EG's Self Watering Planter Idea Implemented!

Back in January, EG from Our Engineered Garden shared yet another one of his awesome creations--a self watering planter (or a self watering container; SWP or SWC). I instantly loved the construction of these SWPs because of the fact that they use recycled/inexpensive items, and each container only uses one bucket instead of the traditional "bucket in a bucket" method (you can find instructions for that method here and here).

Last year I received a bunch of kitty litter buckets from a very generous Freecycler, and planned on making SWPs with them but never got around to it. Frankly, I'm glad I didn't because I have a better understanding of how things will grow in my garden, and can now make more using EG's method.

I bought a couple floor tile squares at HD for $.65, and blew through those while doing a few trials of cutting incorrectly and drilling holes that were too big. I later found $.45 tiles at Lowes.

My redneck work area in the garage...

We don't have a tool bench or a table top that I could get all crazy on with the exacto knife, so I used cardboard LOL.  And, nooo, I won't be spray painting my containers gold... When I traced the yogurt cups for the wicking basket hole, it was way too big (or small depending on the side traced). The top to the spray can was a much better fit.

The tools...

I've used a hack saw for previous PVC cutting projects, but after someone at Lowe's cut my 9ft PVC pipe in half by squeezing a pipe cutter 3 times and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I came home with one. I love this tool! I'm not strong enough to get a good back & forth motion going through PVC so it's always a pain to do. The pipe cutter was still hard to use. Actually, I ended up setting it up on the ground and stepping on it HA! (Not shown is whatever tool or bit DH will let me use to cut the holes in the lids.)

Because of the smaller width of the bucket, the yogurt cups overlapped the wicking basket hole/area.

Overlapping solution: cut the top sections of the containers.

Tada!

I will be using kabob sticks stuck in wine corks as my water level indicators.

I can't wait to see how growing bush cucumbers, baby bell and white habanero peppers in my SWPs will turn out!

Lastly, this week EG showed us how he is implementing his SWP concept with a large storage tote. Perfect timing, since I brought home these 18 gallon lime green totes (what? they were on sale!) two weeks ago! Now I can make two. Yeessss...

Thanks for sharing your brilliance with us, EG!