DIY Strawberry Planter from Recycled Materials

Reuse old nursery planting pots to make a DIY strawberry planter. Adding a water bottle creates a self watering strawberry planter that costs nothing to make!

diy strawberry planter from old pot

Instead of throwing away these nursery pots, I made a recycled planter for my strawberry plants for free! Cutting holes in the planter allows you to plant strawberry tubers that will continue to grow all summer long.

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My nursery pots are small, 2 gallon pots and are fairly flimsy.  Because they are so thin, I just used an exacto knife to neatly cut out the holes.  I tried to make the holes about 1.25″ in diameter, but once I started cutting they ended up slightly larger. I haven’t had any issues with the soil draining out yet, and it’s been through 3 weeks of lots of rain, so I think we’ll be fine.

My nursery pot had holes in the bottom, but if yours doesn’t, be sure to drill a few small holes for proper drainage.  I always add small rocks or gravel in the bottom of the pots as well to help with drainage.

how to make a strawberry pot from plastic pots

I then added potting soil into one pot.  I found that if I kept my hand covering the hole, filled up to that point with soil, and packed it in, while keeping my hand on the hole, it kept the soil in place without spilling out.  

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In theory, you should plant a strawberry plant in each hole that you make. I only had four plants, so some of my holes are open right now. To plant the strawberry plant in a hole, just add the plant, pack in the potting soil, and then continuing filling the pot until the next hole. I placed the second pot on top of it, filled it with a little gravel, and then added the water reservoir.

The reservoir is just a 20 oz. water bottle (remember, my pots are fairly small) with the top cut off, and holes drilled all over the bottle.  Once you place the cap on and put the water bottle cap side down in the pot, it slowly adds water to the top pot, which then drains down to the second pot.  I filled the rest of the top pot with soil, and then planted two strawberry plants on top.

It’s been growing extremely well so far!  There are quite a few open holes that I just planted seeds in, so we’ll see how they do.  I’ve also taken some of the off growth shoots and placed them in the open holes, where they can root in.  I’m thinking that soon I will place this on top of an upside bucket or planter, so the shoots can continue to growing downwards.

DIY Strawberry Planter from Recycled Materials

Although it’s not the prettiest planter you’ve ever seen, I’ll take FREE any day!

reuse a plastic pot to make a stacked strawberry planter

A few other bloggers have created projects inspired by Pinterest – be sure to check them out.  

Scrapbusting Fabric Twine Bracelets || Sum of Their Stories

DIY Strawberry Planter || Refresh Living

DIY No Sew Faux Roman Shades || Dwelling in Happiness

Wood Pineapple Bowl Revived || Sisters, What!

Mike Wazowski Pinata || Tastefully Frugal

Jenny at Refresh Living (dev.refreshliving.com)

Post by Jenny Leads

Jenny is the voice behind Refresh Living. She has a passion for helping people to create a home they love without spending a lot of money.

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4 Comments

  1. Great planter and the pink pots are really fun.
    I have an old terracotta strawberry planter and last year I replanted it all and added a bottle in the middle for water like you have here. It really made a big difference, the plants don’t dry out nearly as quickly and have done much better for it – this is such a great tip.
    I’d be interested to see how this does over the summer, see how your seeds do in the side holes, you’ll have to do updates in instagram or something!

  2. What a great idea!! I love those pots! I can’t wait until we have room where we can plant more. My MIL has about 15 raspberry plants and it’s so fun to go pick fresh fruit. Thanks for sharing this great idea 🙂