Self Watering Bedding Plant Pots

[sdbookmom]

i recently mad two selfwatering 5 gallon containers and LOVE them! So today we were looking at the peppers and commenting on how we would soon need to transplant them into bigger pots, when dh had a brainstorm. He inquired with or not we cold make a self-watering bedding plant set up.

Here's what we did. We had styrofoam cups to use as pots after the seedlings were up far enough. We took a larger size knitting needle and poked holes in the sides of the cup up 1" from the botton 1" of the cup. Then I put in dirt to just above the holes and packed it down.., being careful not to break the foam cup. We added to water just above the holes. Finish filling the cup and plant as you you normally do. In a large seed planter tray. The water wicks up and keeps the pots watered!

[joanfromzone6]

i'm sold on foam cups - start all my seeds in them with shallow soil and add soil as the little plants take off - when it's time to put them in the garden i leave them in the cups and use a serrated knife to slice the bottom off - zero transplant shock and the cups assist in watering in dry periods - if you leave an inch or so of cup above ground level you have a functional cutworm collar - at the end of the season the cups get tilled in along with any plant residue - eventually the cup particles assist with lightening up my clay garden soil -

[Valerie]

NIfty!

[Cyngbaeld]

I do the same as Joan. Really love the foam cups. I used to collect them from the trash at church to recycle as planting pots.

[joanfromzone6]

p.s. - i put one drain hole in the bottom of the cup using a very, very hot nail to melt through a stack of 8 or 10 cups at a time - any metal rod of a quarter inch or so would do as well as a nail -

don't breathe the fumes -

[sdbookmom]

Ok, the soil got wet, too wet, so we are trying again with smaller holes, I may need to modify some more, I will let you know!

[BigM]

What an interesting idea!