Use A Plastic Bottle To Make Watering Your Garden A Breeze

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Whether you're growing tomatoes, herbs, or a collection of beautiful flowers, your garden needs water to grow. Plants rely on water to help them move nutrients through their roots. They need water to thrive and produce flowers and fruit. Watering your garden doesn't have to be a chore, though, and you don't need to invest lots of money in an irrigation system. An empty plastic soda bottle can streamline the job of watering for you.

You may have seen (or even used) an empty bottle as a DIY self-watering plant spike. Another way to put an empty plastic bottle to use, and keep it out of the recycling bin, is to turn it into a DIY sprinkler. To do so, you need to poke holes in the bottle and attach it to a garden hose. Making your own garden sprinkler is quick and easy, but it does require some special tools, such as an awl and a blowtorch. You also need a hose tap connector, such as the Hozelock Outdoor Tap Connector, to attach the bottle sprinkler to your garden hose. Additionally, some bottles work better than others. You get better water pressure with a smaller bottle, such as a 16- or 20-ounce soda bottle, compared to a 2-liter bottle. Hole size also matters: smaller holes allow for more pressure than larger ones.

To make your own sprinkler, clean and rinse out a 16- or 20-ounce plastic soda bottle and remove any labeling from it. Wearing safety goggles, heat the pointed end of a bradawl or awl with a blowtorch or lighter for a few seconds, then push the heated tip into the bottle to melt the plastic, making a hole with a finished edge. Using heat, rather than just a sharp edge and pressure, reduces the risk of the bottle splitting open.

Repeat until you've made holes around and up and down the bottle. Heat the opening of the bottle so the plastic melts a little bit, then screw on the tap connector before attaching the sprinkler to your garden hose. Alternatively, use good ol' duct tape to attach the bottle's opening to the hose end, or slide the end of the hose into the bottle's opening and use a nail to hold it in place.

Set the bottle on the soil in the area you want to water. To water from above, tie the bottle to a wooden stake and push the stake into the soil. Turn the tap on in the morning (the ideal time to water your lawn), and let the water run. Once you have your water bottle sprinkler assembled, have fun with it. Turn the hose on and let the kids and pets run through the spray to cool off on a hot day.