DIY Mini Self-Watering Wicking Garden

Speaker: Wayne Meador Hello, my name is Wayne and welcome to another wonderful episode of Gardening here on my YouTube channel. I've been getting a lot of inquiries and comments lately from people who just say, "You know, I've tried

garden

ing and for one reason or another, I'm not good at it, I always kill all my plants," or something drastic happens and they lose hope. and maybe try again next year or maybe it's been a few years since you tried. My goal is to help make a difference in the world and help everyone understand and know that growing a

garden

is not that hard.

The way I look at gardening is that plants need three things to live: they need nutrients or food, they need water, and they need sunlight or air. Those are the only three things they need, but they need certain levels and volumes of each. Lately there has been a lot of growth among gardeners who are making pots or

wicking

beds and/or air pruning pots. This won't be an air pruning planter, it will be a

mini

absorbent bed video and I wanted to make something that was very simple for you and that you can do at home in your free time, you can even get your kids involved. and then you can take a bed or a garden bed that's this big and that has automatic

watering

or an absorbent bed and you can put it outside if you want, if you're an urban gardener or you live in an apartment this would work great. you can put it on your terrace.

You will have something that will be much more fun to try in a reduced version and you will eliminate one of the problems, which is the constant supply of water. Now, the only two other things you need to worry about are: am I giving him enough or the right amount of food or nutrients and is he getting enough sunlight? You have now solved your water problem and it will save you from having to take care of it all the time and your pots will not dry out and you will have a much better production of your small salad vegetables.

I'm thinking salad greens, maybe some radishes, some scallions or green onions would look great in a small container like this. I didn't have anything in mind, a building list or anything when I went to the store, but when I went to the store, all I was thinking about was the size of the containers, what I was going to need them to work with, and I tried to find some things that They will work very well together. Your goal is to have a reservoir of water at the bottom, have the soil on top, and then have a wick that runs into the water and absorbs it to the top and supplies your plants in the garden bed with the proper amount.

Water amount. Just come in and we'll get started and then when we're done you'll see exactly what we have going and why this works so well. Well. So the reason I, again, didn't name a specific building list is because I want you to feel flexible to go out and get a variation of different sizes of things that will work together depending on the size of a pot or a garden bed. that you are trying to build. This will be really great for the windowsill or sitting outside on the porch. The first thing we are going to do is modify this lower boat.

This is the tub or pot that the water will be placed in and I wanted to spice it up a little bit and add a viewing window here on the front that would allow us to see how much water was in here and what So we know when we need to add more water. What I'm going to do is use a knife and I'm just going to stick it in here and I'm going to cut a slot in this that will be a window to see the water. Now that we have this little window cut out here, we need to find a way to cover it back up and that's what this clear cereal box container is all about.

I bought this container for about $2 or $1.50 at Wal-Mart and it was the cheapest container I could find made of this clear plastic that would work for what I'm looking for. All I need now is to cut a piece off this container and we can throw away the lid. I need to cut a piece of this container that will be a little larger than the viewing window and will serve as what keeps the water from escaping. outside. Okay, now that I've cut this piece out, I found that it was easier for me to use these scissors and cut it out and fix it this way, than to use a knife.

You'll just have to play with different things. I never have a unique way of doing something every time, I try different things and when I try different things, I end up with results that I didn't expect, because I had an open mind. Now this is ready to go on the side of the tub and you can use it as a viewing hole for the water. The way you want to do it is using 100% silicon and I went and bought this, it's a clear silicon, you can get a tube of this silicon for just a few dollars, and the goal is so you can stick it on the side. of the container using silicone.

The reason you want to use 100% silicon is because it is food grade silicon. Whenever you work with plants or food production, you will want to use 100% silicon because it will not harm your food supply. That's all you have to do. There is absolutely nothing to this, it is very easy, there is a right or wrong way to do it. This is your superior bathtub. In the top tub, what we're going to do is we need to get one of these baskets to come down in the middle of this tub and put it underneath so it's hanging underneath the tub like this and that's what's going to absorb the water up to this crop. . bed.

Now that I have this piece cut out, I have this piece that goes inside like this and hangs from the bottom, and once I put it in the water tank underneath, it will be able to absorb the water. What we need to do is fill this with soil so that the water can penetrate the soil and rise into this pot. To prevent the soil from falling, I have some landscape fabric that I had from Loweís that I was using at the beginning of the season. You don't have to use landscape fabric, you can use an old t-shirt or a pair of jeans.

One of the things that a lot of gardeners love right now are the bags that you buy at Wal-Mart or any of the grocery stores, which are recycled shopping bags or the ones that you carry with you, they work great for this type of project. Just stick it here or you can wrap it like this and put it inside. This will prevent the soil from coming out of the bottom. This is what it looks like. You can trim it a little more if you want, I don't see the need so I'm done. Now, all I have to do is turn these things upside down and place them on top of the tub I already prepared for the water and that's it!

You have an absorbent bed! To get this ready to plant, all you have to do is take some soil and I have soil with an organic mix, I'm going to fill it in and you always want to pack your soil in this bottom absorption chamber. You can use anything for these absorbent chambers, you can get a small cup, just be creative, let your mind go. When I'm shopping, I always look at the containers of things on the shelf, the things that hold food or items, and I always try to think, "How can I use that container?" Sometimes I end up getting a different product than the one I went to the store for, simply because I liked the container it was in.

There you have it, an easy

self

-

watering

absorbent bed. It will save you a lot of headaches because it will take care of the watering for you, all you have to do is when it runs out of water, pick it up, pour some water on it and put it back down. There are a few things you can do to make the watering process a little easier. I'm not going to do it because I don't see the need for it, but if you don't want to lift your pot once you have plants growing in it, or you think it's too heavy, and if you wanted to make it bigger than this in size, you would definitely have to.

You have to do this, but you can put a tube on the side of your absorbent bed that goes through the bottom here and you can use that to fill the water. In my case, I'll just pick it up and put it to the side, or I'll just pull out the side of the tub like this and pour water in. It's very simple, very easy to use and this should last for years and everything I need. What I have to do is replace the fabric on the bottom, maybe every few times I plant it. I hope this is useful.

If it was helpful, give us a thumbs up! It helps ratings and when you give us a thumbs up or you give a thumbs up to a video, it helps other people find my videos and the more people find my videos, the more videos I can make to help you all learn how to do it. garden a little more efficiently and save money at the same time. God bless you all and thanks for watching.