Do it yourself - self watering plant pot

Things are all fine until we go for holidays for our plants especially the indoor beauties. I have tried self-watering plastic bottles with cotton wicks while away on holidays and it had served the purpose very well. 

Recently I began researching more about organic vegetable growing that led me to self-watering plant pots. Read a lot about watering, organic manures, organic pests repellents, organic seeds etc. There are plenty of commercial plant pots that are self-watering but expensive. So I thought of making one like this one with materials available locally.

Here is a plastic plant pot. I have kept two stones inside so that the square blue plastic sheet you will find below will fit perfectly about an inch above the base of this pot. Holes were put on this blue sheet and two cotton wicks inserted. Below this water will be collected and above this blue sheet good quality soil, cocopeat, vermicompost, and a little neem cake powder were put. 

A small hole was also put on the brick colored plant pot about an inch above the base so that excess water may be drained out. I have not fixed a plastic tube that extends from the top of the soil to the base reservoir because this is a small pot and I am quite sure that I can control watering this plant to prevent overflow and over-watering. For bigger pots, it is better to use a plastic tube to pour water that reaches directly the reservoir at the base so that the source of water is at the base and water absorption takes place from below. No topsoil watering in this case. Also no need to keep the plant pot on a base plate here to collect excess water like we do in normal plant pots if we can control watering.

As you know cocopeat has great water retention properties. Neem cake prevents pests invasion and Vermicompost is rich in plant nutrients. The excess water that we pour together with the nutrients will collect in the reservoir. It will be absorbed by the wick by capillary action and enters the soil.

So this should work for 3 - 5 days even if we are not available at home to feed these beauties. For more days go for bigger pots and reservoirs.

You are all familiar with the second plant😊  It is an easy-care indoor plant that figured in NASA's list of awesome indoor plants which purify indoor air.

But what about the first dark green plant?
Please name it😊

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