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Wet Pots from Plow and Hearth
I love these things! I've been trying to keep house plants for years, with numerous plant casualties to show for it. Now, thanks to Wet Pots, I have three healthy, thriving plants in the near-dead of winter.
[pause]
Hmm.
Just checked my asparagus fern, which emerged from three years of suspended animation as soon as it moved to a Wet Pot, and it's not looking quite as perky as it was last week. Will keep an eye on the situation.
The Wet Pots are less expensive versions of the Eva Solo "sub-irrigation" pot I've been lusting after for some time now.
I wonder whether the Eva Solo pot might work better seeing as how the ceramic pot isn't fully submerged in water. The potting mix in the Wet Pots always feels wet to the touch.
Is that bad?
The one problem with the Wet Pots is that they're awkward to keep filled if you don't have a watering can with a long, skinny spout. I used to have just such an item, but it's gone missing. So I use a mixing funnel from Clean Team when I refill the outer container.
I think I'm going to try a watering ball with the one fading plant we have that's too big for a Wet Pot. I assume it works on roughly the same principle as the Wet Pot & the Eva Solo.
from Plow and Hearth
The reason to possess - or create - one of these pots isn't primarily convenience, though they are quite convenient.
The reason to possess or create such a pot is that sub-irrigation planting is the way to go.
Inside Urban Green
Leafy Life
one, two, and three-liter pop bottle planters (photos & instructions)
making a self-watering [sub-irrigation] container (pdf file) - probably more complicated than need be
simple sub-irrigated planter
All Hail this Humble Container
11 comments:
I'm going with an electric cling wrap dispenser this year.
lolllllllll!
Listen, take me to a State Fair & give me a couple of beers, and I'd own one of those suckers myself.
I speak as one who, three years ago, purchased a 50-dollar "classic video games" package (Pac Man, etc.) from 2 Israeli guys at the IL State Fair.
The thing cost about twenty bucks elsewhere & was broken virtually within the hour.
I did purchase a very nice Singer Sewing Machine embroidery attachment one year when I was 10. It worked just fine.
Of course, I hadn't had anything to drink at the time.
I used to love watching pitch-men at the state fairs and elsewhere. Glad to see it's not a lost art and is now finding a place on the internet! In fact, the art of pitching should remain as a 21st century skill.
We go to the IL State Fair every year, without fail. My sister in Sacramento says she won't go any more; her two kids boycotted the CA State Fair a couple of years ago.
That's tough! I say.
I'm going to the Fair.
And I'm taking everybody with me.
Last August we lost Jimmy at the fair.
My sister told the police, who she said would pick him up immediately, based on her experience losing one of her kids at the CA State Fair. "They have undercover police everywhere," she said. "They found N. in minutes."
nope
We explained to the IL State troopers that Jimmy was 21, big, autistic, and couldn't talk well or reliably understand what was said to him. Not only did the State Troopers not find him, or (apparently) relay to any of their other officers the news that they needed to find him, the one thing they did do was broadcast several PA announcements asking Jimmy Berenson to come to the IL State Trooper stand. Which was impossible to find even if you weren't autistic and you could understand PA announcements.
Naturally the announcement went out loud and crystal clear, attracting the notice of the rest of my family who were clear across the fairgrounds at the food tent. Ed and I both cringed when we realized that my brother, his family, AND my 80-something dad were now getting the good news that Jimmy was gone.
My brother told me that when he heard the announcement his first thought was: Is there another Jimmy Berenson?
Then he thought: Naaahhh.
So they all trooped across the grounds to join the panic.
Jimmy was lost for ages. Normally, when he gets separated from the group, he stops in place and stays put. Sometimes he'll get too far behind us because; sometimes he'll get too far ahead of us; but he always stays on a straight-line trajectory, and he always stops when he realizes he's lost sight of us. That's why we don't worry about him anymore: he doesn't get "lost." He just gets temporarily separated from the group.
This time, though, he was off the trajectory. I went, twice, all the way to the front of the grounds, dragging a screaming, protesting Andrew with me -- the whole episode was a horror -- no Jimmy.
The second time I got to the front gate, which gave onto a wide, busy boulevard, the state trooper there told me the big autistic boy had been "found" and had left the grounds with a group of adults.
I was beside myself.
It was the children who figured out what to do. My niece and her friend - both age 10, I think - came up with the idea of riding the monorail so they could survey the crowd from there.
Then they found Jimmy! He had made a right turn off of our straight-line trajectory when he lost sight of me. I'd sent C. up that way to look for him, but C. hadn't gone far enough & so hadn't seen him.
Jimmy was standing at the corner of a bustling block in the middle of the fairgrounds, rocking and chanting, and the IL State Troopers did not manage to notice this anomaly.
After the little girls found Jimmy, the friend said, "Can we have fun on the ride now?"
Yes, I'll be back at the Fair next August!
Funny story: Jimmy is now overweight, AGAIN. (I can't get the household organized to do the Shangri-La diet again, so we're taking the high-protein route this time around.)
Anyway, he is, in IL parlance, a Big Guy. He was wearing a big, oversized polo shirt and baggy shorts and Ed kept seeing big guys wearing big, oversized polo shirts and baggy shorts & rushing up to them -- and none of them was Jimmy.
Everywhere he looked, Ed saw a guy who looked just like Jimmy.
please please come to the MN state fair. They are all Jimmy shaped there too. but the subdued norwegian way of hawking goods is hilarious. even better are the awards they give for the perfectly shaped peas, carrots, squash. Or the arts and crafts booth with hundreds of pieces of cake.
oh that sounds like tremendous fun!
I love fairs.
tragic news
Wet Pots seem to be vanishing. Gardeners Supply is just about out; Plow & Hearth, too.
I was afraid of that.
Meanwhile my indoor plant guru, Inside Urban Green, says Wet Pots are too wet.
I'm sure he's right.
Nevertheless, Wet Pots are an improvement by orders of magnitude over what was going on around here prior to my purchase of Wet Pots.
I'm trying Wet Balls next.
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