Self Watering Pot – an easy opton for Balcony Garden

Self Watering Pot – an easy option for balcony garden. I was surfing on net for few times to get a ready made one and surprised. It is available from Rs. 500 to 4700!!! I was looking for a cost effective options and diged for DYI sites. Ohh. It’s too easy to make and budget ?
1. Two old paint bucket @ 75 each = 150/-
 2. Piece of pipe = 20/-
3. Effort = moderate
Other Tools : Drilling machine, 22 mm hole saw cutter , 5 mm drill bit and a piece of 2 ½ ‘’ pipe which will act as wick (length should be up to bottom of the container when it will seat on collar. Basics of self watering Pot : It’s a pot with it’s own water container. Water comes up by following simple physics law which you know as capillary action. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action if you need some more details General arrangement will be as per the bellow

Steps : A. Making of Wick
1. Make few holes on the pipe by hole saw cutter
2. Fix a protective net inside so that soil should sit in wick

Now Wick is ready .  

Steps :B. Water Container (the bottom one which is a little bigger than the soil pot.  Just to make a drain hole at the junction point of two buckets. It will overflow the excess water


Steps :C.  Main Pot :
1.Make one 2 ½ ‘’ hole in center to accommodate the pipe- the WICK.
2. A ½ ‘’ hole at side the run a thru pipe to container which will be used to fill water at container (see up most pic or the bottom most - the black color pipe. 

Step D: Fill the pot with soil and plant the tree you like. put sufficient water in water reservour AND IT'S DONE.........Wait for the beautiful result

Hi! I am here again. will start to post after almost two years...

Stop Crackers in this season and help to STOP Child Labour

"In India, more than 80% of total crackers are producing in Shivakashi, a small town of Tamilnadu. Around fifty thousand of children, most of them are girl are working in suffocating work-shade and continuously getting exposed with hazardous chemicals like sulfur, potash, phosphorous, chlorate etc., the children contract deadly infections of lung, skin, kidney and eyes. And all for Rs. 35 per day. A cracker sold in market for Rs.50 has approximate production cost of Rs.5 to Rs. 10."

“Workers eat bananas as a common antidote to guard against constant exposure to chemicals, mainly aluminum. It is interesting to note that most factories offer a Rs 35 per day, banana allowance. “


The more terrible thing is that, in India, As per UNICEF statistics, 17.6 millions child are sacrificing their childhood and earning some bread for their family.

There are strong legislative rules to save their childhood, a lot of NGO's are working on the same issue. But they have their own limits. It is on every people, to reserve the sweet childhood for prevelige children.
I usually saw some rag pickers who search for some waste  material or food in dustbins, few sellers on traffic signals ,a shoe polish boy on bus stand or a family on road to show their road show....mother with a small baby is playing a tune, father is helping the girl who is dangerously walking over a rope without any safety precaution. Sometimes all these things  shake me too much but  I  alone  can solve their  problem for a day by my individual initiative but it will not solve the problem permanently. 'coz they took the responsibility to feed the family and they are the active (sometimes the only) earning member.

Pic. curtsy: Telegraph.uk (Playing with Father's Cobra )

To save their childhood, we need to give them alternate source of surviving, to help them to make  up their poverty first . And we can do it by encouraging elder one to involve in a social self help group and earn for family and  send their children to school for study and taking a perfect initiative to involve female member of the family also to earn.

I know, It is not so easy, I too may be disgusting like many others but if the statics hurts you, please stop wasting money on crackers and donate something to do the same. If all come together then it will not be impossible.