Four uses for yogurt containers in seed-starting
Here are four uses for yogurt-style containers that are very
handy for starting seed transplants or just growing plants indoors.
This is the first set of colour illustrations. Previous illustrations
have been mostly black-and-white line drawings so that they can
be photocopied and reproduced easily on paper. Now that some of
these illustrations are going to the web before paper I'm going
to make colour versions as I post them.
Soil scoop:
I find this scoop much more useful for seed-starting
than store-bought trowels. It's cut from a yogurt container like
this:
The flexible plastic means that you can scoop up
some soil from your source...
...and then pinch the sides in slightly to keep the soil inside
when you lift it up.
The pinched-together sides also make a sort of funnel for depositing
the soil into your growing containers:
If you drop or spill some soil, the plastic is also flexible
enough so that you can put the lip flush against a flat surface
and scoop up the spilt soil.
Waterer:
This is my partner Emily's invention. To water our seeds and
seedlings without washing the soil away we need to have a small
stream of fine droplets. We used a spray bottle at first, but
then it broke. And then a second one broke. They don't seem to
be made for extensive use.
Most watering cans have large holes which would still be too
rough on the soil. So Emily took a yogurt container and then poked
many small holes in the lid with a safety pin:
The sturdy and tight-fitting lids with reinforcement, as shown,
will work the best for this project because they don't fall off
easily.
Once you have perforated the lid, just fill a container with
water and then put the lid back on. Then turn it upside-down and
gently squeeze the spray out.
Here is the waterer in action:
The neat things is that suction keeps the water from coming out
until you actually squeeze the container! We like to use multiple,
short squeezes to spray the water out. If you squeeze to much
at once it could make the lid pop off and all of your water would
spill out at once. Also, the more harder you squeeze the more
the plastic may crease and the sooner it could wear out.
It's easy to make and much more cheap and durable than the other
options we tried. If your droplets or streams of water still aren't
fine enough, try poking smaller holes with a smaller safety pin.
Another option is to heat a thin wire over a candle, and then
use it to melt small holes through the lid.
Seedling pots:
A really simple, straightforward application for yogurt containers
is for seedling pots. When we make them we just use the ends of
scissors or a knife to make a few X-shaped holes in the bottom
for drainage.
The only downside is that because the pots are round they don't
pack together as well as square pots do in large numbers.
Labels:
We like to use old yogurt containers as water-proof
seedling labels as well. We just cut them up and write on them
with a permanent marker.
If you have your own creative uses for containers, please do
write in and let us know.
Back to the DIY Recycling index.
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