Plastic-free propagation?

[Chez2]

When I was a young child back in the late 60s and 70s I remember dad and granddad using wooden seed trays, you can still buy them.

For our other plants we now sow in compressed pellets of growing medium to save pricking out. We do still use plastic as well as terracotta plant pots. You can get various presses to make your own pellets to suit what you are growing.

My granddad used to up-cycle old fruit boxes obtained from the travelling greengrocer who was only to pleased to be rid of them before the end of his journey

You can still sometimes get the thin fruit boxes. We bought a crate of satsumas from Tesco at Christmas. I don't see the more sturdy ones so much because they tend to use those big plastic crates.

[peter831shaw]

What do you think about using glass containers? Its really easy to drill holes in the bottom of the containers.

Ball Jars, large mouth, easy to sterilize, in fact you can even use the pressure cooker (anyone still have one of those?) to sterilize the media and the pot and lids at once.

paint the outsides black with high temperature paint....

maybe a great company idea

I'm sticking with my sturdy plastic ones until one of us breaks down.

[Geri88]

What do you think about using glass containers? Its really easy to drill holes in the bottom of the containers.

I don't have many glass jars around and they tend to get reused indefinitely for jam making, but it's a creative idea. It reminds me of the bean growing experiment we did at school (we used glass jars to be able to see the roots, but we didn't bother drilling holes for the poor beans).

[Geri88]

I agree that if you already own a nice stock of sturdy plastic pots the best and most eco-friendly course of action is to stick to them, but it is not my case and I do not want to contribute to fuelling the demand for new plastic products by purchasing some.

Thank you to everyone who came up with ideas and memories, and especially ragamala for a documented insight into the past. I shall experiment.

[Geri88]

For our other plants we now sow in compressed pellets of growing medium to save pricking out. We do still use plastic as well as terracotta plant pots. You can get various presses to make your own pellets to suit what you are growing.

That's something I've been looking at for my vegetable seeds. Do you find that it works well? I would imagine that success depends on the texture of your compost.

[Chez2]

For our other plants we now sow in compressed pellets of growing medium to save pricking out. We do still use plastic as well as terracotta plant pots. You can get various presses to make your own pellets to suit what you are growing.

That's something I've been looking at for my vegetable seeds. Do you find that it works well? I would imagine that success depends on the texture of your compost.

It has saved a lot of time and root damage when pricking out. It is easier to see when they need potting up too.

[Kees]

How about pots made of recycled plastic?

[NickHitchcock]

I have just seen pots in the garden centre made from bamboo and rice, fully compostable and guaranteed to last 5 years.

[el48tel]

I have just seen pots in the garden centre made from bamboo and rice, fully compostable and guaranteed to last 5 years.

This technology has been around for a while. Pet feeding bowls are made this way but they are brittle.

[Geri88]

I have just seen pots in the garden centre made from bamboo and rice, fully compostable and guaranteed to last 5 years.

I have been using some for the last 3 seasons for vegetable and flower seeds (the ones I have bought are from the Vipot brand I mentioned earlier) and they are very good. I don't find them brittle at all, they are still going strong. It's a shame they don't make seed trays (as far as I am aware).