Would this be on account of them being in pots? Because I’m talking plants that are hardy several zones past where I am.

I’ve had terra cotta pots burst on me in the winter time … in the south. My suggestion if you’re concerned about not watering enough: buy deep pots so roots can develop well and you’re not obligated to water every day. I personally hesitate with self-watering pots because I can be prone to root rot when heavy rain hits or if I bring the planters inside for the winter. I have a tendancy to overwater though (poor cacti, may you R.I.P.).

I think it’s safe to assume that your pots will suffer one zone colder than you consider the rest of your garden. That’s a guesstimate though and I know you’re a hard fact gal. Is there an option to bury the pots themselves in the winter time?

Thanks for the feedback. I think we’re going to be responsible and actually put in the work to build raised beds now instead of doing pots for a year and a raised bed later. I’ll stick to pots for things like my fantasy citrus (one of these years…) that will have to winter indoors anyway.

I wouldn’t leave them out exposed to snow, etc. But I don’t think they would need to be in a heated area, just protected. That is for the plastic itself. If there is still water in the bottom, it would have to have room to expand and freeze if it could, otherwise I would imagine brittle plastic would eventually burst from the ice.

Because of our “soil” (sand) and critters, I do almost all of my gardening in containers and raised beds. I never actually made any of these, but when I was researching possibilities I saved this link on making homemade self-watering containers.

I ended up purchasing mine – the best price I’ve found is for GrowBoxes. I also have several that were purchased from Gardener’s Supply (more expensive, but sometimes you can catch a good sale, and they have more choices).

The earlier discussion is a couple of years old now, but I’ll mention anyway that I leave my containers outside all year, and I don’t do anything special to protect them. I do try to drain as much water as possible out of them before it freezes. My oldest containers are probably 10 years old now, and they are wintering outside in Minnesota.

paint, mcav0y – did you paint the outside of the containers?

: ) hahaha

I live in a very small apartment complex so less ‘ghetto’ may be a really good thing here – thanks for the tip.