Home made waterwell pots

[ramon]

Having thoughts of trying to make some cheap equivalent of waterwell pots with emphasis on increasing the water reservoir capacity.

Has anybody rigged up such a system

[coin]

waterwell is a self watering pot ?

http://homepage.mac.com/pondman/container/...container1.html

[mescalito]

Ramon are you using soil-less media or potting mix?

I've been thinking about trying a tub-on-tub system for sub-tropicals/germination-ie.coco-coir in the top tub and the reservoir below feeding 12 or so wicks into the top tub.The wicks would be cotton rags tied and fed down through 1/4 inch holes into the bottom chamber.It could be adapted to buckets or pots I guess?

Remember though if it works...I thought of it first

[mrstinky]

I've had good success over the years with one of my own "inventions". A 2L coke bottle with a 10-15cm rag comming out the side near the top. Sink the whole thing into the ground so the lid is just below soil level (place a small rock above the lid so you can find it easy and refill it) and the wick is diagonally down but not too long or it seems to drain the water faster- like a siphon! Then you can plant right above the wick! Only needs refilling every 2 months and its invisible (completely underground).No matter how good your potting mix is it cant beat the sweet soil of mother earth for productivity- just ask any farmer. use cotton/polyester mix as cotton rots too fast. This does work and I did think of it first.

[waterdragon]

or grab yourself an unglazed terracotta pot, fill the hole at the bottom with silastic. make a funnel for the top by cutting a circle of tin(roofing iron,etc) - cut to the centre, fold around to form a large, flat-ish cone. the cone catches the rainfall and stops evap. oh and obviously the pot gets buried in the soil at the root zone of your plants. the water takes ages to seep out, when your plants are eventually lifted the roots use of the slow release water is plain to see. use a big pot too.