'Self watering' planters

pawsies

would rather do this

http://www.makeitandmendit.com/how-to-make-a-self-watering-pot-out-of-an-old-plastic-bottle/

it's pretty much free

LadyDee

pawsies wrote: »

would rather do this

http://www.makeitandmendit.com/how-to-make-a-self-watering-pot-out-of-an-old-plastic-bottle/

it's pretty much free

Not an awful lot of room in a hanging basket for those. Not really designed for use in planters, just a cloche for a single plant while it's growing on.

Primrose

Another alternative is to mix in a generous supply of water absorbent crystals in the compost in your plant containers and dig them in well around the depth of your plants' roots. You can get packets of them in any good garden centre and their absorbency should last for one season.

ALIBOBSY

pawsies wrote: »

would rather do this

http://www.makeitandmendit.com/how-to-make-a-self-watering-pot-out-of-an-old-plastic-bottle/

it's pretty much free

Got some herbs and my tomatos in these romping away on the windowsill as we speak. Once they go into the big buckets in the greenhouse we have our own little trick. We are on heavy clay soil, so I just dig down on one of the soil beds, pinch a layer of the heavy stuff to put on the bottom of the pot and top with compost etc to plant them in. The clay seem to hold the water without waterlogging. Mind you then they sit on gravel ontop of sand, ontop of the really heavy stuff under the greenhouse-far too wet and heavy to use as GH border, but fab as a hard base and kind of helps the water not to wick away from the pots too quickly.

The old upside down bottle with bottle cut off stuck in the soil works as a drip feeder or just get kids lol. I have to watch to make sure my stuff doesn't get overwatered as they all love to take their watering cans to the water butt and soak anything in sight .

Ali x