Green fingers – you either have them or you don’t.
When the Circuit Breaker started last year, I joined the legion of budding horticulturists in a bid to make more meaningful use of my time.
The endeavour started off well enough, but about a month or so later, the dried fallen leaves covering the base of the pot were a clear enough indication that I had trouble committing to just daily watering.
While returning to the office should mean that my plants have all withered into dried leaf nuggets, thanks to some ‘divine intervention’, they’re well, alive and thriving.
In other words, I made a self-watering contraption.
And the best part? It produces its own organic fertilizer too! The plants now float on top of my fish tank, which means that the water gets reused. But if you don’t have a fish tank, I’ve included an alternative method that doesn’t require a fish nor a tank further below.
I made these self-watering contraptions by scavenging an unused basket, some extra hooks on suction cups, a random disposable cup, a scrap of cloth, a plastic bottle and a piece of styrofoam the uncle from my neighbourhood fruit stall was going to throw away.
With a little bit of cutting here and there, three different little planters were born.