Large Plant Pot with Self-watering System

There are many types of pots with self-watering systems, but all I've seen are small or medium size, so I took the task of designing something that works for a larger volume based on the smallest ones.

Diagram:

The plant pot is divided into 3 parts:

1. Soil
2. Gravel
3. Plastic bottles

Irrigation water not absorbed by the soil and plants down to the reservoir layer (plastic bottles).

Once in the tank, the water can rise to the layer of the soil in two ways:

1. Through the ropes by capillarity.
2. Manually extracting water with lower hose, then use it to water the plants again. The conduit "Air inlet"  serves to drain water quickly

Materials:

• A large plastic tina
• 1m. of  transparent 1/2 inch hose
• 50cm. more rigid hose (to the air inlet)
• Plastic bottles
• Some gravel
• Old cloth rope
• Soil

Tools:

• Drill with 1/2 inch Spade bit.
• Scissors
• A candle, lighter, torch or something to warm the clear hose.

Instructions:

1. Drill the tina at the bottom with 1/2 inch spade bit.
2. Heat the clear hose and pass through the hole drilled

3. Create the layer of bottles. As you can see from the picture this layer is composed of half bottles stacked so that serve as the base to the next layer. The bottles with the cap up serve to tie the old cloth rope.

4. Drill the bottles with the tip of the scissors so that the water flows easily.

5. Tie the old cloth rope to the caps and place the rigid hose that serve as air inlet.

6. Add a thin layer of gravel, about 5 cm.

7. Place the soil seeking the ropes stay in vertical.

8. Plant.

Final result

Currently