Quck and Easy - Soaker Bucket

Last spring I planted 150 baby trees around my property. Wouldn't you know we started a dry season last year that has gone on into this year. With these new trees spread over my entire yard, I had to come up with an efficient way to get them watered.

All you need for this project is a roll of duct tape and an old plastic pot.

This is a very simple project. All you need to do is plug all but one of the holes. As you see in the picture, that can be done with a few inches of magic duct tape. Make sure the pot is somewhat clean before applying the tape. This will help it stick forever.

That last hole should not be fully plugged. You should leave room for water to come out. Depending on how fast you want the water to come out will determine how large of an opening you want to leave.

I have found it very handy to add a small piece of duct tape at the top of the pot on the side where the hole is. This speeds up the process of grabbing the pot and placing it properly so the water is coming out in the direction you want.

Now that you have all of the holes plugged and have left one with a little room for water to escape, it is time to give it a test. place your pot somewhere and fill it with water. If you have a specific flow rate you are trying to achieve, you can time how long it take the water to drain out. If the flow rate is too great, close the hole up. If it is too slow, open it up.

Now you are ready to place this next to your baby trees and give them a drink. I find the faster way to use this is to fill the soaker bucket by dunking it in a large bucked of water and then placing it next to the tree. I had been placing the soaker bucket next to my trees and then filling them from pail but that turned out to take about twice as much time. And with 150 trees to water, time it... well, time is time.