Green growing

Is there a limit to what you can use as a planting pot? 

Behold my latest experiment - an egg carton full of growing radishes.  Looks allright, doesn't it?

It seems to be my tiny obsession these days, you know, turning contents of my rubbish bag into containers.  I even wrote a full size article about it - How to turn your garbage into a garden? - check it out if you have a second to spare.  You'll find many more funky ideas there.

But anyway, back to the egg carton.  So far it's working, but as I'm suffering from an attack of honesty, let me share some of my radish worries.  So -

THINGS YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR WHEN GROWING PLANTS IN AN EGG CONTAINER:

1.  The amount of soil per each plant is tiny.  Tiny, tiny, tiny.  I'm not so sure if it contains enough nutrients for the plant to grow full size.  But plants tend to have an amazing will to live, so fingers crossed, it may yet work.

2. It dries up fast as hell.  You need to be REALLY careful with your watering schedule, as omitting a single day may result in a dead plant. 


Apart from those, there seem to be no further obstacles to the project, but I'll keep you updated if something pops up.

New seeds on the ground

Pictured above, my lovely, growing bunch of rocket.

BUT - is such a bunch enough if you love rocket as much as I do?  Not a chance in hell!

I've been accumulating empty plastic bottles over last few weeks.  It reached a stage when I couldn't get out of my bed without kicking at least one.  Well, recycling your garbage means you have a lot of garbage lying around the house until you get to use it.  Unless you're a really tidy, organised person.  Which I'm not. 

So today was the big day when I finally decided to catch up on pot-making.  It's a bit like an assembly line once you start, cut, cut, cut, wash, wash, wash, pierce, fill, and finally SOW.

I've ended up with 12 new pots, made of bottles, juice and milk cartons and even one trifle pot.  Watch how green I am! (Laughs)  I'm not taking being green that seriously, but if it helps - why not? 

I didn't get any new seeds recently, so I had to double on whatever is already growing.  Added some tomato and chili pepper plants.  One extra nasturtium pot - I love the fact that you can eat the plant whole.  And it grows like crazy!  Plus two of my gardening stars (so far) - lovely, lovely rocket and radishes.  The more, the better. 

Now it's few days of impatient waiting ahead, before the first green shoots start coming out. 

Question of container

Ok, the decision is made, we start growing. 

Then you bump against a question - IN WHAT???

The easiest and most expensive answer is to spend an exciting afternoon in a gardening centre.  You'll be bound to come home swaying under the weight of professional, proper flower pots (and with much lighter wallet, too).  Those usually look nice, but I can't afford them and I'm completely not sorry.

I prefer to employ some imagination and use whatever I already have. 

As mentioned yesterday, garbage bin is a wonderful source of functional, original flower pots.  At the early stage of fixation, I developed some kind of pot-fever, looked at every single piece of rubbish as at a potential container and probably was overdoing it a bit.  More than a bit.  Now I'm almost recovered and I can share with you this list of 'potty' ideas: 

- plastic bottles - you know, coca-cola and the likes.  2 litre size works best for me.  Cut in half, make few holes in the bottom and that's it.  You have a brand new, cost free pot.  You're also recycling, and it's devilishly fashionable these days. 

- yoghurt pots - the bigger ones, anyway.  Principle is the same, pierce the bottom to allow water drainage, full stop.  You don't even have to cut anything. 

- milk cartons - to be honest, I haven't tried this one yet, because I'm running out of windowsill space anyway, but I have a feeling that it would work just fine.  If it holds liquid, it will hold moist soil too.

- builder's buckets - this one is for bigger plants, or for bigger batches of small ones.  You can buy them really (and I mean REALLY) cheap in DIY stores.  Also, paint buckets, or any-funny-building-stuff-that-comes-in-buckets containers work great.  Check with your neighbours whether they're not doing some decorating soon!  Just wash them well, some of those substances can be pretty vicious.

- cake boxes - as long as they are plastic.  I swear, I have a batch of strawberries growing happily in a box that once held carrot cake...

Basically, anything waterproof, roughly box-shaped will do.  If you're ambitious, you can beautify them with paintwork or some such.  I'm not, so I will leave details to your imagination.

Tip - trying to cut holes in plastic containers may be dangerous business.  Too easy for the blade to slip right onto your finger.  Warm the blade up in a candle flame and it will slice plastic like butter. 

Feel free to use your own imagination to come up with more ideas.