Global Bucket 1

Idea from http://www.globalbuckets.org/ for cucumbers.
Green arrow points to fill tube for watering and red arrow points to overflow/air hole.

View from above. Center cylinder is for compacted soil to wick water up from bottom bucket. Small holes are for drainage and areation.



Upper bucket. Blue arrow is capillary action (wicking) chamber. Green arrow shows fill tube. It is notched to avoid clogging and to effectively fill the lower bucket with water. Since "normal" 5 gallon buckets aren't common in Germany I had to modify the desigh to use 18 liter oval buckets. Red arrows point to supports so the weight of the soil doesn't break the bottom and ruin the design.

 

I mixed the soils above to make my finished potting mix. The yellow bag is a year old, so it is mostly filler. I used 5 scoops of it to 1 scoop of each of the bags above. Mixed it in water to acheive roughly peanut butter consistancy before adding to pots.

This is the starter mix I used to propagate the seeds I started in the house.