Why Self-Watering Containers Work

When I left for Costa Rica I purposely didn't have anyone water or take care of my balcony garden. I wanted to test to see how well self-watering containers really worked.

All of the reservoirs were filled up the day before I left and were unattended during my vacation. When I got back, nearly all of the reservoirs were empty, but the plants were doing well.

For more information, please visit www.UrbanOrganicGardener.com.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• balcony
• garden
• urban
• organic
• gardening
• self
• watering
• container

[dabarisgod]

the soil might need to be wet for them to grow better so it can get nutrients? also if you mix some compost in your water at the bottom it will feed the plant instead of the compost. doing that probably would help growth. the compost would be like compost tea, i've tried it on my garden and it worked great, but i would like to see if it worked in these containers? i would appreciate a response. thankyou dabar

[CanarsieBK]

@dabarisgod Thanks. Will look into that.

[noir21072]

Do you water them if it's being self-watered? Or do you just fill the resevoir when low? And if you don't have self-watering system, how often would you water the plants? Everyday? I'm in the northeast btw

[CanarsieBK]

@noir21072 A link was sent to you about how to make them and why they work. Check it out.

[viberura]

I’d say it works better with plants which roots can reach all the way to the bottom ja?

[CanarsieBK]

@viberura I've had success with shallow rooted plants. Depending on the container you can adjust the level of the soil.

[dabarisgod]

@CanarsieBK i found this thing on passive hydroponics it seems that if you leave a hole and keep some of the roots out of water for oxygen, passive hydroponics would work well for you. Maybe you could use less compost in the bucket and let the roots grow through? type in passive hydroponics in google and i think it hydroponics at home.

[CanarsieBK]

@Albone3000 Depends on how much the reservoir can hold. Varies from container to container and how large you have the holes.

[Albone3000]

how much water fits in the res in the two bucked system?

[CanarsieBK]

@enzlereese Haha. Thanks.