This newsletter explains why some wicking beds fail, why they may smell, and how soil biology, water balance, and nutrients affect plant health. It shares the story behind the development of wicking beds, the mistakes early users made, and the importance of living soil. It also highlights global food quality issues and introduces new plans to make wicking beds easier for everyone, including people in small homes or apartments.
Introduction — A Tough Morning With Wicking Beds
Some days just don’t go well. I started receiving a wave of emails from wicking bed users complaining that their beds were smelly or failing to keep plants well watered. If you have ever asked similar questions, don’t feel bad — your queries have helped highlight a critical issue and pushed me to rethink parts of how these systems work.
Wicking beds are wonderful when they work, but they can also go wrong — and when they go wrong they can seem “putrid” or disappointing. These problems have implications not just for individual gardeners, but for how the wicking bed idea is perceived globally. If the public sees beds fail, they won’t adopt the technology that can make food production more sustainable and nutritious.
The Birth of Wicking Beds
The original goal of developing wicking beds was practical and simple: how could I provide cheap, reliable water to grow sustenance food in drought-prone areas like rural Africa? Many subsistence farmers live on a few dollars a day and cannot afford expensive irrigation or fertilizers. The idea of using a reservoir beneath the soil to supply moisture directly to plant roots seemed ideal — cheap, simple, and adaptable to diverse conditions.
In the early days, I built wicking beds from whatever was available — old bathtubs, wheelbarrows, tyres lined with plastic bags, and other inexpensive containers. These simple systems worked surprisingly well. Once filled with soil and a bit of organic matter, they kept plants alive even when rainfall was minimal.
As the idea spread through the internet, I was taken aback by how many people adopted wicking beds. It was never intended to be a commercial product — I simply shared the concept online so others could benefit. However, rapid adoption led to both good and bad versions of the system floating around, and not all of them worked correctly.
Commercial Suppliers and Technical Support
Many people now buy ready-made wicking beds from commercial suppliers. Often these products come with little to no technical support. The manufacturers may build a bed, sell it, and leave the buyer to figure out how it works. This can be problematic because wicking bed success depends on understanding how water moves through soil, how roots breathe, and how soil biology functions. Without this knowledge, users may experience poor results and wrongly conclude that wicking beds don’t work at all.
There’s a real paradox here. When I first proposed the idea, many technical experts claimed wicking beds wouldn’t work because water stagnant at the base would become putrid. In principle, they were correct: plant roots need oxygen, and if they are submerged too long without air, they effectively “drown” just as humans would in similar conditions. A major part of early development was finding ways to ensure roots had access to both sufficient water and oxygen.
Stinky Beds – What’s Really Going On?
One common problem is that beds can go putrid. This happens when there’s too much stagnant water and not enough oxygen in the soil. Roots emit gases like ethylene, which can inhibit growth if trapped. If the water level in the soil stays high for too long, the environment becomes anaerobic (without oxygen), which creates unpleasant smells and poor growing conditions.
Another issue is the soil mix itself. If the soil is inert — for example, stones, sterile sand, or chemically sterilised potting mix — it won’t support soil biology. Without soil life, organic matter does not decompose properly, and nutrients do not become available for plants. You might avoid smells in a sterile mix, but the produce will likely be low in nutritional quality, similar to many supermarket vegetables.
Just adding a bit of compost to a bed can lead to smells not because compost is bad, but because the soil biology is not well balanced. If there’s not enough oxygen or the proper microbial population, decomposition becomes anaerobic and odorous.
Nutrition and the Global Food Crisis
My focus has shifted from just water to a broader issue: nutrition. My wife Xiulan’s diagnosis of diabetes highlighted the real health consequences of modern diets — diets high in sugar, fats, and calories but low in essential vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Diabetes is not just about sugar; it is a hormonal malfunction that leads to serious diseases and complications, including blindness and amputations.
The modern industrial food system produces large quantities of energy-dense foods that are nutrient-poor. Although pills and supplements are marketed as solutions, they cannot replicate the complex balance of nutrients, vitamins, and phytonutrients that natural, biologically grown food provides. Growing nutrient-dense food locally, in biologically active soil, is a practical way to improve diet quality.
Around the world, people are suffering from chronic diseases linked to poor diet. For example, Australia has millions living with diabetes, the United States has tens of millions, and China’s numbers are rapidly rising. Most people could benefit from growing at least some of their own food to reduce dependence on processed, nutrient-deficient products.
Growing Your Own Food
The most practical solution is to grow a portion of your own food in nutrient-rich soil. This doesn’t require joining a complex movement or becoming an expert gardener — even a few tomatoes, spinach, or herbs grown in well-managed soil can improve nutritional intake.
However, many people live in apartments or have limited garden space. To address this, I have been developing an upgraded design — the “wicking bed basket.” This is a compact, soil-rich container system designed to fit in apartments and small yards. It allows anyone, regardless of space, to grow nutritious food using minimal resources.
Learning from Mistakes
There’s an old saying: both fools and wise men make mistakes, but the wise learn from them. I recognise that I made mistakes in how I promoted and supported wicking beds. I shared all my information freely online, but not everyone understood the underlying principles. This led to misapplications of the technology and some failed beds.
These failures can harm the reputation of wicking beds. If the public associates them with bad results or foul smells, adoption will falter. Yet when used correctly and supported with some technical guidance, wicking beds have enormous potential to help people grow healthy food around the world.
Commercial and Community Support
To support wider adoption, simply sharing information is not enough. People need technical support to succeed with their beds. One idea is to create a formal structure — a wicking bed club — where members pay a small fee for access to support, updates, and expert guidance. This model does not rely on patents or heavy legal systems but rather on shared knowledge and collective improvement.
The club concept allows growers to access technology, training, and resources while contributing to a network of gardeners sharing ideas and improvements. Coaches could provide personalised help, and members could benefit from collective expertise on soil mixes, biological supplements (like BioPacks), minerals, trace elements, and plant choices.
Conclusion — Growing Healthy Soil and Food
The challenge is to make wicking beds both effective and widely adopted. Most current users see good results, but some do not because they lack understanding of how water, air, soil biology, and nutrients interact. The goal remains simple: enable as many people as possible to grow nutrient-rich, homegrown food using sustainable, low-cost methods. Ensuring proper technical support and education will help wicking beds reach millions globally, improving diet quality and community resilience.
