Dry soil, water won't penetrate help

Oddone13 said:

Over the holidays I went to visit family and came home to very dry plants. I watered as normal and the top soil looked fine. Stuck my finger in to make sure and it was bone dry about an inch down. Put a pencil in to make sure and all the way down the soil wasn't wet at all. I'm growing in happy frog and would appreciate any suggestions on how to fix this issue

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Lucky Luke said:

Water a little bit and wait 30 mins, water a little more and wait 30 min. Then give them a good soaking.

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MichiganMedGrower said:

Can scratch up the top half in of soil with a fork or something.

Also a drop of dishwashing liquid in the water acts as a wetting agent.

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jondamon said:

A simple fix is to flood it.

Take your pot and submerge it in the bath or a bucket.

Wait for all air bubbles to stop and hey presto your plants medium is now resaturated.

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Oddone13 said:

I tried this method and didn't have any luck. Just got only the top inch or so wet. Seems like no matter how long I waited in between or how little water I gave at a time, it all ran out the sides after that top in


I did both of these as well along with slow spaced out watering and still had no penetration deeper than an inch. Possible my soil is just done for?


5 gallon square buckets and plants are 18in tall. I tried the bath tub method as well as previous replies in this post. The plant would literally lift out of the pot and float instead of getting the soil saturated. No matter how many times I pushed it down and got it flooded in water, I would dig down a bit too check and still BONE dry anything under the crust

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