Off on your holidays and worried about your tomatoes? This five-minute drip-feed watering hack, made from odds and ends from your recycling, turns an empty fizzy drink bottle into a handy slow-release watering system, so your plants keep going and growing, even while you’re not there to look after them.

What you’ll need

Before you get started, there are a few items you’ll need to have to hand, most of which you’re likely to have in your home. They are:

• An empty and rinsed out plastic fizzy drink bottle
• A hollow-stemmed cotton bud
• A stick or small wooden stake
• A pin, or a heated nail, to make a hole
• Waterproof tape

How to make it

The first thing you need to do is to take the cap off the bottle and pierce a small hole right in the centre. It needs to be a very snug fit. The hole needs to be tight enough that the cotton bud sits without wobbling or leaking.

Next, push the cotton bud through the hole from the outside of the cap. A little resistance when you push the bud in is a good sign, as it means you will have created a good seal. You can snip off the cotton tip if you fancy, leaving just the hollow tube if you prefer a faster flow of water.

Tape the stick or stake firmly along the side of the bottle to hold the whole thing upright and steady in the soil. Fill the bottle with water and screw the cap back on nice and tight.

Turn the bottle upside down and push the stake and cotton bud tip into the soil next to your plant, nice and firm. The water will trickle out slowly through the stem, keeping the soil moist automatically. Top up the bottle as necessary.

You can make these a family activity but be sure to keep small kids under supervision. It can be even more fun if you paint the outside of the bottles, so they are a brightly coloured addition to your growing space.