When you go away, your plants will stay... alive!

Keep your plants watered while you go away on vacation

Step 1: Get the stuff

You'll need:
1 - a bucket (or small waste bin) 5$
2 - 1/4 inch tubing. I got some drip irrigation tubing. It was the smallest & cheapest there. 13$ for more than I'll ever need
3 - as many of these as you need holes. They are rubber doughnuts with a grove on the outside. Get it the same diameter as your tubing. It will fit snugly and there won't be any leaks. Or messy silicone or epoxy to seal it. 4$

I was doing this last minute, so I went to Home Depot and probably spent more than I should have. But I want my balcony tomatoes to survive my 10 days away from home. And in this heat, they need to be watered almost every day...

Comments

[harry88]

you could by drippers they hook up to the hose

[zxcv]

Basically it is a rain barrel for indoor plants? What prevents all the water from simply flooding the pots and pouring all over the floor? I have seen a lot of instructables for watering plants and they use wicking or a vacuum effect to regulate the water. Or is this simply to feed self watering pots?

[Montreal Muriel]

Good point. This is actually for my balcony tomatoes, so I didn't think too much about debit rates. Proper calibration would be imporant for indoor or undrained planters. Also, becasue it is open, my firnd who is checking in on the plants can just top it up intead of having to break a seal. This is a stop gap measure, I already have the planters and the plants are already pretty grown in. Especially the tomatoes are tied to the balcony, so it's too late to change the pots. But thanks for the input!