Do-It-Yourself | Plants in Pet Bottles

To get started with growing your crop you don’t need to have hectares of farm land.

You can use just about anything that can hold the medium where your crop will be sown. To prove this, take a regular ‘dahi ka dabba‘ fill it with soil and leave it in the open. In a few days you’ll see the brown soil bearing some greens. Take that as a signal from nature as a bout of encouragement. Nature is kind, rewarding and enjoys experimentation: and today is what we’ll get our hands dirty in.

 Things that you need are:

1. Waste Pet bottle (lets up-cycle)
2. Cloth
3. Stationery: marker, scissors/paper cutter, ruler, scotch tape and glue
4. Cardboard/Paint
5. Seeds/sapling of your favorite plant
6. Soil

Cut off the bottom of your bottle deep enough so that when you flip the top tapering portion/neck upside down and insert into the lower portion of the bottle it should fit in properly. The lower portion of your up-cycled pot is a reservoir and the upper portion is what will bear your plant. The reservoir keeps the level of water in the container moist enough to keep the roots happy. This is due to Capillary action which causes water to flow against the force of gravity. Even on days when you forget to water your plant or you step out on a vacation, the reservoir will happily do your job!

Now cut a strip of cloth approximately 3 cm in width and around twice the height of your bottle in length. Insert this strip into the neck of your bottle. The reservoir should contain around 70% of the cloth strip while the rest should be stretched out till it reaches the rim of the container. Fill the container with soil and sow your seed a centimetre deep or plant your sapling. Please note that the cloth strip should be visible and very close to your seed/sapling. Water generously until you see water collecting in the reservoir.

A transparent pot can cause damage to the roots and the soil due to direct sunlight. To avoid this, cut four cardboard pieces having the same height as the bottle and width equal to the diameter of the bottle. Stick them together to make a box.  Now, place this box over your pot.

Congratulations! Your up-cycled pot is ready. All that you need to do is water when the soils is dry and yup, take care of the plant.

Author: Vaibhav Dugar
Me, I am a Green Warrior and yes you are either with me or against me!  On paper I’m a telecommunication engineer but professionally, a farmer. Work takes me setting many-a-farms, tilling many-a-lands and playing with soil which I thoroughly enjoy. I love playing football (avidly), going cycling, watching Formula 1 and writing!

If you need company to watch Formula 1, pit stop at Vaibhav.Dugar [at] EkTitli.org

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