Building a Self watering Container

One of the reasons why I have started growing my own vegetables is to make sure that what I am eating is organic, and also pesticide and other potential harmful chemicals free.

First and VERY IMPORTANT  thing  that I have found and what to point to other folks out there is  to use food grade buckets for you plants, especially If you are planning to grow eatable plants.  I will not go to deep into chemistry but some kind of plastic materials have a low density and can be porous and that means that container will absorb previous storing material that was inside and that also means that your plant  will be exposed to it.

For my containers I always look for the recycle logo that has number 2 in the middle and the letters HDPE.  HDPE stands for High-Density Polyethylene. This kind of plastic has excellent barrier and rigidity properties.I would even suggest replacing kitchen storage containers for HDPE plastic.

Self Watering Containers are very helpful because you dont have to water your plants as often. It is working  on a principal of creating a water reservoir bellow so the plant can feed from below using capillary action ( wick water to the plant roots).

I like the idea of reusing waste materials. I was lucky to find and  "recycle" a 5 gallon pickle buckets. To make the whole process more environmental friendly I was using my bicycle to pick them up and bring them home. Here is the pics. ( Wires that I use to wrap the buckets are dry cleaning wire hangers :) ).  So if you have free time, skills and necessary material, feel free to let you imagination works when building your own container.

Building a self watering container is very simply :
Just watch my video and pretty much everything is self explanatory

Small advice, when drilling a holes for drainage, use the drill on high speed and keep it for a second to make a clean cut and prevent a "pigtail"

For most of my containers I  have been using food grade 5 gallon buckets ther are about 14'' deep, I would suggest them to use only with deep rots plants ( cucumbers, tomatoes...) because there is no need to use all that soil ( potting soil is prety expensive ) for the plants that that needs only couple of inches of the soil (spinach, salad...) For those plants I suggest buying or building  shallower containers.