Make your own "reservoir" planter.

After much discussion on various news/e-groups, I have attempted to illustrate my idea for a reservoir planter.   This design was intended to replace more expen$ive versions for sale, such as the Earth Box™.   Other companies have similar planters available.

The design attempts to meet several criteria:

I don't see why this can't be made from just about any container deep enough to hold water to the top of the reservoir plus soil for the plants above.

Directions

1. The plant container is whatever you’re going to grow in.   It needs to be deep enough that there will be plenty of room for plant roots when you have the reservoir in the bottom.
2. The reservoir can be any container strong enough to hold a couple of pounds of dirt.   It should cover the majority of the bottom of the Plant Container. Its job is to keep the soil out of the water.
3. Invert it and drill plenty of small holes in the “bottom” – which is NOW the “top” -- holes small enough to keep mulch / dirt from falling through them too easily.  Larger hole is for PVC fill tube.
4. Put the inverted reservoir in the planter, and you have the basis for a reservoir planter.   White tube is PVC pipe used to fill reservoir.   Drill overflow holes in the side of the plant container just below the level of the “top” of the reservoir.   If it rains or if you over-fill, the excess liquid escapes through the drain holes, maintaining a thin air space between the fluid level and the soil.
5. “Side” view.   Everything above the reservoir chamber, where the plants’ roots are, is the “Growing chamber”.   The white tube is PVC pipe used to fill the reservoir.
6. The light blue represents strips of cloth, the brown columns are compressed potting soil, both used to wick water up to the soil.  The horizontal brown patch is loose mulch which supports the soil and holds air spaces.
7. A poor “top-down” view.   Cloth strips aren’t shown.   Item placement is due solely to the fact that I’m using an illustration program, and is in no way related to real-life.   Placement is not as important as inclusion.
8. Finished.  Fill with your growing medium (soil mixed w/ peat moss, perlite, etc.), plants, fill the reservoir, and go.

 

The "earth box" (EB )is designed for use with a plastic/fabric cover to keep TOP WATERING from happening (i.e., hose, rain, dogs, etc.).   This is because the designed use incorporates a "strip of fertilizer" -- for the "feed it once and don't touch it again" simplicity.   If you intend upon using your planter that way, then you need to cover the surface:   If the large quantity of fertilizer gets wet and dispersed all at once, it will over-feed and/or burn the plants, resulting in stunted growth, injury, or even death.    In any event, it is not hard to find a suitable cover, and some of the storage boxes discussed below come with their own covers.  All you would have to do would be to cut holes for the plants to grow through.  

I tend to mix nutrients in with the water (a water soluble hydroponics mix) and feed my plants that way, so that is not an issue for me.

Containers

The dimensions of the EB are approximately 30" by 15" by 12".  Look for a plastic storage container about this size at one of the stores for comparison.  I think you'll be surprised at how large this actually is.  

Some possible containers:  5-Gallon buckets, Plastic storage containers, 55-gallon drums (polyethylene?), childrens' swimming pools, deep "sealed" planters, etc.

Example:  Wal-Mart, Target, and other stores have large storage containers (Sterlite , Rubbermaid, etc.) that are in-expensive.   The size closest to the EB was "huge" in my eyes, and its price was approximately $8.00  Looking around for another plastic container yielded several individual containers that would work, costing less than $5.00 each.   In a pinch, you could use more than one smaller container, and place them side-by-side on the floor of the main container (planter).   If you go the Sterlite route, the container comes with a snap-on lid.

Soil/Growing Medium

My soil mix may be different than yours.  Each year, I start with a basic recipe, and by the end of the year, I wind up having wanted to make the soil lighter.  I wind up making each successive batch with more and more perlite.  Any good garden/ landscape nursery can provide you with perlite in HUGE bags that should be very cost effective.  I start with 50% potting soil, 30% shredded mulch (cypress, in my case), and the rest perlite.   Peat moss is also a good mixer.   Remember, the mixture is for root anchoring, aeration, and moisture wicking, and that nutrients will come from what you add, so technically, a lot of potting soil isn't really necessary. The only place where I tend to use a mix with more soil than bulking material is for the soil columns that lead from the bottom of the container up to the growing chamber... I don't mind if these are water-logged, they are there to convey moisture up to the top.  The EB design has two columns of dirt to wicking, each column is approximately 4" by 4" square.  The home-made version is likely to have much more area conveying moisture from the reservoir, but this should not be a problem.  The soil will wick and hold only so much moisture, and as the plants use that, the soil will wick more.

I add the cloth strips as I'm adding soil mixture.  I tear or cut lots of strips of cloth approximately as long as the plant container is deep.  I drape some along the sides of the container, and insert the ends of some into the holes in the top of the reservoir.   If the holes in the reservoir are large, you may want to cover them with a layer of plastic screen and then a layer of mulch.  I usually just pile mulch on.  Add soil mixture a bit at a time, spreading it around the cloth strips to hold them approximately up-right.  They're just extra moisture wicks, and placement (or even inclusion) isn't critical.  Fill the container up to within an inch or so of the rim.  Plant your crop.  You can see several crop arrangement examples on the Eath Box pages, but again, it shouldn't be critical.  

There you go, those are the basics.  It looks like a lot more work than it is, I just tend to over-explain.  It shouldn't take you longer than an hour to get one of these together the first time.  And the time will get shorter as you build more, or if you do several at once.

If you do build any reservoir planters using this or similar methods, I would like to know how the building process goes for you (which will help me make these directions clearer).  And, when you start getting your plants growing, and when you're harvesting, please tell me how they work for you.  Write to me at my email address: mvisconte@yahoo.com and tell me what you think.

Caveats:

Resources:

Here are some example Rubbermaid containers to look for:

Model 2244, Roughneck® Storage Box, 16.683 x 32.076 x 20.105 in
Model 2245, Roughneck® Storage Box, 16.891 x 28.521 x 19.572 in
Model 2215-95, Roughneck® Storage Box, 16.667 x 15.777 x 23.75 in
Model 4477, 16.3 gal Duratote™ Storage Box, 13.264 x 16.805 x 25.231 in
Model 4478, 21.4 gal Duratote™ Storage Box, 18.148 x 16.805 x 25.231 in
Model 4479, 30.9 gal Duratote™ Storage Box, 17.199 x 31.233 x 20 in