Garden Start Plant Containers

Containers that were used for other things make great planters. How do I know? Because my obsession with zero waste plus huge garden= alternative planters!

For instance, a group of about 50 people meets twice a week (for four hours!) During the break, everyone is invited to have refreshments, lemonade and tea and coffee are the drinks, served in styrofoam cups! Since I've done my best to eliminate styrofoam from my world, and seeing it piled in the trash like that made me panic... that is just crazy waste!

So the cups became planters. Here is a picture from someone doing the same thing (although I am not sure if these were upcycled or not.) It isn't just cups that make great seedling pots, though. We folded the bottoms of toilet paper rolls, cut open plastic soda bottles, used yogurt containers, made pots from newspaper and sturdy old coffee bags... so many options! Using the plastic salad clamshells to sprout early lettuce and have early salads seems particularly brilliant to me (see details here).

We've been saving eggshells, carefully cracked on one side, just for the novelty of planting using eggshells. I will post a picture when that project is underway.

Pantyhose Tip #10 Wrapping Paper Holder

My wrapping paper always ends up ratty on the ends, but in my search for ALL the useful things you can make from old pantyhose (see Pantyhose tip #1) I found this tip, and am going to give it a try.

Put the tubes of wrapping paper in the legs of an old pair of pantyhose. Hang over a closet rod. No more torn paper.

I imagine you don't have to hang it to get the same paper-saving results, but it would be a handy way to get them out of the way, I guess.

Old Envelopes for Saving Seeds

Save seeds from your garden in reused envelopes. To do this, you are going to have to open that junk mail (something I used to just toss away).

Cut the junk mail in half. Pull out the insides, and recycle or reuse them. Now you have two empty seed-packet sized envelopes. Put seeds in each, fold top down, tape closed. Write the name of the seed on the back, along with the date of storage and any other information you might want to know about it at planting time.

If you can't stand the thought of not reading the junk mail first, get into the habit of opening your mail on the short end. Shake the envelope contents down to one side, and cut or tear off the other. Pull out the junk mail, read it, then proceed by cutting the envelope in half to make two packets (or, if you don't mind the size, don't cut it, just use it as one big pack). The other piece will have to be sealed on both ends, though.

Toilet Paper Roll Plant Starter

Save the cardboard tube in the center of your toilet paper for starting seeds for your garden.
Bend one of the ends in, to make a base. (If you want to get super neat about it, set the tube up and use a brush handle to push the ends from the other side as well.) Fill with soil, put your seeds in, water. When it is time to transplant these, open the bottom and place directly into the ground, no need to remove the cardboard, it will decompose.

If the plant you are growing is attractive to slugs, use paper towel tubes instead. Cut these in half (for a longer tube) follow the directions, but instead of filling the tube, leave a space on top. This will create a dry collar that the slugs will not want to climb.

You have to start saving these tubes early, if you want to use them for your garden, because you will need one per seedling.