Self Watering Pots - Two Simple and Effective Methods

For the last couple of years now I've been playing around with self watering methods and think I've finally settled on two simple and effective methods and thought i'd shre them here.

1. Self Watering Tray for small plants and seedlings. Not radical but a simple and neat solution adapted from something similar i saw on these boards. I stand pots on capillary matting (nothing new there) but use a terracotta pot also stood on top as a water reservoir.


Full details on the build method here.


2. Self Watering Pots. I use these for larger plants (usually chillies but tomatoes too). They are standalone pots created from a two 10" pots, some capillary matting and an old piece of plastic pipe.

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Each pot has a water reservoir in the bottom, into which the capillary mat sits. The pipe is used to fil p the reservoir. Once planted the plants roots grow towards the capillary mat which is the source of moisture.

Again here's how i built them.

Hopefully these are useful to some of you. Working long hours and being a keen gardener is a bad combination and watering has always been a chore to me!