sub-irrigated plastic pot

A new experiment in the works! I couldn't wait and when found a half-empty water bottle in the baby bag I drank the rest of it and immediately set about making a little sub-irrigated planter to try.

First cut the bottle in half (I made my cut too low, it should have been a third up the bottle) Poke holes around the top (I don't have a soldering iron, drill or even a open flame to heat a metal skewer, so I just used the point of a knife. Not very tidy. Maybe next time I'll heat the point of a skewer in a candle flame...?) Invert the top part into the bottom half.

Double a narrow strip of cloth (polyester quilting batting is recommended but for now I just used cotton scraps from some old pants. It will probably rot. If I do this again I'll buy the right stuff) in half and shove it down into the neck of the bottle.

Stuff it with soil until the cloth comes out of the mouth opening.

This will wick up water from the reservoir. Fill the rest of the "pot" part and plant!

I've planted one of my Bell Pepper seedlings in here. Set in the windowsill alongside another pepper in a regular kind of pot. We'll see how they do!

I just followed the instructions (more or less) from this flickr tutorial. I know I didn't do all the steps right- my reservoir is too short and the top half doesn't fit in snugly and I don't have enough air holes, nor are my cuts nice and tidy- but hey! I have a plant growing in there! and next time I'll do better.

The other thing is I don't usually buy 2-liter soda bottles. Or any other beverage in nice big, smooth-sided plastic containers. So I'm not sure where a supply of plastic bottles will come from if I want to do more of this. Already I'm glancing around the house wondering what could make a good sub-irrigated planter, once empty. A hand-soap refill bottle? a baby-shampoo bottle...? (after a good rinsing-out, of course).