I want to have plants on my balcony, but I knew I would be incapable of watering the plants everyday. Clearly I needed an automatic watering system, however, I live on the 5th floor and have no access to water on my patio.

I saw an automatic watering system like this. But it was just too much money and it didn’t hold nearly enough water. So, I decided to make my own watering system that could hold a lot more water. I was able to make a 5 gallon system for less than $30.

This is it. It doesn’t look like anything amazing, but I tossed it over in the corner out of sight. The reservoir is a simple 5-Gallon paint bucket. I use the lid to keep leaves and dust out. The smaller 2 gallon bucket below is my refill pail. The reservoir sits atop a simple flower stand. This entire system is gravity fed, so the reservoir needs to sit higher than the plants.

Some simple PVC tubing comes out of the bottom of the reservoir and feeds into a battery powered water timer. The timer is designed to be used on an outdoor water spigot, therefore make sure the threading on the PVC pipe feeding into it is the wider water spigot thread. From here the valve on the timer opens into 3/4 drip tubing. I don’t get anything near high pressure out of this system, so I set the timer for 20 minutes.

Ant that is it. Total cost $30. Everything can be found at Home Depot. The watering timer is the most expensive part of the system and can be found here.