Hello everyone. I think Regina and I promised to share this a long time ago, and we are finally getting around to it now. What can I say, we are both Phlegmatic (Or P's, on the MBTA, if you prefer that one), so we put things off and don't make decisions well. Just today in fact, we both got home early from work and spent a good thirty minutes deciding if we would go on a walk, go for a run, make lemonade, make dinner, sit on the porch, or watch The Return of the King. As soon as I recognized the pattern of behavior, I made an executive decision to go on a walk, and then it took us another ten minutes to actually do that.

We started this porch garden at the end of April, right after Easter. We had visited the Ermine clan, and when Regina and I saw their herbs, we were inspired to plant some of our own. We were also probably a bit envious. When we started, I told Regina that she would soon be obsessed with it and would have to expand the porch garden to satisfy her addiction. It took about a month for that to happen, and then we got another herb planter, and made our own self-watering* buckets for tomatoes. In case anyone wants to know how to make them, I thought we would do somewhat of a step-by-step explanation with pictures.

To do this, you need (per plant):

2 five gallon buckets
1 piece of PVC pipe that is higher than both the buckets when nested (probably about 27 inches)
1 drill
1 1/4" drill bit
1 sharp knife or strong fist
1 empty plastic bottle
Dirt
Plant
Optional: old stocking, cheese cloth, or other mesh material.

To start, choose one bucket that will be the top bucket. Invert it, and then drill some holes in the bottom. Probably about 15-20 should do.

Then, cut the top and bottom off of your plastic bottle, and either drill some holes, or make some slashes in the bottom end of the resulting tube. Place the tube on the bottom of the bucket and trace a line. Then, using either the sharp knife or your strong fist, remove the plastic inside of the traced line. Now do the same thing with the PVC pipe. Trace around it, but don't try to punch this one out. If you really are that strong, the hole will be too big, and if you are not, you will break your fingers. You will need those for the rest of the project.

Now you should have two buckets. One that is useless as a bucket but good as a gardening pot, and one that is still a nice, good ol' bucket.

Next, nest the bucket in which you drilled the holes inside the bucket without holes. It should look like the picture below. In the pictures above I had the pipe and plastic tube already inserted, but I just did that for the pictures. At this point, if you have the stocking/mesh, I would place it over the bottom end of the plastic tube (the end that will face the ground). Then stick that end through the large hole and stick the PVC pipe in the smaller hole.

Next, fill the plastic tube up with dirt. This will act like a wick  when the bottom reservoir is filled with water. The reason you have the stocking covering it is to prevent internal erosion, at least in theory. Then, continue to fill the bucket up with dirt.

 When you have reached an appropriate height, add your plant, and continue to add dirt around it.

For the last step, hold the two buckets up to the light, and make a mark just below the bottom of the top/internal bucket. Then, drill a hole right at that mark. This will serve as a drainage hole, keeping you from over-saturating your plants, and it will allow air to get to the roots. I read that this is important, but if you have heard otherwise, please refute me. Now you are ready to fill up the reservoir with water via the PVC pipe. When water starts pouring out of your drainage hole, you are done. You now have a pot that you have to water less often, can move around into the sunlight (or away from neighbors who want to throw pizza crusts into it from below), and costs about 7 dollars to make.

And here is what it looked like when we finished. 

And here is what they look like today. The smaller one has inferior soil and never took off the way the bigger one did. Now we will know for next year.

 This is our first ripening tomato, which we found yesterday. Any advice on when to pick it?

 This was our first herb pot, which used good soil. We have basil, peppermint, and rosemary. We did have cilantro, but then it went to seed. We know that means it will be coriander, but we have never used coriander in our lives, and we didn't want it taking water and nutrients from the basil and mint, so we pulled it out and inverted it in its own hole.

*Self-watering is not actually true. They just have a water reservoir, so you water them less frequently because they can hold a lot of water at once.