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can someone tell me a good, cheap wetting agent solution that i can add to my soil so it will absorb water?

kurtgoodrich;1222759 wrote: can someone tell me a good, cheap wetting agent solution that i can add to my soil so it will absorb water?


Is that another newby I see coming to tell us?

????.....coming to tell you what?

kurtgoodrich;1222759 wrote: can someone tell me a good, cheap wetting agent solution that i can add to my soil so it will absorb water? There are many brands of water retention crystals on the market now.

SoilMoist - Reduce Amount of Water for Vigorous Plants

Or if you google 'Water retention crystals for plants' there are many available.

can i just add some liquid detergent to a gallon of water and mix it with my soil?

You guys need a wetting agent in Britain? Geesh. Just use wood chips and mulch works for us and we are really dry ...............oh that reminds me .........see ya in a sec.

i'm in the u.s. and i was using some soil i had around added some soil additives, and the water just rolled off when i added it.

kurtgoodrich;1222762 wrote: ????.....coming to tell you what?


We have a continual trickle of people signing up putting questions they've copied off the web in order to subsequently advertise their own products and it's a bore dealing with them. It's called Viral Advertising.

You might well be a perfectly innocent chap signing up to the site but two questions immediately arise, firstly whether you did any reading here before you posted (in which case you'd realize gardening is a minor and entirely accidental aspect of the site) and secondly why you didn't just use Google - I had a quick look and found Gardening Australia - Fact Sheet: Soil Wetting Agents & Gels which seems pretty germane.

We're friendly, we don't bite, we have a lot of viral advertising directed at us. By all means hang around and post - viral advertisers don't do that, they only make write-only visits.

kurtgoodrich;1222768 wrote: can i just add some liquid detergent to a gallon of water and mix it with my soil?


The detergent would kill the plants

oooooh....lol......no, i'm not selling anything it's an honest question.

i only meant like a half a teaspoon to a gallon, i've read somewhere that that works but really wanted some input before i tried it.

kurtgoodrich;1222772 wrote: i'm in the u.s. and i was using some soil i had around added some soil additives, and the water just rolled off when i added it.


It must be pretty bad soil if it won't absorb water with all the rain you've been receiving.

kurtgoodrich;1222777 wrote: oooooh....lol......no, i'm not selling anything it's an honest question.


Then I apologise unreservedly - you'd be amazed how many times we see it and I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion.

Mustang;1222785 wrote: It must be pretty bad soil if it won't absorb water with all the rain you've been receiving.


its bag soil i had laying around, my yard's doin just fine

Bryn Mawr;1222786 wrote: Then I apologise unreservedly - you'd be amazed how many times we see it and I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion.


no problem, i can imagine......like i said, i'm not selling anything, but i do have some good ideas

kurtgoodrich;1222788 wrote: its bag soil i had laying around, my yard's doin just fine


What is "bag soil"?

I find that if the soil won't easily absorb water, then time's the secret. Keep putting a little on and then a little more, and it'll soon start to soak it up.

Bill Sikes;1222793 wrote: What is "bag soil"?

I find that if the soil won't easily absorb water, then time's the secret. Keep putting a little on and then a little more, and it'll soon start to soak it up.


just some store bought top soil and another bag of peat moss seed starter i found in my mom's shed i mixed it all together and water rolls off of it like water off a duck's back...lol

You've bought 'potting mix' , which is meant to drain not absorb.

Are you planting in pots or ground?

kurtgoodrich;1222789 wrote: no problem, i can imagine......like i said, i'm not selling anything, but i do have some good ideas Is your soil hard and compacted? If so...... spike it as much as you can with a fork.

You can also buy some device what screws into the end of a bottle of water that you place upside down in the soil.

kurtgoodrich;1222780 wrote: i only meant like a half a teaspoon to a gallon, i've read somewhere that that works but really wanted some input before i tried it.isn't that supposed to be good for repelling bugs and critters?:-2