Self watering idea!! Oppinions?

Hello RIU,
i was sitting thinking about my next grow and because of some space issiues i have i thought of making a micro grow. Then i had an idea about watering all the little pots i will have. What if i take all the pots and cut a hole (or several if needed) on their sides but close to the bottom, then take a tray and fill it with water and nutrients and then put the pots with the holes in there. Will the plants be able to drain enough water? Will it harm the plant or the soil?
Any feedback is appreciated, thank you very much in advance

Yeah, I do that sometimes.

Just gotta make sure they're not gonna be sitting in standing water. Best thing to do would be to let them sit in the tray for a little while, then take them out after they've had enough time to soak up water.

By my understanding you want to place the pots in a tray of water/nutrients and let the soil soak it up. I guess this will work, just so long as you don't leave them in the tray 24/7. Make sure they have time to dry out, oxygen is very important.

2 or so hours would be sufficient ..... don't leave them in much longer, maybe 4 hrs tops.

i have done a grow from start to finish like this, it works but you gotta feed them every day and water as little as you can get away with. as they both said a plant sat in water for a few days will drown. also your floor needs to be bang on level

YOu could use this principle to create a flood and drain system.

1. Take the tray you are going to place the plants in and mark a water level, I would say about 3 cm, this mark is a reference line to where you will fill the tray.

2. Drill a couple of holes in the pots for the plants and place them in the tray and fill the tray with water. Now you should have a clear indication of where the water will fill up to in the pots.

3. Put some expanded clay pellets in the pots so that it fills the pots to the water level. (so now when the pots are in the tray which is filled with water , the water level in the pots are at the same level as the clay pellets)

4. Now fill your pots with the substrate you are going to use (preferable a peat & perlite mixture if you are using nutes) and plant your babies in there.

5. Once your pots have soaked up all the water in the tray you can fill it to the water line again. Make sure not to over fill above the water line because you don't want the water to raise into the substrate as this will soak the substrate. The clay pellets will draw up enough water for substrate to keep itself moist which is perfect for the plants as there is enough air in the mix.

*NB ensure that the tray you are using is not too big as the flood & drain process needs to be regular.

Hope this helps

Thank you all for your feedback!! Your idead and oppinion were very helpful but i will stick to just watering them for now. As i said i have a very small space and complex solutions probably will not work. Anyway i got some knowledge out of it and some nice ideas i can use in the future. Japes what you are suggesting is like a hempy bucket?? i did not really understand how it works, won't the roots go out to the clay pellets in the bottom??

Don't know what a hempy bucket is. You get matrix discs that stop roots from going through. It looks like a type of cloth with a thin copper layer on it.

it will drown

Mine haven't

preferable to do this with hydro, soil typically sucks more water than plants wants when it is saturated. it is called hempy buckets and it is not the best system in production. I would suggest to use it as flood and drain too...