For easier houseplant care and hands-off gardening, some gardeners swear by watering globes. But there's a more affordable solution: mini wine bottles.
The scoop
Watering globes are blown-glass bulbs with narrow necks that can deliver water to plants slowly over several days. This helps keep the ground moist with minimal effort, which is healthy for the plant and easy for the gardener.
However, the pretty glass globes can cost several dollars apiece, and you need one for every pot or garden plant.
Repurposed beverage containers are a budget alternative that hold about the same amount of water and have a similar narrow neck to push into the soil.
TikToker Alyssa Barber (@newlifestyleabb) posted a video demonstrating this hack. She washes out a mini wine bottle, fills it with water, and plants it neck-first into a pot next to one of her houseplants. "They work the same," she says. "This is also great if you're going out of town for a few days!"
@newlifestyleabb This is also great if you're going out of town for a few days! #thrifty #upcycle #ecofriendly #ecofriendlyliving #sustainable #sustainableliving #zerowaste #zerowasteliving ♬ As It Was - Harry Styles
How it's helping
If you drink any beverage that comes in individual bottles, you can build your new watering system for free.
Meanwhile, recycling bottles into budget watering globes means less garbage going to the landfill, which is good for the environment.
Finally, if you use this gardening hack to grow veggies, you save money at the store and reduce demand for the long-distance shipping of produce.
What everyone's saying
Other users in the comments offer tons of tweaks to make this hack even better.
"Put a piece of cloth on the bottom and you won't have to worry about lodging!!" says one user in response to Alyssa's complaints about soil getting stuck in the neck of the bottle after a few days.
"I'd use the little liquor bottles," says one user, while another adds, "I would totally leave the stickers on for in my college house."
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