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Once your seeds have been germinated and are ready to be planted, you need to ensure that they get the best of treatments and attention in these early developmental stages. Just like a baby, they require constant small doses of water and love.
Why this is perfect!
It’s time for me to get this project started. I have a small pile of plastic soda bottles in a box in the corner of the kitchen that my wife is starting to get upset about.
Prevents over and under watering. Do not have to water daily. Soil will absorb the water as needed. Saves you on water. With a few used plastic soda bottles and a few more simple items, you can be on your way to easy happy plants that almost take care of themselves.
Tools Needed
Drill
Drill Bit
Cutting Blade
Items Needed
Bottle
String/Rope
Soil
Ready to Plant Seeds
Optional: Stapler (Whaaat?)
Drill with your Drill
Use a drill bit to make a hole in your cap. Safety first! Use protective eye ware and call somebody old enough and capable enough to operate the drill. The hole you drill should end up being barely big enough to slide the rope though. We will tackle this later, but try a test run now and see how it looks. Passing the rope through should leave you with a slightly tight fit. My rope that was used needed a 1/4 inch drill bit.
I always unplug whatever tool I was just using right after I’m done. This prevents you or somebody else turning it on by mistake. Believe it or not, I have had kids try to touch my table saw blade while it was in my garage with me standing there. It was turned off and safely unplugged, but definitely not a good practice to try.
In my process, I tried a few different bit types out and they wall worked well enough. At one point I even used a concrete bit. This worked but the downside was it melted through the plastic more than it cleanly cut it away. The key is to make a hole mostly in the center. By no means does this need to be perfect as it mostly won’t been seen. My wooden drill bit has a guide point on it, but my favorite for this project was a standard drill bit that worked the best.
Ninja Cutting Skills
Little Ninjas need to get some assistance at this point. Carefully cut the top of the plastic bottle off. I found that cutting them just over the label was right where I liked them. Also, if you prefer, you can leave the label on to add a decorative piece or make your own for your project. These labels are plastic of some type and should survive some outdoor weather if necessary.
Cut the Rope
Time to figure out how much each one of your self watering planters will need. My first try was about 16 inches long, but I found that 12 inches seemed to work a little better. Too much rope isn’t an issue, but just more to deal with unnecessarily.
Once the rope is cut to length, go ahead and place a normal knot approximately in the middle. You want a somewhat tighter knot to allow the water to wick up later through your cap and into your soil. I have tried a few different ways and for some reason, the looser knot did not work hardly at all.
You can let your rope sit overnight later if you prefer, but to speed things up, you can soak your rope now. If you thread your rope through the cap now,leaving the knot on the threaded side of the cap, it will be ready for us in a few minutes. Otherwise, you will need to completely assemble the self wicking panther to the end and allow the rope to soak up the water over night.
The key I have found to really make the rope work is to ensure the end is frayed… A LOT! This allows more strands to soak up more water, allowing the water to travel all the way to the other end.
Assembly Time!
Now we are ready to start making the magic happen. The first and most logical step would be to slide your rope through the cap. The knot will end up tucked into the bottom of the cap.
Once the rope is in place, screw the cap on as you normally would onto the bottle. The knot at this point should be inside the bottle. If its not, I did a terrible job describing these steps, and needs to be fixed.
Now would be a good time to see how everything looks placed together. If your rope needs to be shorter or longer, make your adjustments. Your rope should be long enough to easily touch the bottom of your soda bottle and have a little bit left over. The rope left in the soil container portion should wrap around the inside of the bottle with just a little left over. Too much rope on either end should not cause a problem, but is unnecessary to have to deal with.
Add Water
Your self watering seed starter is ready for testing. Pour a few ounces of water into the bottom and add your upper portion. Allow your rope to start soaking up the water from the bottom. On its own, this will take quite some time. The best way I found was to let them soak overnight to wick enough water all the way to the top end. To speed up this process you can also soak the rope in water. By letting this occur naturally instead, you can ensure the process works with your chosen rope.
BONUS
I wanted to make sure my newly made self wicking planters did not shift. Over time I think this has proven to be overkill, but sometimes my OCD gets the best of me and this is the way I tend to complete my projects. To ensure this, I used the stapler to put a few staples into the top edge, points of the staple facing inwards. If this were ever to become undesirable, the stables come out very easily. But wait! Now you cannot add water to the bottom.
After tossing a few ideas around, the best idea I found to combat this was to cut a hole in the side of the bottle. Make sure you cut this above the bottom of the bottle cap once its in place. Unfortunately this proved to be harder than it sounds. My drill bits were ripping apart the plastic. I tried heated probes only with minor success. I was thinking of making 3 holes in each around the bottle for semetry, but now I’m lucky if I can find a good way to get 1 in each. Using a drill bit worked the best when backed by a piece of wood or blocker material. I did my best with the drill bits and cleaned them up with a cutting edge.
Larger Version!
The above steps can be done to a 2-liter bottle also! The only part that would need to be changed would be the length of the rope. All other steps remain the same. The only difference is I found 16-inch rope worked better for the 2 liter-sized bottles. Otherwise, the technique and steps are exactly the same.
