Five Benefits of Self Watering PotsSelf-watering pots, also known as sub-irrigation planters, offer several advantages for both indoor and outdoor gardening. Here are five benefits of using self-watering pots:
Creative Container GardeningWait until you take a look at the different creative containers used for container gardening on a patio. I used colored bowls and plates, a lamp stand with a plastic container, two wooden crates, a strainer, a scale, a large tea pot, and a pedestal sink.
Keeping Plants Well WateredWhen I repot my plants, I cut up a diaper into four sections, eliminating the parts that do not retain the water. I place one of these sections in the bottom of the pot and than pour some dirt in and plant as usual.
Plant Stand for Balcony GardenersA plant stand with shelves can really add space to your balcony garden. I purchased this stand at a thrift store and I have nine plants on it. I have a small balcony and I'm always looking for ways to maximize my growing space.
Vertical Gardening in PotsAt the beginning of the season I select one plant of each type at a nearby nursery. I cut off each stem about an inch from the bottom. I cut all but the top 2 leaves off of each stem and place the stems in various sized jars of water to root. In a week or two the roots grow long enough to plant them in pots. By this time the original plants have grown up once again and are blooming.
Recycled Jar as Glass Cloche for Indoor PlantsGlass cloches can be costly. You can make your own for free with supplies you may already have at home, or for cheaper.
Paint a Flower Pot Saucer that Doesn't Match PotFlower pots and saucers are sold separately. I knew I had a saucer at home so I didn't buy a new one. When I went home, the saucer didn't match the pot. You can revamp the saucer with a little bit of paint and it pairs nicely with the accents of the pot. I was able to save the $1-2 on a saucer, and use an existing one.
Watering Hanging BasketsAfter a couple of days in the sunshine, the leaves on my hanging basket of petunias look pitiful. To bring them back to life, I put water in a pan and put the basket in the pan to soak up the water overnight. The next day, the dirt in the basket is heavy with water and the leaves on the flowers look lively again. This is easy and there is no dripping when I hang the basket back up.
Use Kitty Litter Bins as PotsMy family enjoyed having a large garden for many years. We grew potatoes, carrots, onions, green beans, sugar snap peas, zucchinis, eggplants, corn, jalapeños, green peppers, watermelon, and cucumbers in our yard. We had edible landscaping. At our new home we can not have a garden so we are trying container gardening.
Plant Your Tomato in a Recycled Washing Machine TubAwhile back I did the watering for my next door neighbors while they were out of town. I noticed that their tomato plants were growing in washing machine tubs. What a good idea!
Sunken Gutters For Flower Border ContainersMany different plants can be grown in these border gutters, it's just a matter of knowing which plants have a small or shallow root system. In this case, purslane can make rather large plants while maintaining a small root system.
Place Empty Bottles in Garden PotWhen filling a very large pot with flowers, first you may add closed plastic bottles from your recycling bin or even Styrofoam from leftover packages to the bottom before adding the soil. It not only reduces the amount of soil you need it's great to make it a lighter pot to have to move around!
Organic Fence for Vertical GardeningVertical gardening appeals to me for several reasons. My yard is small, the housing development is new and on the outskirts of town, thus overrun by rabbits, and badly infested with numerous noxious weeds (which will take several years to eradicate without chemicals).
Grow Grapes On Your Patio/Deck/Back YardThis is not an actual tip. It's my chance to brag. It is though, to let you know you can grow grapes in a very small, close by, place. A place that gets full sun most of the day.
Spinach Grown In ContainersI hope I have persuaded some of you to look into the possibilities of using concrete mixing tubs as containers for plants. Once you fill the container with soil, that's it!
Recycled Popcorn Lid as Plant SaucerOnce I recycled my popcorn tin as a trash basket, I wondered what I could do with the lid. I decided to use it to catch any water that drained out of my large houseplant. I put some felt furniture protectors on the bottom, so it wouldn't scratch my coffee table.
Flower Gardening in a Small SpaceIf you have a fence and no yard space, these hanging pots are the answer! I bought mine from the Lillian Vernon catalogue, but I imagine places like eBay and Amazon have them too. These pots were all yellow when I got them and I spray painted them. They all have drain holes, but I choose to just put pots into them.
Fill Planters With Recycled BottlesI have large and small planters, they can be heavy and costly to fill with soil. This is a more cost saving and eco friendly idea. With recycled bottles in my planters and pots, it allows me to use less soil, and provides better drainage for my seasonal plantings.
Grow Moonflower (Ipomoea alba) In PotsI've had moonflower vines climb my trees and attain a height of 50 feet. A lot of people who appreciate this flower may not grow them for that reason. Some may not have any structure for the vines to climb.
Lightweight Hanging Pots for House PlantsThis is a great tip for lightweight hanging pots for indoor plants! Pots can get really heavy when using pebbles or stones for drainage, which can be very taxing on the hooks hanging from your ceiling. Next time, try this instead, bath scrubbies.
Impatiens Bed From Scrap MaterialsThe north side of my house is one unbroken line. It is the side most visible to others. With almost no direct sun light reaching the area, and little growing there, it detracted from the rest of the house. So, I created a bed for my impatiens from scrap materials.
Plant Succulents in Strawberry PotsMy friend planted her terra cotta strawberry pot with different succulents. It looks fabulous. I have an old strawberry pot that is currently empty so I'm going to try my own version.
Use Dense Styrofoam In Plant ContainersI grow many plants in containers, from small pots to 5 gallon buckets, and large recycle bins. A lot of these containers will get a layer of Styro chips before any soil or other medium is added.
Condo GardeningLiving in an apartment, I've tried community gardens. I am not a great fan of it, because I actually had to commute to the garden, which was time consuming and cost gas, which defeated the purpose for me. I tried other options. I have two balconies, one faces west the other east, so great sun exposure.
Take Your Garden With YouMy wife and I lived is a house for 45 years with a large garden in the back yard area, We loved to garden and enjoy the produce that we grew each summer. As we became older and had to move into a high rise apartment, with a outdoor balcony....
2 Liter Bottle Starter Pot for PlantsMy little gardeners call these "banana pots." Cut the top off a 2-liter bottle and toss or save for another project. Punch 2-3 small holes in the bottom for drainage. Make four vertical cuts to splay the bottle.
Reusing Push Up Handles In PlantsThe children love to eat those Push Up ice cream treats. They are left with these little nifty round discs with a stick attached to it.
Creative Container GardeningAlmost anything can be used for growing veggies when you have limited space, or in my case, need the beds raised up a bit off the ground.
Making Drainage Holes for Plastic ContainersThe easy way is to heat a hole punch, awl, or nail tip over a lit candle. Then simply push it down into the turned over container in several spots to allow for adequate drainage.
Potted Plants Beautify Your Home EntryI don't have a lot of land in the front of my home and there is a bare area near the entry that needed some color and glamor.
Healthy Choice Containers For House PlantsI use mine, either with or without the inner steamer tray, under indoor plants to protect the furniture from water drainage. They are sturdier than the flimsy clear plastic ones you can buy from a garden center so they don't crack.
Water Bottles for Watering Hanging BasketsI was looking on the internet at this farming site, I forget what it was, and someone had cut the end off a water bottle and put holes all up and down on the bottle.
Put Twigs and Leaves in Plant PotsMy German daughter-in-law showed me a neat trick for planting in pots. She put a coffee filter in the bottom of the pot then we went around the yard picking up little twigs and leaves.
Self Watering Basil PlanterThis self watering container can be used for many different types of plants but is really great for basil. I used new buckets that I found for cheap on sale, but you could easily use recycled food grade buckets.
Use a Coffee Filter In Potted PlantsWhen you're using a planting pot, the bottom always has a hole for the water to drain out.To avoid losing dirt out of this hole, just put two coffee filters in the bottom. This will keep dirt in and allow for water drainage.
Gardening Using Recycled ContainersIf you are tight on space for gardening why not try recycling containers that you got with products. I use Tidy Cats litter buckets and pretty much any kind of container I can recycle.
Painted Tiles to Cover Cinder BlocksWe have a few cinder blocks in our front garden. I plant things in them. During the cold months, I cover them up with tiles I bought from the home improvement store. We decided to paint them, and this is how it turned out.
Container Gardening on a DeckI am getting older and working on my knees to garden is getting harder for me so I studied up on container gardening and added these colorful items to my deck. When the plants flower and ripen, it will add much more color.
Polymer Crystals for Container GardeningPolymer crystals (found in garden centers and some variety stores) are a tiny crystal that expands in water to hold up to 200 times its weight in stored water.
Container Gardening AdviceAlthough I could plant more in the ground, I am a container gardening freak and I love the control that it gives me. There's far less weeding, and I love that the plants are (generally) portable.
Planting Tomatoes in Milk JugsI plant my tomatoes in the bottom of milk jugs, with another plant on top such as peppers, and eggplants. I also made two milk jugs into a self watering planter for my strawberries, and used drink bottles to make a self watering, mini green house for the rose cuttings I'm propagating.
Coffee Filter for PottingThis is a so simple idea that I saw the other day that I could kick myself for not using it all these years. When planting in any container with a hole in the bottom and you don't want the dirt or whatever to come out, use a coffee filter.
Use Containers for Gardening During DroughtsOur Province is in a severe drought, so we have many flowers in pots and planters.
Recycling Items for Drainage Fill in Plant ContainersThose lightweight plastic cups that flowers are sold in - I recycle them by using them for drainage when I transplant the flowers into terra cotta pots.
Growing A Vegetable Garden In PotsYes you can! This is a picture of my deck vegetable garden - all in pots. This is not my first year to do this, but this is the first time I have had so much (the squirrels usually dig up the seeds before they even get started).
Growing Tomatoes on a BalconyThe thing we missed most when we moved from the country to a city apartment was our home-grown tomatoes. So we planted some on our balcony! Remember they don't have natural drainage, so allow for that and for fertilizer.
Three Tier Garden ContainerAn impressive and fun garden project is a three or four tier container suited to a particular spot in your garden.
Use Spray Paint to Update Garden PlantersThe large terracotta-colored pot we used last summer for our porch planter just did not look right with the selection of coleus and other shade plants we wanted to use this year.
Grow Potatoes For Patio GreeneryTo dress up my front porch inexpensively, I take a potato and cut out the sections where "eyes" start growing. I place these in just enough water to keep the bottom of the section wet.
Benefits of an Upside Down GardenI just purchased an Upside down Garden. This is a great product. I will no longer have to worry about groundhogs eating my tomato plants. I also will not have to worry about the roots rotting.
Cleaning Gardening Pots Before ReplantingAlways scrub out last year's pots with a slight bleach solution to kill any fungus, blight, or other diseases that may have accumulated in your pots from last year's use. After soaking in a slight bleach mixture, make sure you wash extremely well in HOT water to get rid of the bleach.
Recycled Container GardeningContainer gardening sounded like a good, thrifty way to feed our family healthy organic produce, except for one thing: landscape timbers to build a raised bed, big flower pots for vegetables, and other containers are expensive!
Container Gardening - Thinking Outside The BoxFor going green to save our environment, I'm teaching a class soon on "Container Gardening - Thinking Outside The Box" and needed to come up with some unique ideas for containers for my plants.
Bring Potted Flowers Inside For WinterEvery year I enjoy my potted flowers all summer. So much so that I try to bring something indoors to winter over. One year it was green onions and chard, and one year it was petunia seedlings...
Sweet Gum Balls For Flower DrainageIf you have sweet gum balls, try using them to put in the bottom of your flower pots.
Cup and Saucer Planter GiftThis is a quick easy gardening gift you can make up very easily. Get an old cup and saucer, fill it with dirt and plant chickens in it. I glue the cup to the saucer so it will not move, makes a nice gift to someone who is sick, does not take a lot of care to maintain.
Winter Gardening In Car Top Luggage CarriersA friend of mine with a truck who makes a fair living recycling curb-side cast offs began finding older heavy plastic Car-top Luggage Carriers.
Decorations in Your Container GardenI like to put figurines in and around the pots in my container garden - to fill in bare spots and to generally liven up the garden. You can find good deals in slightly damaged figures -in proportion to your pots/plants. . .
Growing Strawberries in ContainersMany varieties of strawberries grow wonderfully in containers, including barrels, drums, or bags. Many seed companies and garden centers offer pouches or bags, complete with plants, for growing them vertically on walls and fences.
How To Cure A New PotAlways cure a new terra cotta pot before planting in it. Otherwise, the pot's sides will draw moisture out of the potting soil and possibly even the plant's root ball. Dry clay wicks water away from the soil and can dry out plant roots.
Fall Clematis Container GardeningI love gardening. I have been planting a lot more perennials lately as we are retired and gone quite a bit during growing season. I also do a lot of container gardening. Hope you like my pictures. The flowers on the fence is one plant. It is a Fall Clematis. Very hardy and smells wonderful.
Cleaning PlantersWhen planting new flowers in previously used planters, pots, or buckets. Rinse out and wash thoroughly, to remove any salt residue or disease any previous plant might have had.
By Terri
