Celebrating Self-Watering Containers: Making Growing Edibles Easier for All & Saving Water too!

Spring and summer weather often leaves plants and gardeners wilting during punishing droughts and intense heatwaves. Raising plants in containers requires far more water than growing plants in the ground. If you’ve got a penchant for container gardening, I’d like to introduce you to self-watering containers: literal lifesavers for plants and gardeners! I’m here to show you effective yet simple to use products that will enable you to enjoy success growing a wide range of edible crops, like these chilli peppers that I grew this year.

These plants are all potted up in Coco & Coir Bloom All Purpose Peat-Free Compost; all plants received their manufacturer’s recommended fertilisers From left to right: two Quadgrow Self-Watering Planters (four pots per Quadgrow), the Autopot 4-Pot Watering System and reservoir. In front: two regular plastic containers, and two Gardman Plant Towers (minus the plant supports).

Gardman Plant Towers

Gardman Plant Tower pots include an insert that drops into the bottom of the pot, creating a reservoir. Cones in the insert are filled with compost, these utilise capillary action to draw water up to the plant’s roots.

My ‘Honeycomb’ tomato plants declined in the Gardman Plant Towers because there were no drainage holes to let the water escape. This is easy to solve, as you’ll see later on in this article.

Last year, my Gardman Plant Tower planters overflowed when it rained; unfortunately, there was no mechanism to allow excess water to drain away. Left with unhappy plants drowning in compost soup I forged a plan to correct this error: three holes were drilled in each of my Gardman Plant Tower pots; the holes were positioned just above the planter’s reservoir, allowing excess water to run out. This simple adaptation transformed my growing in Gardman Plant Towers and these plants produced a decent harvest.

These pots are both planters from the Gardman Plant Towers kits. In this picture you might be able to make out a hole that has been drilled into the side of each pot to allow water to escape when water levels inside the pot rise above the reservoir. There are three holes drilled into each of my three Gardman Plant Tower pots.

The white funnels in these two Gardman Plant Tower pots allow gardeners to easily pour water directly into the pot’s reservoir at the bottom of the pot.

The Autopot 4Pot Pro Watering System

Here you can see a partially assembled Autopot 4Pot Pro Watering System.

The initial setup of the Autopot is rather fiddly. The pipes need to be laid out and connected, and the trays and floats assembled correctly. However, once installed, due to the large size of the reservoir, the Autopot requires minimal effort. Simply fill the reservoir with water and fertiliser every 2-3 weeks (check weekly during heatwaves).

Here is the Autopot 4Pot Pro Watering System set up and planted with chilli pepper ‘Pepperilli’ for my Self-Watering Container Trial.

I only had one problem: a float got stuck in the ‘open’ position causing my Autopot’s tank to overflow the tray and start draining the reservoir. Thankfully, wiggling the float released it. Apart from this one incident, my Autopot 4-Pot System worked perfectly all summer. The Autopot 4-Pot Pro System performed exceptionally well, maintaining a consistent supply of water to plants’ roots with minimal intervention required. My Autopot 4-Pot System produced fantastic plants with a bumper harvest!

The Quadgrow Self-Watering Planter

The Quadgrow is simpler to set up than the Autopot. It features two connected ‘SmartReservoirs’ that together hold 30L of water; Quadgrow plant pots sit in recesses (two above each tank). Inside each pot, capillary matting runs through the compost down into the SmartReservoir below. Capillary action draws water and fertiliser up to the compost and the plant’s roots.

These chilli pepper ‘Pepperilli’ plants were grown in the Quadgrow Self-Watering Planter during my Self-Watering Container Trial.

The Quadgrow has a smaller reservoir so requires more frequent filling than the Autopot (check every other day in hot weather). During intense heatwaves, my Quadgrow plants consumed their entire 30L tank of water in 2-3 days. Despite the Quadgrow producing larger and bushier, more impressive-looking plants, the overall yield from my Quadgrow system was significantly less than that achieved by the plants grown in the Autopot 4-Pot System.

These chilli pepper ‘Pepperilli’ plants are all potted up in various self-watering containers using Coco & Coir Bloom All Purpose Peat-Free Compost. All plants received their manufacturer’s recommended fertilisers From left to right: two Quadgrow Self-Watering Planters (four pots per Quadgrow), the Autopot 4-Pot Watering System and reservoir. In front: two regular plastic containers, and two Gardman Plant Towers (minus the plant supports).

To see every article I’ve written about the Quadgrow Self-Watering Planter, please click here.

I grew these ‘Pepperilli’ chilli peppers in a range of self-watering containers for my Self-Watering Container Trial.

NB: All of my self-watering containers were filled with Coco & Coir Bloom All Purpose Compost; I used the fertilisers that were recommended by the manufacturers of each product. To see every article I have written about Coco & Coir Bloom All Purpose Compost, please click here.

To find out more about chilli pepper ‘Pepperilli’ that you see pictured in this article, please click here.

For more information about my Chilli Pepper Trials, please click here.

For more information and links to more articles about chilli peppers, please click here.