DIY Self Watering Pots

[Farmer_Gyles]

I have to grow loads of things in pots this year (as well as in the ground), and we have a drought and hosepipe ban ...

I've seen "self watering pots" advertised - seen various methods of making them, from very basic to very complex - some involve a pot within a pot, some involve gravel, tubes, floats, wicks etc - but the simplest i've seen is this one
Self-watering containers - Grow Organic Food

Using the same principle, I could just pop a few holes in the side of Morrisons flower buckets, put a bit of gravel in, compost on top, job done .... but is there a need to use gravel? Why not just fill it with compost?

Tomatoes can be grown in growbags - they are plastic bags filled with compost - when we water them, the excess water doesn't drain out - and there's no gravel - so surely the same principle will work for tomatoes the Morrisons flower buckets, ie, no drainage holes at all? I seem to remember reading on here a couple of years ago that "you can't drown tomatoes" .....

I will have 50+ tomatoes in Morrisons flower buckets this year .... and that's going to be a lot of watering .... it'll be great if I can cut down the amount of watering needed ....

I'm tempted to go with a couple of holes 2in up the side of each bucket and fill each bucket with compost (no gravel) .... is that safe? wise? or not??

[singleseeder]

Hey, I love all of these DIY ideas. There are several ways of making self watering pots on t'interweb, or you can buy very expensive ones at the GC. However, I haven't seen this design before. Usually there is a more substantial divide between the compost and the water resevoir below. This one, with the compost sitting on top of the gravel, seems to be more like a bog garden. I am sure it would work to some extent, but you would find it hard to separate the compost from the gravel at the end of the season.

The usual design has either some sort of wick to bring the water up to the compost, or a way of just the roots getting to the water below the divide. This one would hold less water at the bottom than other designs too, because of the volume of gravel.

If you wanted to try this design in a Morrison bucket I guess it would work for things like salad or perhaps dwarf beans, but tomatoes would need more compost than 80% of a bucket I'd guess.

You could try a container/bucket with inverted cut off milk bottles surrounded by gravel for stability, this would create a platform to keep the compost separated a little more from the gravel and would hold more water at the bottom. If you go this far, you might as well put a membrane of weed fabric over it anyway.

Grow bags? These do have to have drainage holes or plants would 'drown'.

What ever you try, do let us all know how they work wont' you?

[rustylady]

Tomatoes can be grown in growbags - they are plastic bags filled with compost - when we water them, the excess water doesn't drain out - and there's no gravel - so surely the same principle will work for tomatoes the Morrisons flower buckets, ie, no drainage holes at all? I seem to remember reading on here a couple of years ago that "you can't drown tomatoes" .....

If you read the instructions on the growbags, it says to cut a couple of slits near the base of the bag to let excess water drain away. And yes, you can drown tomatoes.

[Bigmallly]

I made a half dozen of these for my Toms, with the addition of a float so I can instantly see if they need topping up.

how to make self watering garden planters for container gardening.mp4 - YouTube

[Farmer_Gyles]

If you read the instructions on the growbags

i haven't bought growbags for a few years .... and don't remember seeing those instructions before .... might be that they don't all have the same instructions, or might be that i'm a typical bloke and didn't read them!

[Farmer_Gyles]

The usual design has either some sort of wick to bring the water up to the compost, or a way of just the roots getting to the water below the divide.

there's something i just don't "get" about the self watering pots .... if we put plants in the ground, the roots grow down looking for water .... so i just don't get why we would need to use some sort of wick to draw the water up?

If you wanted to try this design in a Morrison bucket I guess it would work for things like salad or perhaps dwarf beans, but tomatoes would need more compost than 80% of a bucket I'd guess.

i normally have my tomatoes in the greenhouse in 10in pots .... i normally use a drip feeder .... i have never had a root ball bigger than about 5in wide and 4in deep .... probably due to using the drip feeder? i don't worry too much about the toms, the plants reach the top of the greenhouse very easily, get loads of toms from them ....

this would create a platform to keep the compost separated a little more from the gravel

i'm not getting the need for gravel .... ???

[Sanjo]

I posted this back in March I think it was so bumping it again for anyone interested

QUOTE

I spent yesterday sorting out my tomato pots (Morrison's buckets). I've been fairly successful in the past placing these on top of a gravel tray filled with sand/pebbles, and then black plastic over that to stop it evaporating. However, the trays are not that deep and I wanted to sort something out for when I am away from home for a week or so.
All of the planting pots are open ended, with either an X shape or the outer rim left on.
These have had a layer of newspaper and a 2" layer of gravel added.
I took a tall flower pot (the sort you get a mini rose in from the garden centre. It's about 7 1/2" high. Fill with gravel or pebbles to the very top
Stand this next to the unpunctured Morrison's bucket and put a mark on this bucket about an inch lower than the top of the flower pot.
Make a hole in this bucket where the mark is.
Place the flower pot inside the bucket and fill with water so that it comes to the level of the puncture mark. That's where any excess water will overflow, you don't want soggy plants.
I measured the first one I did and it took just over 7 pints of water.
The planted up Morrisons bucket goes inside the first one and is supported on the gravel filled flower pot.
Tomatoes send down a water seeking root and I am hoping that there will be enough water in here to support the plant in hot weather if I am not around to water it.
I am also going to twist a black rubbish sack into a strip and tuck it around the top so nothing evaporates.
I ran out of the tall pots and have had to use TWO flower pots, one on top of the other, both filled with gravel to bring them up to the 71/2" level. If you haven't got pot to do that then make the hole lower down. The flower pot displaces the water but you should still get the 7 pints in.
My first thought was to fill the lower Morrisons bucket with gravel nearly to the top and then fill with water. I would have had to go and buy the gravel though so I have just used what I have hanging around.
As long as the planted up bucket is not sitting in water to constantly saturate it it should work.
I hope so anyway as I have just made 12 of them!!

[Sanjo]

QUOTE FARMER GYLES
Using the same principle, I could just pop a few holes in the side of Morrisons flower buckets, put a bit of gravel in, compost on top, job done .... but is there a need to use gravel? Why not just fill it with compost?
If you fill with compost and then put your bucket or whatever on top then it is possible for the water in this compost to be absorbed by the upper compost. If the bottom lot is soaked then there is nowhere for the excess moisture to go and therefore your plants will get waterlogged.
That's my understanding anyway.
With gravel underneath it allows for a small space to stop the upper compost getting too wet but the water seeking root on a tom for instance will work its way down through the gravel to get to the water.
It worked for me over the past couple of years just using gravel trays but they are too shallow to allow for me to leave the plants for a week or more and it was such a fiddle trying to rig up something to replenish this water while I was away.

[Sanjo]

QUOTE FARMER GYLES
"I normally have my tomatoes in the greenhouse in 10in pots .... i normally use a drip feeder .... i have never had a root ball bigger than about 5in wide and 4in deep .... probably due to using the drip feeder? i don't worry too much about the toms, the plants reach the top of the greenhouse very easily, get loads of toms from them ...."

Drip feeding from the top will not encourage a large rootball as the tom has no inclination to seek out a drink. You feed toms from the top and water from the bottom but if your way is working for you - if it ain't broke, why fix it eh?

[Sarico]

i made one self watering container but what i did is cut one morrison bucket in half and the botton bit a put a smal cheese mold ( the one you use for the ricotta cheese or any soft cheese) then i put this inside another morrison bucket and made some hole on the side but 1'' lower the level of the cheese mold ( i read somewere that this help so there is a bit of air bitween the compost and the water resevoir) them i put a piece of hose pipe that goes in the water resevoir so when you water it goes straight down without damping the compost on top..
when i filled up the pot with compost the cheese mold work as wick so the plant doesn't get waterlogged but only a that feew root that get down there.....