Food & land

Self-Watering Garden Containers Makes Watering Plants Much Easier

July 14th, 2011 |

In case this idea is new to you, it is best if you watch a short video on how to set up a self-watering garden container first on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3INoLKg555w

THE ADVANTAGES OF USING SELF-WATERING GARDEN CONTAINERS

1. The supreme advantage of using self-watering garden containers as opposed to using a watering can is that during hot weather, different vegetables need drastically different amounts of water and self-watering garden containers allow the plants growing in them the choice to absorb as much water as they want to. For example, I found that during hot weather, tomato plants consume about 5 liters of water every 2 days whereas strawberry plants only consume a fraction of that. This means that if you watered your tomato plants with a watering can, it is extremely likely that you will not give them enough water despite the top soil appearing to be moist.

2. Another advantage of using self-watering containers is that if you forget to water your plants for a couple of days or even a week, as I indeed did with my self- watering garden containers on more than one occasion, the vegetable plants will not wilt. Why? The reason is because at the bottom of the garden container a thick layer of mud forms which has water in it. If the roots sense that there is no water, they will grow deeper to reach this muddy layer.

STORAGE BOXES AND PLANTERS THAT I BOUGHT FROM WILKINSONS

In the above photo, you can see 2 white Wham Storage Boxes and 5 Black Stewart Smithy Tubs. I first used 5 litre plastic containers as water storage containers but I later found that cutting the blue plastic containers (that you can see in photo 1), in half made better water storage containers for they held more water and were not squashed by the weight of wet soil.

I found that the dimensions of large plastic storage boxes and large planters that were listed on the Wilkinsons Plus website were incorrect. Always double check the dimensions at the Wilkinsons store for the values shown on their website are incorrect as you can see from the examples below.

Example 1. Wham Storage Box and Lid 80ltr for £8.77. It comes in a cheerful red colour, which looks like the container that the American lady used in the youtube video.

The Wilkinsons website listed the following dimensions for this container: Depth: 40cm Height: 42cm Width: 59.5cm but this is wrong data.

My own measurement was: 29 cms deep x 40 cms high x 48 cms wide. This makes the volume = 55.68 liters and not 80 liters.

Surface Area of soil at the top is a bit over 1392 squared cms due to the sides slanting outwards.

Example 2. Stewart Smithy Tub Black 50cm £9.78

Gunmetal smithy tub. Colour: Black Colour: Black Type: Round.

The Wilkionsons website listed the following dimensions for this container: Diameter = 50 cms. Height: 39cm but this is wrong data.

My own measurement at the store was: Diameter = 48.5 cms and Height = 37 cms and the bottom is roughly the same diameter as the top.

Volume of Black Smithy tub = 68.3 liters which means it has 12.6 liters MORE than the storage box above PLUS the plastic is half a centimeter thick which is thicker than that of the storage box. The Smithy tub is designed for outdoor use unlike the storage box, does not have any holes already drilled in it which means you can use it as a self-watering container. Surface Area of soil at the top is 1847 squared cms which means that you can plant more than you could in the Wham storage box.

For this reason the majority of my 19 containers are Stewart Smith Tubs in black colour. I am also glad to say that after having snowed for many weeks, none of the containers have shown any cracks.

HOW I CONNECTED WATER STORAGE CONTAINERS INSIDE THE GARDEN CONTAINERS TO THE SURFACE

2 3

The blue plastic containers in Photo 1 are cut in half using a sharp saw. A 34 mm diameter hole is made using a soldering iron and a black tube is placed in the hole as shown in Photo 2. Small 3 mm diameter holes are made at the bottom edge of the cut container using the soldering iron as well as shown in Photo 3. The completed product is seen in Photo 2. It is placed at the bottom of an empty garden container ensuring the black tube is near the perimeter of the garden container. The garden container is then filled up with soil compost mix. I cover the black tube opening with duck tape so that soil will not end up going inside the water storage container. It is necessary to connect these to the surface with some kind of tube so that you can place a funnel in the tube and pour liters of water at a time as seen in Photo 1.

I found that using just one 5 liter container for water storage in the Wilkos Smithy tub was too small for during hot weather, the plants needed watering every other day except the strawberries. I found that the best size water storage containers to use with the Wilkos Smithy tubs were plastic containers of 7.5 liter capacity. I actually used a sharp saw to cut 15 liter plastic containers in half. I used a soldering iron to cut a 34 mm diameter hole in the water storage container at the top and to make tiny holes about 5 cms apart all along the bottom of the water storage container.

I also found that using a 34 mm diameter plumbers’ plastic tube was much better than using the flimsy pop bottles that the American lady used, in order to connect the water storage container to the surface.

DRAINAGE HOLES THAT NEED TO BE DRILLED ON THE SIDE OF THE GARDEN CONTAINER

In the above Photo 4, the drainage hole can be seen by the toothpick I inserted in the hole, in order to make it just visible in the photo.

The drainage hole in a self-watering garden container cannot be placed at the bottom as with ordinary garden containers but at the side of the container. The reason is that water needs to flood the bottom for it to go upwards to the top by capillary action. Placing a drainage hole at the side of the container ensures that the top soil does not get flooded thereby killing the plants.

So far I have found that the drainage hole for any tub can be calculated as follows:

Measure the full height of the tub in centimeters. Divide by 2. This will give the location of the drainage hole from the bottom of the container. This has given me fairly good results so far for both rectangular and round containers and even smaller containers which I have used for growing basil indoors. e.g. The drainage hole for the Black smithy tub is drilled at 18.5 cms from the inside bottom. I used a power drill to drill the drainage hole. Only use a soldering iron if there is no wet soil in the container, otherwise use a power drill.

SOIL MIX THAT I USED

I mixed equal volumes of New Horizon peat free best buy compost and soil with an ordinary spade on my concrete patio. My tips are:

- Do not use sandy soil. It cannot retain minerals and water at the upper layers of the soil as well. You will know the soil you have is sandy because it will easily be dispersed by wind and will pour like powder when you tip a cup of it from a height. If you have sandy soil, dig up clay with a hammer and chisel, then use hammer and spade to pulverize it and then add it to the sandy soil. Sprinkle with water to allow the clay to combine with the soil. Add enough to make it lose that powdery texture. You then add the compost.

- Be sure to fill up the garden container completely with soil. You will find that when the soil becomes saturated with water, the soil level drops by about 3 cms.

- Be sure to check out what the best buy garden container compost to buy is at the Which Online website for it will make a great difference. You will also be able to get excellent gardening information there. Their website is http://www.which.co.uk/

THE LESSONS THAT I LEARNT

After you fill the gardening container completely with soil, it is a very good idea to completely drench the top of the soil with water since this will make it easier for all the soil to be saturated with water. You can then fill the water storage container with water and watch for water coming out of the drainage hole so that if it does, you stop adding water to the water container. It requires about 3 days for the water to rise up by capillary action to the top soil. So long as the soil is crumbly and moist at the surface which it usually is, you can sow the seeds or transplant seedlings in the next few days. The soil should NOT feel muddy to the touch but moist and crumbly when sowing seeds or planting seedlings. My tips are:

- Do not give more than 2 storage containerfuls of water for the large tubs for the very first watering otherwise this could make the soil soggy. If using small containers, do not give more than 1 storage containerful for the very first watering. If the soil is not so moist the next day or the next few days, be very careful not to pour in too much water because once the top soil becomes water logged, seeds won’t be able to grow for lack of air and even established plants won’t be able to grow for lack of air where their roots are. If the soil is soggy, you will have to dig out the top 15 cms of soil and replace it with dry soil in order to rectify the situation.

- Do not plant seeds or transplant seedlings UNTIL you have watered down the soil in the container. This is important just in case the soil in a new container becomes water logged by too much water being poured in. Water logged means that the soil becomes like sticky mud with no air inside it. This will kill sprouting seeds and adult plants for it will deny oxygen to the seeds or roots of the plants and also bring about rotting diseases. It requires about 3 days for the water to rise up by capillary action to the top soil.

- Bear in mind that when you sow seeds in containers you will have to use a watering can to pour water on the actual soil where the seeds are germinating, twice a day i.e. once in the morning and once in the evening, until they grow into a good sized seedling. This is because the water from the storage container will not be adequate to keep the seeds moist enough, especially during the summer. When I first sowed seeds in my garden containers, I made the mistake of pouring in too much water into the storage container in an attempt to keep the top soil wet enough for the seeds. But this resulted in the top soil becoming water logged so that there was no air in the top soil for the seeds to breathe. I found that for about a month after sowing seeds or transplanting seedlings, it was necessary to use a watering can to water the sowed seeds or seedlings until they had developed a good root system.

- Do not place the water storage containers horizontally i.e. on their longer side flat on the bottom because I found that the weight of the wet soil above them flattens them. The result is that they will not be able to hold as much water as they could. For example, when I first used a 5 liter container for water storage, I placed it horizontally at the bottom. I subsequently found that it would only take about 2 liters of water before water started to overflow from the connecting tube. However, I found that I was able to pour 5 liters of water in the tubs that had the 5 liter containers placed vertically without water pouring out of the tube at the surface.

- Do not place the water storage container pipe at the center of the container but always at the edge of the container. Otherwise you will damage the growing plants when you place a funnel inside the connecting tube at the center, every time you need to fill the water storage container.

In the first few weeks of planting, I performed the soil test, to see when to water them with a watering can or even fill the water storage container with water. A soil test is performed by placing some top soil between your fingers and sensing how moist it is. If it feels dry you water the plant otherwise you do not. But once the vegetable plants became established in the container, I never bothered perform a soil test. Instead I stuck a meter long dry dowel inside the connecting tube until it touched the bottom as seen in Photo 5. When I removed it, it left a wet patch on the dowel and this enabled me to check when the water storage container was empty. When nearly empty I would fill it with water until water flowed out of the connecting tube.

I successfully grew lots of Moneymaker tomatoes, green bell peppers, lettuces, rocket, basil, strawberries. And this was my very first attempt at gardening.

The only mystery problem that I experienced was that the leaves of several tomato plants became yellow. At first I thought this was due to the fact that I planted 3 tomato plants instead of 2 per Wilkos smith tub. My information at the moment indicates that it was LACK OF TRACE MINERALS that led to this and not due to lack of fertilizer as I originally thought. I now pour dried seaweed powder into the water storage container and this should supply all required trace minerals. But someone told me you must not overdose the plant with too much seaweed powder. This year I have also been using 1 part by volume human urine diluted with 9 parts by volume of water as organic fertilizer with good results. I have found that using human urine is so much easier than making organic fertilizer by setting up a wormery because it saves having to pay considerable attention even after you establish the wormery.

I also suspect that one other reason for tomato leaves turning yellow was due to my not filling the water storage container every day or every other day. Sometimes I forgot. I found to my astonishment that 3 tomato plants in a large Wilko Smithy tub with a 5 liter water storage container drank 5 liters of water every day approximately. If I forgot to fill up the water storage tank every other day, their leaves would turn yellow or very light green. On the other hand, I found that 3 tomato plants in tubs with a 7.5 liter water storage container did not have their leaves turn yellow because they had more water available to them. However, this may only be only part of the reason why some tomato leaves turned yellow. It is likely that other reasons like lack of trace minerals and the right soil pH may have contributed as well.

WHAT I LIKED MOST ABOUT GROWING MY OWN VEGETABLES

Visualize waking up on a sunny Summer’s morning and stepping out in your garden and cutting a few Romaine lettuce leaves and rocket leaves and a few tomatoes which you will have for breakfast. Well, that is what I did amost every day during the Summer. What amazed me most was the speed at which both the lettuce and the rocket leaves grew. Even though I was harvesting the leaves every day, they kept on growing. I knew that what I was eating was organic without any carcinogenic pesticides in it and that made me relish it even more. Last but not least, you cannot beat the taste of a salad made from freshly picked lettuce and rocket leaves and tomatoes.

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