The season is upon us to begin shopping for your garden’s seedlings or perhaps you’re looking to sow your own seeds. Put the peat pots down and let’s chat upcycling seedling containers!
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Why you should reuse pots and seedling containers
Why not? It’s a great way to reuse what you already have and less waste for the landfills. Unless you’re taking your seedling containers back to the home improvement store’s garden center to be recycled, then likely they’ll just be thrown away. Off to the landfill they’ll go.
Reusing plastic pots and seedling containers saves you money, too.
Once the pollen starts dotting windshields, folks gas up and hit the garden centers hard in search of starts and seeds. Oftentimes looking for those biodegradable peat pots to sow seeds in.
First of all, they can get pricey when you consider one plant per pot. If your garden is large, that’s a lot of pots!
Let’s use what we have already.
How to make upcycled seedling containers ready to use:
Wash them! It’s that simple. Soap and water will do it.
But why, you ask?
In case there are any left over disease or pest eggs inside the container from last year that have overwintered in your saved pots and containers. Just wash them away and they’ll be ready to use again.
One other way to prepare pots
I’ve read online that some gardeners will keep their pots or containers in their greenhouse where the temps can get pretty high in the summer. In addition to the hot temperature, unstacking the containers and leaving them in direct sunlight will allow the sun and heat to kill off any disease and pest eggs.
No greenhouse? No problem. Leave the containers unstacked in the sun for a few days to bake away all the bad things that may be lurking inside.
Why does this matter?
Cleaning your upcycled pots and seedling containers is very important. This is because you do not want any residual bad guys to infect this year’s garden seedlings that can transfer to your garden bed. Let’s keep any disease and pests from last year there. Or at the very least, not give them a free pass to come into this year’s garden.
Why shouldn’t I use peat moss pots for seedlings?
I won’t tell you what to do and in fact, I was gifted some peat moss pots lately and I will definitely use them; however, I choose not to purchase them.
Here is a great article on the negative environmental impact gathering peat moss for horticultural use is having on the land.
Read it then you decide.
What are other options for seedling containers that are not plastic?
If you’ve got plastic containers and want to use them, prepare them to be reused. You can also find other sources for making seed containers for sowing.
These are great options but may not last long if you’re sowing seeds early and your seedlings outgrows it’s original container:
- eggshells (crack, split, use egg, rinse out shell halves well and dry)
- toilet paper or paper towel rolls (cut to about 3 inches tall then cut an X into the bottom and fold to close up to create a holder)
- soil blocks
Homemade soil blocks are doable if you have the materials in your workshop available such as PVC piping and 4 inch bolts. Otherwise, it’s likely cheaper to purchase a soil blocker online. One is linked above for you. But please know I do advocate for finding a small business or local garden center to shop from instead.
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