Build self watering planters (DIY)
Introduction
Save water and grow healthier veggies and flowers with a self-watering planter. This attractive cedar design uses perforated drain pipe to store and distribute the water.About Self Watering Pot Planters
Who doesn’t love to grow fresh salad greens, tomatoes and herbs? Unfortunately, growing veggies during the height of summer requires daily watering, which can quickly become a problem when you go away for vacation. In the past, we’ve hired the neighbor kid—sometimes he remembered, and sometimes we came home to withered veggies.
But it turns out there’s a better way to beat the heat and keep your plants routinely watered- self-watering planters that you can leave for a week without watering. When we tasked our editors with designing some DIY self-watering planters, the results were incredible. The self-watering planter boxes themselves were gorgeous, they kept rabbits and other critters from munching on the greens, and we went for weeks on end without having to water. We watered three times all summer long (no kidding), and we had garden-fresh salads until frost. In this article, we’ll show you how to build self-watering planters for yourself. The secret of self-watering planters is in the perforated drain pipe.
The total cost of this 3 x 6-ft. cedar planter was $330. If you use treated wood, the price would drop to about $250. And we used a thick EPDM pond liner, which cost $120. (You can buy thinner versions at home centers for about $35. All the other materials are available at home centers or garden/landscape centers.) To give the box a nice finished look, we routed the boards and sanded the faces and cap. We left the cedar unfinished, but you could seal yours. After we built the basic box, we moved the planter to its final position and then added the self-watering system, soil and plants. Even without the soil and plants, this DIY planter box is heavy!
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