DIY Self-Watering Seed Starters and My Garden Ramblings

In what is sure to be a completely overly ambitious attempt at being more self-sufficient, I have decided to garden this year.  I tried to do some container gardening last year and it failed miserably.  In my defense, though, I got a late start, it was a very hot summer for So Cal, and I was heavily pregnant for the entire summer (and I get super grouchy in the heat).  I think I was doomed before I even started, to be honest.

This year, however, things shall be different!  I've already ordered some strawberry plants and blackberry bushes, along with some seeds.  And I've got some seeds leftover from last year, so I'm going to give those a whirl to save money.

I'm trying to not overdo it this year, although I have a list a mile long of things I want to grow.  I know my limitations, so I'm keeping it small:

• Pickling cucumbers.  I love pickles and I love canning.
• Roma tomatoes
• Super sauce tomatoes (to can my own tomato sauce without all the nasty chemicals and preservatives that are in the store bought crap)
• Jalapeños
• Strawberries.  My kid is a berry fanatic.  I go broke trying to keep her in berries during the summer.
• Blackberries.  Did I mention my kid likes berries?
• Carrots.  We already have these growing in a container.
• Various herbs, like dill, cilantro, sage, mint, oregano, basil, etc.

We're going to be building some raised garden beds in the backyard.  And by "we", I mean my husband.  He loves me, though, so it's okay.  I opted for raised beds versus just digging into the backyard for a few reasons.

1.  We have gophers.  Lots of gophers.  They're cute and I don't want to kill them, but they are fucking up our yard something fierce.  It would all out war if they got into my garden.  With raised beds, I can line the bottoms with landscape fabric to prevent the gophers from coming up.  It'll also prevent weeds from coming up from the bottom.

2.  The soil in our backyard is crappy.  I would blame the gophers, but really, we just have shitty, sandy dirt.  With raised beds, I can fill them with good quality soil and compost.

3.  Raised beds will keep everything more contained and easier to work with.  I hope.

Right now, I'm planning on two 4 ft x 6 ft beds.  One of the beds will be strictly for the strawberries, as strawberry plants need about a square foot each and I'll ultimately have 26 plants (only sold in lots of 25 and I had one actually survive from last year, tough little dude).  The other bed will have my cucumber plants and tomato plants.  I'm probably just aiming for a maximum of 2 of each kind of tomato plant, so 2 Romas and 2 sauce.  The jalapeños, I have been told, should be grown in a separate pot or bed by themselves, so I'll probably just do 1 or 2 plants in a container.  The blackberry bushes are going directly in the yard in a row by the fence.  I had 1 survive from last year and ordered another 5 this year.  The different herbs will be in pots; so far, I have sage, cilantro, and spearmint which I thought was dead but appears to be coming back.  Oh, and Eleanor wanted to plant carrots, so we started those in a container a few weeks ago.

It's now mid-February, and in Southern California, that means it's time to start getting your seeds going.  Like I said, I have some seeds left over from last year:  Roma tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, and jalapeños.  Now, I just needed to figure out how to get them started without spending a lot of money.  You can buy fancy-shmancy seed starting thingies, but why?  There's got to be a way to do it on your own.

Pinterest came to my rescue once again, and I found several pages describing how you can make self-watering seed starters out of 2-liter soda bottles.  I was intrigued and immediately got to work a few weeks later.

My first challenge was obtaining 2-liter bottles.  While I freely admit to being a soda addict (I'm also a soda snob, preferring ice cold Pepsi in a can), we don't drink 2-liters very often.  They go flat too quickly for my liking.  I found one random 2-liter in the back of the fridge from when I was craving root beer; I have absolutely no recollection of buying it.  I figured I was going to need 5 or 6 2-liters, so I put a shout out on Facebook to see if any friends could help me out.  My friend Debbie was able to drop off 4 bottles to me the very next day!  Woo hoo!  Thank you so much, Debbie!

Here's how this works:

You will need the following:

• 2-liter soda bottles, very well rinsed and with labels removed.  Don't use soap, though, I don't know what those chemical would do to plants.  If the inside of your bottles are still very sticky, you could probably rinse them with vinegar and then again with water.  And don't throw the caps away, you need those, too.
• A Phillips-head screwdriver.
• Hammer.
• Cord or yard, about 12-18 inches long.  Mine were around 12 inches.  I used the drawstring from an old pair of yoga pants that don't fit anymore (I've recently lost 50 pounds, thank you very much) and an old random shoe string I had lying around.
• Scissors or box cutter or other cutting apparatus.
• Seed starting soil.
• Seeds.

Disclaimer:  The plastic of the bottles is highly reflective and the light in my kitchen sucks, so it was difficult to take decent pictures.  Sorry!

What you need to do is......

1.  Use your hammer and screwdriver to put a hole through the center of one of the bottle caps.  It's hard to do this and take a picture, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Obviously, be very careful while doing this and be sure you're working on a surface that can handle getting a screwdriver pounded into it.  I sat on the floor of the garage to do it; concrete is pretty forgiving of these things.

I actually went back later and made the hole slightly bigger  since I had a difficult time getting the cord through.

2.  Thread one of your cords through the hole in the cap and tie a knot on the inside of the cap.  You don't want to cord to be able to pull out.

3.  Cut your 2-liter bottle in half.  I first thought a box cutter would be easiest, but it turns out a scissors works better.  Be sure to trim off any jagged edges; I don't want you to hurt yourself.

4.  Put the cap, with its cord, back on the bottle.

5.  Place the top of the bottle (with the cap and cord) upside down inside the bottom half.  Half of your cord will now be hanging inside the bottom half of the bottle and into the water.  That will act as a wick to draw moisture up into your soil.

6.  Fill the top half of the bottle with potting soil or other seed starting medium.  I used Miracle Grow Seed Starting Mixture and filled it about 2/3 full.  Make sure the soil fills the "neck" of the bottle.

Make sure the wick goes up through the middle of the soil.

Damned reflective plastic

7.  Fill the bottom half of the bottle about 1/3 of the way with water.  Doesn't have to be exact.

8.  Plant your seeds.  Remember, you'll most likely have to thin the seedlings out at some point, but you still don't want to overcrowd them.

9.  Water the seeds and soil from on top as well.  You'll want to get them pretty well soaked to help "activate" the moisture wick.

10.  Place the seed starter in a sunny location and wait for your seeds to sprout.  When you notice the water in the bottom half of the bottle running low, just remove the top of the bottle and refill the bottom.  Don't forget to label the bottles so you remember what you planted and when.

I'm planning on lots of cucumbers, so I have 2 starters for those.

 These were super easy to make; I had the first 3 done within about 20 minutes.  I did the fourth one yesterday in about 5 minutes while I was waiting for my chocolate sauce to cool, but I already had the hole punched in the cap, so was able to move quickly on that one.  I did 2 starters for cucumbers, 1 for Roma tomatoes, and 1 for jalapeños.  When the seeds for my sauce tomatoes get here, I'll do one for those as well.

I just planted my seeds 2 days ago, so I don't have any results to show you (yet) but I will keep you posted!