Make It! Self Watering Herb Garden

Reusing Our Plastic: Self-Watering Herb Garden

This project is an easy answer to a windowsill herb garden. Herb gardens like a lot of sunshine, with the combination of sun and slightly lean soil causing the oils, the fragrance and the flavor of the herbs to intensify. PLUS this project just needs a few of those plastic containers from your recycling bin!

Regularly watering your plant is important, as is good drainage. The self-watering garden ensures that the soil stays moist but not overly wet and the plastic opening allows for water to pass straight through. Keep it to one herb per bottle as the plant needs room to grow and spread.

The kitchen might be the best windowsill for your herb garden (assuming it gets light!) as it is in an easily accessible spot to constantly pinch leaves and use them regularly. Picking from the herb helps to send out new growth and keep the plant going.

Liz likes to plant green herbs in her garden, like lettuce, spinach, and parsley, making them easily accessible and ready to use at lunchtime. She shows us how to keep parsley on hand and right at our fingertips:

WHAT YOU NEED:

One plastic bottle – we used a flat-bottomed apple juice bottle
Seedling – we used parsley
String
Duct Tape
Scissors
Potting Soil – we like Organic Mechanic
Mesh Material – we used fly screen material

DIRECTIONS:

SOAK your plastic bottle to help make the labels easier to remove.

REMOVE the labels on either side of your bottle.

Soaking plastic bottles in sink to remove labels

Peeling the label off of a plastic bottle

CUT the bottle horizontally, leaving the bottom 3/4 of the bottle standing and the remaining top 1/4 cut loose.

PLACE the top of the bottle where the lid used to sit into the remaining bottle, upside-down. The lid opening should be facing the bottom of the bottle.

Cut off plastic top placed upside down in bottom of plastic bottle

CUT a strip of duct tape and LINE the edge of the bottle with tape. This will stop the plastic edge from being sharp.

Cutting a peice of duct tape in preparation for placement on bottle edges

Lining edge of plastic bottle with duct tape to stop edges from being sharp

TAKE a piece of string and place it in the opening of the bottle. Make sure it is long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle and tall enough to come out of the top.

The string will act as a watering agent. It will help to transfer water from the bottom of the bottle to the soil at the top, keeping the soil moist.

CUT a square piece of mesh material and LAY it along the lid opening.

The mesh acts as drainage, preventing the soil from falling through to the bottom while still allowing the water to drain.