Abstract: A mobile gardening planter includes a plant container and a drainage system that is adapted for both dripless operation and drip-drain operation. The drainage system includes a drain cap inside the plant container that has holes preferably only in a vertical side of the drain cap for indirectly draining water out of the plant container into a drain pipe extending outside and across the bottom wall of the plant container. A generally vertically-extending sight tube fluidly communicates with the drain pipe so that the water level in the sight tube is the same as the water table level in the plant container, and the gardener may therefore monitor the water table. The open top end of the sight tube allows water to overflow the sight tube, to prevent undesirable over-watering. The sight tube is preferably shielded by a portion of the planter, and most preferably a portion of the frame, that extends outward from the plant container farther than does the sight tube.