Eliminating Another Excuse Not To Grow Your Own Food

A common excuse that people often give to not grow their own food is that they don’t know when or how much to water their plant.

I was away from my balcony garden for nearly two weeks during the holidays. While on vacation, I did not once travel back home to water my garden.

This wasn’t the first time that I was away for an extended period of time without having someone water the containers.

That doubt and thought started to creep into my mind as well. Some of the plants I started from seed and weren’t doing too well. A lot of the plants were dying or just looking pathetic. I just kept on though.

I started to think that I was under watering or over watering. Everyone was telling me something different. Then I stepped back and just let the plants do their thing.

One of the reasons that I use self-watering containers is that they allow plants to drink up the water naturally. It takes out a lot of the guess work. If you think it’s too dry, you can stick your finger in the overflow hole to check the water level or just remove the planting container all together.

Though the water in the reservoir container should be changed every week or so even though there are holes to allow for circulation. The water can get stagnant and nasty.

If you take a look at the picture above you can see how well the collard greens are doing.

There goes another excuse as to why you can’t grow your own food shot down.

What’s your excuse now?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7-ecHC7KGs

Eliza @ Appalachian Feet January 7, 2011 at 6:40 pm -

No excuses here! Nice inspirational post, I hope more people will give it a try.
Mike Lieberman January 8, 2011 at 3:06 am -

Thanks. Peoples are filled w excuses.
Brian G. January 8, 2011 at 6:24 pm -

I’m going to get some lettuce seeds today.
Mike Lieberman January 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm -

Get em started…
Carole Lamont-Moore January 15, 2011 at 3:41 am -

self watering containers are the best thing that ever invented, in the summer my plants grow excellent especially this last one, but looking at yours and the date its shown Jan 6 2011 most recently would not work where I live. Temps are usually below 20, everything is frozen and under snow lots of it. I wish my job could take me to a warmer climate so I can live off of my own grown food. Thankyou for bringing warmth into my day today. I see a snow storm now…PEACE
Mike Lieberman January 15, 2011 at 5:28 am -

Hahaha. I hear you Carole. I was there with you in that blistering cold last winter in NYC. I’ve since moved out left to LA LA Land.
Mike Lieberman January 18, 2011 at 5:12 am -

There will be future posts that will eliminate other excuses that people use as well.
Androw January 20, 2011 at 7:00 am -

Great Post!!!
Oneaustin June 19, 2011 at 10:38 pm -

Above you said, “Though the water in the reservoir container should be changed every week or so even though there are holes to allow for circulation. The water can get stagnant and nasty.”… How do you change out the water? I assume that lifting out the planting container will disrupt (or dump) the soil through the large hole in the middle.
Mike Lieberman June 20, 2011 at 2:02 am -

You can do as you said without disrupting the soil. It’s what I do.