Posts Tagged ‘Do It Yourself’

If you’ve never gardened before, you might be intimidated by all of the supplies at your local supermarket or garden shop.  You really only need a few things to start seeds.  A container, soil, water, and the seeds.  That said, to increase your chances of success, there are several things you can do.  Here’s a step by step guide to starting seeds in a way that has proven successful for me in the past. I usually start with coconut coir.  It’s a fiber extracted from the shell of a coconut, and they compress it into tiny pellets that expand when you soak them in water.  It comes in a variety of sizes, and while I usually like to get a brick of the stuff, unfortunately my local gardening store only had these pellets.  You can plant directly in the pellet, but as you will see, I removed the netting so

In a previous post, I discussed the anatomy of a self-watering planter, and how you can put items that you’d normally throw into the recycling bin and put them to productive use.  In my household, we eat a lot of yogurt.  Several months ago, we made the switch to the larger, quart-sized containers to save money.  These larger containers also happen to be perfect for making herb planters. Step 1 For this project you will need: 2 quart-sized yogurt containers – It makes it easier if one is slightly larger than the other.  In this case, I used Dannon and Stonyfield Farms.  They fit together like a puzzle and seem to be made specifically for this purpose. 1 8-oz yogurt container – There are many brands with the tapered shape and foil top.  Any one will do. A straw or plastic tube – You can get an extra from a

Once you understand the concept of making self watering planters out of yogurt containers, you’ll never look at your recycling bin the same way again.  The principles used in converting yogurt containers can be used with a variety of materials.  I currently have a collection of sour cream, ricotta cheese, and margarine containers – plus tin cans that once held crushed tomatoes, beans, and soup.  I have big plans of reusing these treasures as planters (self-watering and otherwise). The cross section below illustrates the basic workings of the self-watering yogurt container planter.  It contains four parts (two containers, a wicking chamber, and filling tube).  As you can see, the soil in the wicking chamber stays moist from the water in the outer container.  Moisture deep in the soil encourages large tap roots to form, as opposed to weaker surface roots that often develop when watering containers from the top. The