2 April 2025
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Andrew Oldham explains how to reuse and recycle food containers for a greener garden
Plastic is too easy to apply . There , I said it . you’re able to drop off a shaping plant life pot and it will usually survive . I have unexpectedly buried several , I have drop them with my big feet , backside and on one occasion , my car . I drove for over a mil thinking the exhaust had get off only to root for over and find an orange tummy wedged under the motorcar , sadly minus the clematis it originally admit . But then there was the time I dropped a large terracotta heap in a theatre move . That was 14 twelvemonth ago , and the memory still makes me flinch .
Plastic lasts for decades
The first wintertime in this garden I lose several terracotta pots to harsh frosts . I wept and strap myself with the house of cards wrapping I had forgotten to put around them ! Yet I have never weep or flagellated myself because I have fall behind a plastic grass , and there lies the problem – too many of us regard credit card as cast-off stuff .
Everything is wrap in credit card . Even seed companies and baby’s room are hangdog of using too much charge card , from envelopes to plant labels . We are afloat with it , and it can still be going strong decades after we used it .
I have had two allotments and on both I have unearthed blue nutrient containers that many of us use as piddle prat . In this garden I have found them shatter in the roots of fledged laurel hedge . I found one bury four feet below the cornerstone of an previous shed , still entire . Removing the eyelid I prayed for Au but alternatively found stagnant water and the cadaver of several dead rodent .
I have found bit of charge card along the duration of my garden and removed 30 rubble bag of the clobber . Worryingly , the garden had been derelict for 30 year and for three decades the charge card had sat there . There was joy though , in the material body of an old 1930s dolly tub , still in one piece , halfway up the laurel hedging . It took me half a day to get it down , but it has given me over a decade of joy as a plantation owner and piss bum .
Making report pots
It ’s time to begin thinking outside the box and treasure the plastic we have . As my plastic has come to the end of its life , I reuse it but do n’t replace it when I need newfangled seed trays or stack . Instead I swop it for toilet rolls , newsprint , tins and mushroom trays .
I have used mushroom trays as mini - windowsill gardens for annual herbaceous plant and lettuces . I have used them as propagator , seed trays and tray for carrying homemade paper corporation full of love apple . pretend newspaper slew is meet and you ca n’t help but sense self-satisfied because you will get the same results as someone who buy a pot .
So , ramp up that self-satisfied dial by going to your recycle bin and taking a newspaper , ripping out one large sheet and folding it top to bottom , in half , and one-half again to get a wide , but slenderly thick , newspaper head banding around 20 centimeter ( 8 in ) gamy . Wrap this around a tu - in can , impart some to overhang the bottom . Fold this paper in and then smash it down on a table . It ’s a wonderful activity to do on a spring day , minutes after the weather condition prognosis has told me it ’s okay to wear short pants and I mistreat outside to a force five hurricane !
I take all that disappointment and apply it to really flatten out the paper along the bottom of that can . I had to build a new kitchen tabular array recently but that ’s another story ..
Paper grass last a time of year and they can be planted straight into the territory or composted . There are newspaper - based pots on the market , but I consider that an hour with an unopened can and the free local newspaper publisher saves your sanity , and you may catch up with local news too .
utilisation of a tin can
That tomato can has a liveliness after opening . A few holes punched in the bottom with a nail and a hammer hold out its life by permit it to hold lifetime , for you now have a plant pot . I get great delight in using these on windowsills , plant them with herb ( basil grow well ) and placing them in a mushroom tray so they can be easily watered .
Even when the windowsill herb garden is over and the recording label on the Sn are starting to peel , their use is not diminished . I dispatch the bottom of the tin to create metal tubes which I ingurgitate with sprig bound with jute string and lowly pinecone to make a bug hotel which I pucker into the bottom of my hedges . Even the string I use to do this does n’t contain plastic .
This small variety , that we can all do , mean that string , the thing we use so much of , becomes part of the composting physical process and is recall to the grease . I apply string to make treillage now for beans and cucumbers to climb up too .
The thousands of plastic pots I once collect are down to a few hundred and I nurture these so they last as long as they can . When they do to the last of their animation , I do n’t buy more , I go to our recycle bin to stock up on toilet rolls for plant sweetcorn and sweet pea , newspapers to make mint for tomatoes and cabbages , mushroom trays for lettuces and tins for overwintering bugs .
After use , these are either recycle or composted but for a while , they become a tool that any gardener can make and use , as a way of pull through money and finding happiness .
