FAIRBANKS — There are many gardening items worth spending money on, such as lighting fixtures to insure healthy seedling growth. But as I look through the back of the seed catalogs I am accumulating, where they sell equipment that is supposedly essential to gardening, I am horrified by the many things readers are encouraged to buy in the name of insuring a good harvest.
First of all, you don’t need all those plastic four and six packs, or the flats, for seed starting. And you most certainly don’t need peat pots or pellets, which dry out quickly and do not disintegrate in the garden but instead stunt the growth of roots. It is criminal that local stores are allowed to sell them and thus take advantage of unsuspecting, newbie gardeners.
Build flats out of scrap lumber. Or, take cardboard milk cartons, seal the pour spouts with tape, lay them on their sides and slice off the top sides to make flats. If you want flats that are more square, cut down plastic milk jugs and they will function perfectly well. Or save the clear plastic clamshells that grocery stores provide for salads or put half dozens of muffins in and use those as flats.
Instead of those four or six packs, you can use virtually anything that will hold soil and will allow a drainage hole to be punched in the bottom. Yogurt, cottage cheese, hummus, sour cream and whipped butter containers will work, as will cut-down plastic pop and water bottles. In the name of saving money I’ve thrown out all pretense of pride and asked colleagues at work meetings to give me their plastic Solo cups instead of throwing them out as they walk out the door.
And what is with buying pieces of wood or plastic to make markers identifying the crop in each row? A pair of scissors and a Sharpie will turn plastic milk jugs into markers as large or small as you want. If you have an old blind hanging about, then cut off the slats to your desired length and use those.
Instead of expensive cloches, plastic gallon milk jugs can be used to shelter new transplants. Slice off the bottoms and put one over each plant, pushing the bottom a few inches into the soil. Leave the caps off, so that plants don’t get over-heated or too wet from condensation. I leave mine on until the leaves are pushing against the sides, begging to be set free.
Tuna cans, opened at both ends, work well to foil cutworms. Coffee cans, open at both ends and pushed into the ground several inches at the time of transplanting, make perfect water bowls. Filling them insures sufficient water and that it goes straight down to the roots, so it cuts down on water waste and starves weeds outside the bowl.
Plastic pop and water bottles can be used to lighten a large planter and reduce the amount (and thus cost) of the potting soil you need to fill it. Simply put a bunch of them in the pot, stopping when the pot is one third to one half full of bottles, and add the dirt on top. You can also use packing popcorn to the same ends, but be sure to encase them in plastic bags first or you will soon find them migrating to the top of the soil. It is also a pain to pick loose popcorn out when you want to change or refresh the soil the following season.
There is, alas, one item I have not been able to replace by repurposing some other item — my onion starting flats. They enable me to start 200 leek or onion seeds in each flat, without having the pesky problem of intermingled roots and many damaged plants when I go to transplant them. I paid $8 for three of them and have reused them for years, so unless I can figure out a replacement I will keep buying them as they wear out.
Not every recycling effort will pay off. For example, I have used toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, cleaned out egg shells and orange halves with the flesh removed for seed starting. All I can figure is that people who recommend those alternatives have never really tried them. But before you trade your life (which is what you are doing when you spend money you worked to earn) for a gardening item, look around and see if something around the house will work just as well.
Linden Staciokas has gardened in the Interior for more than two decades. Send gardening questions to her at dorking@acsalaska.net.
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