2 liter soda bottle self watering plant container

This has got to be the cheapest, easiest, and coolest way to build a self watering container for plants, and start your own indoor garden. There are a million different ways to do this project, the important thing is that your re-using plastic bottles and building effective containers to grow your plants. 2 liter soda bottles, milk jugs, and large juice containers can all work for this project.

Since there are so many ways to do this project (it's pretty hard to do it wrong), I'm gonna show you the three best methods I found. Try what's best for you with the materials you have on hand.


Materials

• 2 liter soda bottle
• Scissors
• Drill or sharp object to poke holes in cap and/or bottle
• Soil
• Plant or seeds

Optional materials (depending on method)

• String of some kind (shoelace, t-shirt strips, candle wick, etc. Even polyester will work.)
• Paper towels
• Straw
• Funnel

1.String Method
This method involves using some kind of string to be threaded through the cap, with some hanging in the bottom reservoir and some reaching into the soil.

Here's the best string method I found, from Skruben. Not only is it simple, with step-by-step instructions, but through pictures it shows that it actually works to grow a plant from seeds.

>>How To: Self-Watering Seed Starter Pots

2: Paper Towel Method

This method is very similar to the string method, except it replaces the string with sheets 

of paper towels. It couldn't get any cheaper or easier. Here's a video from SporadicBlah with simple step by step instructions and some killer music to get you motivated about growing plants.

3: Straw method

The straw method is best utilized when growing a larger plant or transplanting, because it involves cutting the top part of the bottle farther down than the other methods. The video is a little lengthy, but the guy knows what he's doing, and gives a lot of information regardless of which method you're using. I highly recommend watching this video from Omar Mujica.

Regardless of which method you choose, have fun, and do what works for you. Try a combination of all three methods; it's a pretty hard project to do wrong.