The $60 self-watering spike set was a total scam for my 5th floor balcony

I bought those ceramic spikes from a garden shop in Portland and they clogged with soil mix after 2 weeks, leaving my cherry tomatoes bone dry while I trusted them for a whole vacation, has anyone found a drip system under $40 that actually works on a windy balcony without a pump?

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the_kelly28d ago

Windy balconies are the absolute worst for watering gear, mine was on the 8th floor and anything lightweight just launched itself into the street below. My neighbor down the hall swears by these little terra cotta cones that you fill with wine bottles, but she also lost her entire basil crop to a squirrel that figured out the bottle trick. Honestly the only thing that survived my vacation was a cactus and some weeds I gave up on. If you want my real advice, grab some old soda bottles, poke holes in the caps, bury them next to the roots and weigh them down with a rock. It's janky as hell but it outlasted every fancy spike I ever bought.