Container gardening is dead simple - you take whatever you have around the house, and garden in it, right? Yet most of us, when we think of growing plants small-time, picture flower pots and window boxes in our heads. But glazed pots and even the ugliest plastic bucket cost money. Whatever is a dirt poor gardener to do?
Obviously you look for things that you have around already. One of my mother's favourite sayings is, "let's take what we already have", and it's been a precursor for a lot of little everyday miracles in my life: great food, and positively MacGyverish solutions to many a dilemma. Use what you got, baby!
Most of us have access to empty plastic bottles, tin cans, plastic bags and cardboards boxes, all of which lend themselves to gardening the thrifty way. If you can brew hooch in a plastic bag, you can grow tomatoes in one, too! I'll show you how once early summer arrives and you can finally take your fledgeling plants outside.
This entry is about those not-lost-but-still-found containers we all have kicking about the house, specifically bottles. In Finland, the humble beverage bottle carries a small "collateral" sum that is claimable at any grocery store: you cannot purchase most soft drinks or alcoholic beverages without paying a small sum for the bottle itself as well, and that sum is returned to you when you put your empties through the recycling machine. (This makes tidying up after your friends' parties a profitable pastime for Uni students: a big bin bag full of empty bottles will buy you a handsome pile of food!) Other bottles, like those containing juice concentrate, are made of a more flimsy material and carry no collateral. Those bottles are the ones we are after, today.
For a simple DIY greenhouse, just cut a well-rinsed, dry plastic bottle in half. Put gravel and soil in the lower half, plant your seeds, and water. Then plonk the top half back on like a hat, perhaps using a piece of duct tape to fashion a hinge of sorts between the two bottle halves. You can then easily access your plant for watering and care, and use the bottle cap to allow ventilation as you see fit while still keeping the container mostly shut for a miniature version of the greenhouse effect. Sunlight and heat will still be introduced through the plastic, and you won't need to put name slips in a pot, just write on the bottle with a plastic marker. This is a great projects for kids and novice gardeners.
Another use for the humble plastic bottle is very similar, but yields two distinct types of container. Think of them as phase A and phase B containers if you will. Cut your bottle in half again, but do it higher up towards the neck: you want a big container whose edges slope slightly inwards, and a small container that resembles a weird cocktail glass. Fill the big container at most halfway up with gravel and soil, and the small one half-and-half with soil and gravel, with the gravel at the bottom in both cases for drainage. Take the small container (or phase A container), wet the soil thoroughly, plant your seeds, and cover with plastic (saran wrap or transparent lunch sack will do). When the seedlings have grown enough to be separated, transfer them into the bigger container or several identical ones individually. The sloping walls will help to preserve humidity and warmth.
The third use for the humble plastic bottle is the simplest one yet and the one requiring the least amount of work, but as it has been one of my biggest "aha!" moments yet, I shall save it for another post entirely. Until then, keep your green thumbs dirty, true believers!
