Avocado dreaming

Is it just me or does that look like my two year old avocado in a self watering planter is about to bloom!?

I grew it from seed and kept it indoors over the winter.

Rooftop Garden Update

The rooftop self watering planters are growing leaps and bounds.

Self Watering Planter June 13, 2011

Self Watering Planters June 24, 2011

The Watermelon is growing like kudzu vine. You can practically hear it growing!

Self Watering Planters 2011

In a previous post, I wrote about making a self watering planter, or Sub-Irrigated Planter if you prefer. A lot like the Earthbox planters you might find in Walmart. I took some advice from the makers of the "Global Buckets" videos on youtube, and connected the planters with a thin aquarium hose and siphon. I must say, it is working great. The tomato planter sucks water like crazy, but the lettuce planter has water to spare. By connecting them, it is like having a single 50L reservoir shared by all the plants.

Well, this year's rooftop garden at my school has more diversity than last year.
I have (from left to right) lettuce, watermelon, bell pepper, cucumber, and tomato in the vegetable section.

And the blueberries I planted in the fourth planter last year have exploded in growth. Amazing growth. The honeyberries have not grown as well as the blueberries, but they look to be doing well.

Future plans for the self watering planter garden:

I am planning to make a large automatic waterer based on the traditional chicken waterer. I am thinking of taking a 30-40L barrel, and drilling a hole about 5cm down from the top.
Then I will fasten a deep tray to the top of the barrel. A second option would be upending and standing the barrel in a large plastic storage case.
The hard part will be flipping it over. 30-40Kg.... not impossible, but pretty heavy.
The water will fill the tray until it reaches the hole, where the vacuum created by the bubble at the top will stop it.
After that, connecting the nearest planter with a siphon will begin the watering.
The planters and the reservoir will seek the same level, and water will gradually be released from the barrel as the water lowers to the hole, where it will "burp" out some more and send a bubble to the top.

I hope to have enough capacity to last for a full week between fillings.

Self Watering Tomato Planter

Finally, here it is- the self watering planter that I have been commenting on.



Of course, you don't need to have exactly the same materials and methods as I used. Whatever you have available. Darker colors seem to be better than lighter ones however.

Tomatoes and self watering planter

Well, here is a photo of two of my self-watering planters. They are great for tomatoes, since they can be moved inside if there is a chance of frost, and they provide a very steady moisture to the plants. I can fill the reservoir before I go home on Friday, and they will still be fine on Monday afternoon, even in the hottest weather..

And of course, here are some of the tomatoes. I have two plants in each box, one of them has beefsteaks, the other has cherry tomatoes.

Fruits of the harvest. So, let's see, today's 60g, plus July 2nd 25g equals 85g. so far...

Tsunami!!!! of Tomatoes beginning...?

Well, I harvested the first tomatoes from my self watering planter on the roof of my school today.
Man, they were good. Sweet, with just a hint of tart. Real tomato flavor. Three little yellow cherry tomatoes. 25g all told.

But it is a start!