Weekend Project - Self Watering Garden

 

This post is going to be a little out of the ordinary since it's not technically school related.  It's not even paper related either.  Can you imagine that?  But it still comes under "learning", as in real life learning.

 

This weekend hubby and I - mostly hubby, built a couple of 'rain gutter' gardens.  We didn't end up using rain gutters, but the concept was there.  We ended up with something much better.  Something that will minimise water loss.

 

We made a SELF WATERING garden.

 

Imagine having a garden that rocket grew everything and all you had to do was collect the produce off it?  Well, that's almost what we have.

 

But first - we had to build it.

 

Basically hubby took a poly pipe and two big pieces of wood and a heap of buckets.  We got the buckets for free by visiting shops that didn't need them once they'd used up whatever was in them. 

 

 

 

Hubby drilled a hold in the bottom of all the buckets.

 

 

 

 

Then we stuck little baskets through.  They sit nice and snug in there as the lip of the basket holds on.

 

 

 

 

Then hubby started drilling holes in the poly pipe for the baskets to sit over.

 

 

 

 

This is what the poly pipe and wood looked like once all the holes were drilled in it.

 

 

 

 

A little up closer on those holes.

 

 

 

 

Then hubby attached the water hose,

 

 

 

 

and the float.  This way whenever the water level drops a little the hose will automatically fill it back up.  Cool hay?

 

 

 

 

How all the buckets look once they are put on the poly pipe.  The baskets are partly submerged in the water in the pipe.

 

 

 

Then we mixed a heap of potting mix and peat, and threw in some fertilizer too, and started planting our plants.

 

 

 

So now we sit back and wait for them to grow.  We'll put some liquid fertilizer in the water pipe in a couple of weeks or so.  That should help them along as well.

 

 

 

 

Then hubby went and made another row for me.  So we've got two rows going at the moment.

 

I hope to do more updates on our little garden project as it goes along.  So please check back every now and then under the 'Garden' category.

 

So what do you think?