Self-Watering Veggie Table

Step 13: Time to plant!

Your table is finished! Get out there and plant some vegetables!!

**Please note I will be updating this instructable as the season continues with the progress of my self-watering veggie table. Check back here for the updates!

You can also see my full garden here. 

Comments

[Tushar Max]

Hello, I live in Goa, India and it's been roughly 6 months since i started growing vegetables in my backyard as well as in a strip along one side of the house. I have a large (about 600 sq ft.) lawn in the front of the house and lately i have been thinking about how it seems to be such a "waste" of water, time and energy to maintain the same. Hence my plans for slowly introducing vegetable cultivation in the same. Your instructable on self watering veggie tables/pots is clear, neatly explained and quite fantastic. I shall surely try and build one based on your instructions. I get your point about avoiding soil as a medium but i don't think we get the ready mixes that you mention. However, based on the description you have provided, about these ready mixes, i am going to try and prepare a mix using peat, coir, sand, soil, cow dung etc. keeping in mind to keep the mix light and not sticky. Since Goa has a very tropical climate, we get abundant rains for about 3 months during the monsoons. I am wondering if i shall need to make some sort of a shelter so that the tables do not get over watered? Once again, congratulations on your simple and wonderful instructable.

[winterwindarts]

If you drill a hole (more than one might be a good idea) in the walls of the containers right where you want the max water level to be, the water will run out rather than build up-just like the overflow drain on a sink or bathtub.

[Tushar Max]

Thank you winderwindarts for the very simple and sensible suggestion. One does tend to get "tunnel visioned" while focusing on a subject, missing out on the broader view :-)
Cheers again.

[Kindlekat]

I actually would disagree with winterwindarts. Because of the design, when you drill a hole in the side of the containers, you are only allowing access to the soil. This will not all overflow of the water. You need a straw or small PVC pipe to go through the outside of the container, pass through the soil and connect to the water resevoir inside, if you intend to have an overflow system. My design has already included this, and in my experience, one overflow outlet is all you need. I do not think extra water would be harmful to this table, it just means you don't have to water it yourself as often!

In a much more tropical area such as you describe Tushar, I could see the advantage to having maybe 2 overflow pipes per container. Just remember that you need a straw to connect to the water reservoir inside.

Please see steps 11 and 12 in this instructable to see more detail to what I am talking about. Good luck! I look forward to hearing how your project goes!

[Tushar Max]

Thanks Kindlekat, i see your point regarding the need to actually keep the soil from getting water logged. The additional "drain off" holes at the top would certainly help in draining off the excess water, as in a bath tub, while still leaving the soil pretty damp and perhaps soggy as well.
cheers.

[lonejack]

I made containers our of half whisky barrels that sit in notches cut in my fence. I made the water containers out of tubs exactly as you suggest, except i just drilled a hole at the top of the tub inside.
These containers have been in my fence for about 12 years now. Each spring I add some more soil to the top to replace what soil decomposed.
I have grown everything from tomatoes and squash to flowers in these containers.
I watter with a tube setup connected to a faucet. I water about every 3 days in mid-hot time.
It is official zone 8b here in the Portland, Oregon area, but effectively it is zone 9a most years. The old saying in Oregon is, " What did you do last summer?"
"I missed it, I went to the beach." We do get a lot of cloudy weather.

[Gordyh]

For people in areas that freeze in the winter I'd recommend a drain in the bottom, to avoid ice damage. The home supply stores like Lowes sell trays that fit under a washing machine, next to them should be a fitting you want (PVC). It has a male thread with a nut and gasket on one end, the other end is female glue and slide in type. Measure the inside of the female end and mark the outside so you can cut of the excess( make sure you don't remove the shoulder). Then make a hole in the bottom of the tube and put the fitting in from the inside, a little caulking wouldn't hurt. Then from the outside put on the nut and gasket, you may want to make a plastic or metal washer to go between the nut and gasket. To plug the hole I use a plug from the back of a boat drain. Sense this is mounted on thin plastic I'd recommend the T handle type plug that you turn to tighten rather than the lever action type. This would also make the whole thing lighter to move if you drained the water first.

I'd also cover the white basket with window screen or a rot proof fabric, to keep your soil mix from getting into the reservoir area and displacing water.

[matits]

You mean there is any place North of Mexico that doesn't freeze? Where have I been all of my life. We have terribly cold wet winters that destroy and mame. We also have terribly hot and humid summers. Weird thing is, we have only a little rain in the summer. Most of the time it is super dry with deep cracks in the ground. Ambient Gulf Coast air keeps it muggy.


We are far enough north to make it not possible to grow a lot of plants because of the extreme low temps we get here. But hot enough to make it miserable.

[Kindlekat]

Great suggestion!

From my experience, I drained my water barrels but not my self-watering planters. In the D.C. area, we routinely get below 20 degrees F, which is below freezing, but not sub zero temps. Last winter my tubs did not crack and I am not sure why, but I was glad.

[fotbr]

Because those types of containers have some ability to flex, and because nothing on top is sealing the container, the water can freeze without doing much damage. After a few years, you might need to replace the tubs (maybe -- if they're shaded from UV light they'll last much longer) but by then you'll probably have ideas on how to make it even better.

I've got a potting bench that uses the same style of tub under a slatted top, and I don't give it a second thought when winter rolls around -- it's held up fine for the last 3 midwest winters.

[Gordyh]

Fotbr,

You have had a lot better luck than I have, on the freezing and breaking issue.

But I will agree the tubs should be protected from the sun.

Gordy in MN

[fotbr]

Well, I'm also quite a bit further south than you (MO), so that might also be a part of it. We see below freezing temps for weeks at a time, but we don't see single digits for more than a night or two at a time, below zero might happen a handful of separate nights through the winter; I suspect there's a point where the plastic becomes to cold to flex. I'd guess that point is somewhere in Iowa. Probably in a cornfield :)

[cindi59]

Hey, why pick on Iowa? We do have more than cornfields! :P

[incog neato]

You should probably consider some form of support (use plastics and allow plenty of places for the water to get through) under the inverted container. Depending on what ever material you use, take some time to carefully measure your supports so it will keep the flat area of that container from flexing to much with the weight of the soil and the plants on top of it. Also, to avoid having the soil from getting too wet (if it rains too much) you might also consider a sloping top a good height up off the plants, to divert the rain off the containers.

[JonathanMurray]

Nicely done, very thoroughly documented! Only potential problem I see is the drinking straw, which is made from cheap plastic that will break down and become brittle fairly quickly when exposed to the environment. A short length of PVC would be far more durable.

[NaturalCrafter]

I am looking forward to the updates on the growing system as I will probably be going to this sort of system in the future. Thanks for sharing your idea.