Recycling for the Garden

You can start or expand your garden from sprouts to saplings to new seed starts using recycled materials that you already have in your home. Let’s start at the beginning – sowing seeds. Amy Chapman uses the internet to share her recycling and upcycling ideas. “Drink cartons – like this oat milk one – make great seed trays. Containers like this work perfectly for microgreens, so I’m sowing fenugreek seeds into mine. Why not try making use of toilet roll tubes to sow your seeds? These are great for sweet peas as they give their roots plenty of space to grow nice and deep.” Another TikToker has some great tips for using recycled materials. Her name is Judy Bao, but she’s also known as Mama Judy, and she shares her gardening tips as @JudyBaoGarden on TikTok. “So apparently the bottle cap is the perfect depth to put your seeds. Push like this, just lightly. You water them lightly, once a week.”

Plastic bottles also work well as mini greenhouses. They protect young plants from cold weather, and they keep insects like caterpillars, and also snail- and slug-people away. Here’s a clever one for using a cut bottle and a stick to make a tool for spreading insect-friendly repellants. The hanging bottles need lightweight plants like lettuce, scallions, airy flowers or ferns. The original and best recyclers are plants. They always use what they have to create more plants. You can harvest seeds, take cuttings, and divide perennials to get free plants to fill your garden. “You cut strawberry. Now that they’re dry, you can rub them off with your fingertips like this. This I grow one year already so they have the fruit.” When we know we’re doing it in a way that’s best for the Earth, we feel even better. There are many ways to reuse and recycle that I hope you’ll explore.