big difference. And it doesn’t hurt To know your pH and maybe your EC. But I wasn’t going to shell out 200 bucks to find out. Got it done for free. All well water is not the same. But you were growing medium can make up for a lot of variances in your water. Had well water in Indiana that smelled like rotten eggs. Who knows the plant might’ve loved it.

 

[Oldchucky]

The nitrate strips were more to prove to me that my septic wasn’t fucking up my well water. L O L

 

[BigBlonde]

Well water tends to have more dissolved minerals in it than river water, for example, because it has had more contact time with the soil. Generally, the deeper the well, the longer the water has been in contact with the soil, thus deep wells tend to have harder water. The types of dissolved minerals depends on the composition of the soil.

 

[Deadstill]

Anyone else water their plants with straight well water?

You should have your well water tested to find out exactly what minerals and elements it has, and work from there. For example, my well water has a LOT of calcium, iron, and magnesium, so you can imagine how little cal-mag I use

 

[Tremojem]

Great thread.

I too have a well. The hardness changes with the seasons. It is always changing. I treat my water, but if I ran tests at regular intervals for both PH and EC, I am confident I could graph the data and get a good indication of the lowest lows and highest highs. I also use an RO system, immediately following the original treatment for hardness.

For the sake of ease I use the RO water. I did a test of the well water a couple years ago and found it had a very high EC, which should correlate to a high rate of hardness.

I have had my water treatment system for almost 30 years. Upgraded the RO system about three years ago.

Kinetico makes both systems. Funny thing, when I upgraded the RO system it included a five gallon tank, but I took advantage of the offer for an additional 5 gallon tank at no cost to me.

I can say without reservation, Kinetico is superior. No electricity required. Tunable to ever changing water source, as mentioned above. Simply swap out a "hardness" disk, and adjust float level according to disk selection.

My only ask is a new system that adjusted automatically to water hardness, but that would require a smart monitoring module that continously tested the incoming source of water and woukd require electricity.

I am not opposed to that, but more room for errors and failures related to that monitor. Whereas, now it is simplistic, reliable and after 30 years of service, no failures.

I don't claim to know anything about the technology, but can say this. I know of no other systems that last 30 years, and are still running. My two resin tanks have never been replaced or recharged. Albeit, I also have not had a reason to look any further into emerging technologies, so there may very well be others out there now that are equal or better in quality than my system.

Salt usage is the only drawback. I use about $6.99 a month of salt. Additionally, if not correctly set up (disk and float) you can have too much salt in your water, and that is as bad as the original hard water, with regard to appliances like hot water heater, washing machine, dishwasher, etc.

Maybe there is a better way. Please let me know, if you have any insight.

Best to you.

 

[chuck88]

I have no idea what is "in" my well water but the ppm is ~500 and ph is ~7.5

Using five gallon fabric pots with ProMix HP and feeding Mega Crop one part, no ph down...

For years I hauled city water, then used ph down, then got tired of it all and just went with it

Turns out the plants love it !

BTW > well is 86' deep...

Cheers

 

[Tremojem]

Sounds like a drilled well, at 86 feet. I just have an old hand laid stone wall well. About 120 year old. Older if installed before house was built, as that was again, about 120 years ago.

About 3.5 to 4 feet wide and 24 to 26 feet deep.

I would love to use it, but know better (speaking of my well only, not judging others)...now you got me thinking. For fun, I will test it and report out here. This will only give a snapshot of its EC and PH values for the day of test. It will change with Spring melt etc.

Best to you.

 

[Oldchucky]

Checked mine with a borrowed blue lab. 150 EC, around 7PH. Dumb luck strikes again!

 

[Grower1974]

Is your water considered Hard? I’ve heard / read that well water can carry high levels of calcium and magnesium, which can lock the roots up from the necessary nutrients.

This^^^^^^.

My drilled well water slowly locks out any plant I give it to. It's terrible and toxic (not to humans). Iron bacteria, iron, mag, and cal are VERY high. Even though the PPM is 110-125, it's what actually makes up that PPM that matters. PPM doesn't mean anything unless you get your water tested and know what is actually driving those numbers up. It could be beneficial, it could be harmful.

The best water is water from nature 99% of the time. Rain water, lake water, melted snow etc.