Eco friendly growing

I thought I'd try something different this time with my latest batch of seeds.  I few times recently when potting on the seedlings I've very clumsily damaged the delicate plants which has led to plenty of bad words and recrimination.

Ideally I want a way of being able to transplant the seedlings into bigger pots without having to disturb the roots. I've looked at those Jiffy pellet systems but being a cheapskate I decided to try something a little more 'Blue Peter' in style.  So I dutifully collected my toilet and kitchen roll tubes and set about turning them into plant pots.

Eco friendly planting

Basically you take the tube, flatten it with your weapon of choice, open it out and flatten it again to give four creases running the full length. Cut it into sections (in half works quite well for toilet roll tubes) and open it back out.

Cut a short slit, approximately 15mm or half an inch depending on your currency, on each of the creases and fold the resulting flaps down. Fold them inwards, overlapping them so that they form a base.  Finally give the centre of the sides a gentle squeeze so that they take on a squarer shape.

Hey presto, your planters are now ready for seeds.  Once the seedlings are ready to be potted on you can plant the whole pot into the compost and it will rot away, hopefully leaving the roots untouched.  It may be necessary to open the flaps in the base if they haven't sufficiently rotted by that stage, we'll wait and see on that score.

And for the test, well, I've chosen to try out two new varieties for me, the beautifully coloured but fearsomely hot Chocolate Habanero and the milder but fantastic looking Monkey Face. They're now safely housed on top of the aquarium propagator.

Chocolate Habaneros and Monkey Face, December 2011