No Hose? No Problem!
Many balconies don’t have a hose hookup, which can make it difficult for balcony container gardeners to water their plants. Here’s a free and easy solution to water your plants.
You don’t have to buy a special watering can in order to provide your plants with the gentile flow of “rain” that they need for best water retention. Just take an old, cleaned out milk jug or water jug. Keep the lid, and poke 15 to 20 small holes through the lid with a large sewing needle or other small sharp object. Once you fill up the jug and screw on the lid, you will have an environmentally friendly and completely free watering can. This watering jug is great for balcony container gardeners because more than one gallon of water is often needed. Going in and out to fill up a watering takes time and will get old fast. Just make as many watering jugs as you need to completely water your container plant garden. You may need five jugs, but filling them all up at once will greatly cut down on your watering time.
If you want to just make things easier on yourself and just fill up a gallon of water, think again. The large amount of water that comes from the gallon (or a watering can) in a short amount of time may damage your plants. For the best moisture retention in potting soil, water slowly so that the water penetrates down through the container until the extra water drains out of the holes in the bottom of the plant container. You should also water gently and not slosh a large amount of water into the pots – this causes pieces of potentially infested soil to end up landing on the plant’s leaves. And this can cause the plants to become infected with fungus or other diseases, and parts of the plants (leaves and/or flowers) may die water splashes up on them.
If you do have a hose hookup, you can either spray your plants daily or set up an automatic watering system for a relatively low price. Because of the convenience of a hose outdoors, consider yourself lucky!
Learn how you can make a self-watering container>>
