Last summer Husband and I planted green and Apache peppers in my DIY self watering planter box the Mark 2. Self watering planters are fantastic for nightshades like tomatoes and peppers because they
looooooooove being watered from their roots.
There are other benefits to growing vegetables in self watering containers: you conserve water by only watering the plant and not the surrounding sidewalk or patio with the sprinkler (or is that just me?) and may be less likely to kill the plant if you forget to water it every day (also me.)
I built the Mark 2 in the
Earthbox style (learn more about it here) with a plastic aeration screen making a false bottom to fill with water. Unfortunately the aeration screen collapsed during the winter under the weight of snow and heavy wet soil. (
Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)
There is another style of self wicking planter that creates the water chamber with gravel and allows the water to wick to the plant roots using a layer of landscaping fabric as a wick. Both water conserving planter ideas work well but I want to to reduce potential spring maintenance of replacing aeration screens that collapse under weight of wet soil or decomposing cloth wicks on a yearly basis.
I combined the two styles to make self wicking and watering tomato planters from pretty flower pots for my container garden.
How to Make a Pretty Self Watering Container Garden
