Watering woes: dry spots, mycelia, and gopher holes

[plantingplants]

I was watering today and noticed some puddling in between two plants (I have connected mounds). I scraped away the surface and found a shitload of mycelium (as well as a lot of mushrooms), a whole lot of dry dirt, and a gopher hole. One of the mounds is covered in mushrooms, completely colonized, and bone dry. Somehow it's the biggest plant and isn't droopy. The colonized soil is very hydrophobic, and it looks like it's been dry for awhile. The water is pooling on top and then making its way to the gopher hole since that's the path of least resistance.

It turns out that a couple mounds have the same gopher hole problem and you can identify them by the runoff at the bottom of the mound. If I follow the runoff, I find a flooded gopher hole. I don't think it's as much of an issue on the less dry mounds.

It seems like the best fix would be slow drip irrigation, since the problem is that the water isn't being absorbed fast enough. I have sprayers. I run on a gas pump and need to be able to water in an hour or two.

And how do you deal with dry spots that won't catch up? I could hose them down but it would take days just standing there with a hose. I can't just add more sprayers and more water since it's pooling and finding a gopher hole.

 

[_tessarecting]

Mulch first, then see what your sprayers do, if they still are sucking...suck it up and top water all day like I do

 

[redlaser]

Mulch would be important, easily would prevent a lot of water loss as well as keep the soil evenly moist. A yucca or aloe based wetting agent to wet the soil, and ideally drip irrigation a few different times a day to get it wetter. That or just rewater every five-ten minutes, with a wetting agent watered in should help alot

It's starting to get colder at night though, so probably not a good idea to oversaturate the area unless it drains well.

some cinch traps for the gophers before they get even more out of control if you aren't already trapping for them. Not a big deal once you get ahead of them but the 1K's in damage/potential damage add up for sure

 

[plantingplants]

suck it up and top water all day like I do

NEVER!!!

I'm not a Zen master like you Tess

The rest of my mounds are fine so I don't think it's just evaporating. This mound just won't get wet. Ivemeant to put on mulch all year but I keep finding spots were I need to adjust or add sprayers and with mulch I won't be able to see where I need more water.


Redlaser, thanks for the wetting agent idea. Perfect!


As far as the gophers, I trapped one a while back and I haven't seen any gopher mounds since! They aren't popping their heads out. I had one little shitty baby replacement plant that wasn't in a gopher cage and it just died the other day. Gopher stripped the bark under the soil. If they're eating roots outside of the baskets on my other plants, I wouldn't know It. The plants don't seem to care.

 

[plantingplants]

If you look in the background you can see mushrooms everywhere:

 

[reppin2c]

Mushrooms normally means your overwatering

 

[plantingplants]

It's dry underneath I swear

I'll take a picture. It's really weird.

 

[Stone House]

I haven't tried it yet (hand watering) but next year I'm going to try using soaker hoses coiled around my plants, you might try that as a quick and easy way to increase water to your dry plants. The water shouldn't pool and go down gopher hole with the soaker hose.
Use the soaker hose that's the diameter of a normal garden hose.