Hi!
We’re having a hot hot summer here in Croatia. In order to cope with heat you need to have the water bottle near you. This is also true for plants. I tried to make the containers with water container. So I pierced my containers side some 8 cm (approx 3″) above the bottom of container for overflow. In some containers I put pierced plastic containers on bottom and bottle on the side. In others I put only bottle on the side. And some were left without any bottle. The ones without bottle are suffering in the heat and we have to water them more often. The piece of resistance to the heat have proven to be the bottles on the side – water bottles. They are used to water the plants in the container, and the plants are thriving.
Why are water bottles successful?
The side bottles – water bottles – are really really great addition to the containers. They have a couple of functions:
- Watering – You actually water the containers by simply putting the hose in the bottle and letting it fill up. The water Stays in the bottle a bit but is soon absorbed into the soil. If the soil is saturated with water, the water will stay in the bottle and be slowly released when as the water saturation of soil decreases.
- Plants produce deep roots – since bottle is inserted up to the bottom of container, it actually waters the plants from below. With it you insert the water directly to the bottom of container and the plants are forced to actually develop deeper roots so they can use the water in the bottom of the container.
- Protect the plants’ leaves from disease – The water bottle prevents you to get the water on the leaves. This in turn prevents development on fungal diseases – dry leaves = less disease.
All of these things make the plants thrive – they grow stronger and healthier. For instance I didn’t have the water bottle in my container with rainbow chard, and it was looking dreadful. After couple of days with inserted water bottle in the container, the rainbow chard is finally thriving and producing big leaves that will be ready for the weekend feast 🙂 . I may even make soparnik for the first time in my life. It’s a dalmatian speciality which is done with chard leaves and onion. Tasty 😛 .
Make the water bottle
So lets make our water bottle. First I use plastic milk bottles that are 1.75 L. This way I recycle them by giving them new life as water bottles. I keep their lids as well since this is a way to stop the water evaporating in hot weather.
Needed things
- Plastic milk bottle that you don’t need (can also be soda bottle like 2 L coke bottle).
- 3mm drill bit for wood (use smaller if you have my smallest wood bit is 3mm)
- drill
Simply use the drill with bit to drill holes all over bottle except the lid. I drill one hole in the center of bottom and 5 on the sides of the bottom. Then I drill the sides of the bottle so water can escape on the sides of bottle as well. The next thing you do is simply dig the hole the size of the bottle on the side of your container and insert the bottle. Return the soil around the bottle so only part with lid is above the soil. Use it to water your plants and enjoy your harvest 🙂