Easy Ways of Watering Plants While You Are Away On Holiday
January 11, 2020 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

Tribe, how many of you have experienced the heartbreak of coming back home to your dead plants after a relaxing holiday? Especially in this region, where many people struggle to keep their plants alive even when they are around all the time. So it’s not a surprise when sometimes you almost forget that your plants can thrive even when you are away if you know the right techniques. Today I am going to share some of the most effective and easy ways of setting up a system of ‘self-watering your plants in your absence’. So now, without worrying about your plants, you can enjoy your vacation somewhere far away from home and still can water your plants regularly.

There are a lot of different ways of creating self-watering planters or converting your planters into self-watering ones. However, remember that different method works for different plants depending on watering and humidity requirements of the plants and the weather. Here are some easy tips for watering your plants while you are away.

1. Ask A friend

Yes, as simple as it sounds. But not necessary it’s always successful. What if your friend or neighbor doesn’t have a green thumb? Unknowingly they can kill your plants by overwatering or underwatering. Here are some tips, if you are asking someone else to take care of your plants in your absences. Ideally, it’s better not to move your potted plants to your friend’s home and keep them in the same spot at your home, so that the sun requirements for your plants do not change. If you are moving plants to your friend’s house, try to find similar sun-shade-humidity conditions for the plants, that of their original conditions at your home. For watering, better to write a note about the plant’s watering needs on plant labels so that it’s easier for your friend to take care of your plants.

2. DIY Self-watering Plant Spikes

It’s very easy to make your own homemade bottle plant spike. These work great for larger plants, which has regular watering needs and in larger quantities.

Ideally use glass bottles with a small mouth, which has a larger capacity like a wine bottle. Fill up the water bottle and insert it in the soil in an inverted position, push the neck of the bottle several inches in the soil. Your bottle should be in an upside-down standing position in the soil.

Key to the effectiveness of this technique is your plant should healthy and watered regularly beforehand so that the plant will quench it’s thirst through this water slowly over the next few days or weeks. If you have a garden in your backyard, this technique is most convenient, make sure to insert dedicated bottles for the plants.

3. DIY Drip Irrigation

This one works best in any season and almost for any medium to the large potted plant. Find some plastic bottles, you can use any bottles like water bottles, sauce bottles or shampoo bottles, etc. Just make sure, that the bottle is cleaned and washed. If you can find bottles with holes in the caps like ketchup bottles, it’s even easier.

Once you found enough plastic bottles, make small holes in the bottle lids or in the bottom of the bottle, wherever it’s easier for you. The size of these holes or a hole should be such that only a water droplet is draining at a time to create DIY drip-irrigation. Now you can either insert this bottle from the dripping side in the soil like the glass bottle technique or just keep it in the pot positioning in such a way that water is dripping slowly. This drip irrigation works great for 2 to 3 weeks for any flowering plant as well as edible plants like tomato, cucumber, curry leaves, herbs, etc.

4. Water Wicking

Water wicking works on the principle of capillary action, which is the ability of a liquid to flow in narrow spaces without the assistance of, or even in opposition to, external forces like gravity. Though it is a fun science experiment, it is a very handy hack for self-watering our plants automatically.

For this hack, all you need is a candlewick or shoelace or cotton rope and large water jar. Ideally, place the filled water jar or container on some height by using a small brick or stand. Place the potted plants closer around the water jar. Cut the cotton rope long enough for each potted plant. Place every piece of rope carefully such that it’s larger part will stay at the bottom of the water container and another loose end in the soil near the roots of the plant. Here is detailed information on water wicking on wikihow.

This works wonders on smaller plants or seedlings or indoor houseplants where a smaller quantity of water is needed. Make sure to cover the water jar, else water will be evaporated quickly instead of getting sucked in the planter.

5. Water bath

This is super easy to arrange, just make sure you are selecting the right plants for this watering hack. Only water or moisture-loving plants will thrive in this method, other plants might develop root rot. This is generally a safe method for outdoor potted plants in the sun. You just need to find large containers or plates to give a water bath to your potted plants. If you already have an adequate sized drainage plate for planter or plant pot saucer your job is done. I generally use buckets from the washroom or big pots and pans from the kitchen for the water bath. Place your potted plant in the large container and fill up the container with water. The plant roots will suck the water from the water bath when required and will stay healthy.

You can also create a water bath in the kitchen sink or bathtub if there is the sunlight coming in. however, if the light conditions are not good then there are chances of rotting the plant, so be careful.

I have lots of small potted plants in my DIY Vertical Garden. To give them a water bath during my vacation, I generally save all uninvited plastic containers I receive.

6. DIY Greenhouse

Creating a humid greenhouse for a plant works great in summer months for small bushy, delicate outdoor plants with regular but limited water requirements like edible herbs like basil, coriander, etc. I tried this method, as some of my edible herbs were planted in pots without drainage holes and a water bath was not an option.

You can create an almost closed water loop system (with some air inlets) outdoors in the shade, where the planter can be submerged in water like water bath, even if the plant couldn’t suck water from the water bath because the lack of drainage holes, the water evaporates, the steam is then captured, cooled and falls down in droplets in the planter. This way the plant is watered in small quantities regularly.

For my DIY greenhouse, I used a large cooking pan with its glass lid to create a small closed-looped greenhouse for my basil plants and it survived more than 2 weeks in Dubai’s peak summer month.

Vacation Plant Watering System Tips & Precautions

So these are my tried and tested watering hacks for houseplants and outdoor plants. I used the combination of all the above depending on my plant’s light and watering requirements to create my own vacation plant watering system.

Here are some additional tips and precautions to make sure that these DIY self-watering hacks work best.

First water the plants thoroughly before you apply these self-watering techniques to make sure the self-watering will work after you leave the house not before.
I prefer to do arrangements for self-watering a few hours before we leave for the holidays.
Move the plants from direct sunlight to partial sunlight or partial shade
Use mulch for bigger plants to reduce the water evaporation rate, so that self-watering will sustain longer
If it’s growing season fertilize the plants 2-3 days before you leave with natural and organic fertilizers and then use above self-watering methods. You will come back to much bigger plants.
Make sure to keep your plants healthy days and weeks before your vacation so that plants will respond to self-watering positively.
You don’t need to buy plastic bottles & containers for self-watering systems. You can find them in your recyclables or ask your neighbors and friends in advance to collect a few for you.
Recycle all your plastic containers and bottles from the self-watering system after you come back from vacation.
Even after all these efforts of self-watering, in case any of your plants still dried up and appears dead when your return home. Please don’t throw it away. Use our tested method of reviving a dying plant through natural ways.

Over the years, I tried many different watering hacks for houseplants, and finally, I narrowed down on these, which worked best for me. Tribe, go ahead and try them out next time you are traveling and let me know how they are working for you? If you know any other hacks and have tried them, please share with us in the comments below, so that our Tribe can get benefitted from your experience as well.

Now before I leave you to explore more about gardening on Sustainability Tribe, let me bring you attention to water saving. The above tips are not just for using it during vacation, you can also use self-watering technics to avoid overwatering and thus saving water. good for your plants and good for our planet! Read here more tips to save water which you can easily start using at your home.

Here are more organic gardening tips for you. And if you haven’t yet joined Our Tribe, go ahead and subscribe here.