Wednesday 26 March 2008

Self-Watering Recycled Plastic Bottle Plant Pot for Seeds





I like my seeds to be comfortable, the seed equivalent of sitting on a deckchair under a sunshade while sipping a glass of chilled Chablis. Seeds are precious, if they weren’t companies like Monsanto (pauses to puke) would not be interested in them so here is a way to make as sure as you possibly can that they have the sort of start in life that the Good Lord intended.

The photos will give a full picture, but basically I cut a plastic bottle in two with a fine toothed bread knife, drilled 4 holes in the screw cap and inserted lengths of non-plastic string to act as a wick, (see photo). I lined the half the screw cap fits with wet paper and after fitting the screw cap back on I held the strings to one side and filled this lined half with seed compost (see photo.) After this I distributed the strings around the pot and back down to below soil level. I then filled the lower half with water to just below the cap and fitted the two parts together, (see photo.)

Place seeds on or in the growing medium as advised and cover the top with a light sprinkle of sand to discourage fungal disease. Now if you need to go away for a few days or forget to water it doesn’t matter. Don't forget to double left click on the photos for full screen size and to use the browser's back button (arrow) to return to normal. This is especially useful for the second photo from the top.

3 comments:

Amanda said...

Brilliant! We never drink soda normally, but the kids had the flu this week, so I happen to have an empty 7Up bottle on my kitchen counter -- now I know what to do with it!

Kati said...

What a great idea, Peter!!! I'm with Amanda in that we don't drink soda (from that type container, anyway) around here to have 2-liter bottles on hand. But they occasionally wind up on the give-away table at work. Next time I see a couple, I might snag them. (Usually they're partially full of quickly-de-fizzing soda that must be polished off first, though.) I got two large plant-pots off the table this week that will be just perfect for the next time I need to transplant baby-aloes from one of my big pots.

Thanks for the tip on using these bottles for plants!!!

Botched Surgery said...

why all the guilt about drinking soda Amanda and Kati? just because it's manufactured by companies that murder union organizers, export water (in soda form) from areas where natives have severe drought problems, and manufacture the most common litter on the planet? just kidding! I drink it sometimes too because it's delicious. Great idea Peter.