How do your seeds grow?

We had a seedling shuffling session at the weekend to help prepare our plants for their future outdoors and create a bit of space on the window ledges for tender things that needed pricking out. When I looked around I realised what a mix of seed pots and planters we'd used this year - ideal for showing that you don't need to spend a fortune on new matching pots or expensive single use fibre pots to grow your own fruit, veg or flowers from seed and also to show ways of extending the life of the thousands of "disposable" items that come through our hands each year. Just a decent peat-free compost and a container that's deep enough to start your seedlings off. Why peat-free?- well that's a whole other post and others can explain it much better than I can - check out this article on Plantlife's website for many, many reasons why the peat we have left needs to stay in the ground and not in our plant pots and then check out Dalefoot, Fertile Fibre or Melcourt's Sylvagrow for really good growing mediums. We're also trying out Westland's New Horizon for potting things on as it's a bit more widely available than some of the others.

Meanwhile here's a whistle stop tour of this year's seedlings and what we've started them in:


Loo roll/kitchen roll inners - great as substitute root trainers but can dry out quickly so you need to make sure to keep watering. We've also found that they are better for things that don't need to be left in the tubes too long before planting out as they can disintegrate if left for too long. We pop shredded paper or a ball of newspaper in the bottom before filling with peat-free compost and then group them in 5/6 tube sets with a large elastic band round (think royal mail cast-offs). We then stand them in mushroom tubs or broken plant pots to help them stand up.



Paper cups - we don't usually have any drinks in these but a recent bout of hospital visits meant we'd acquired one so thought we'd try re-using it when we got home. The wooden stirrer even came in handy as a label.




Grape punnets - we have used these as mini propagator lids for a few years but after seeing someone on twitter use them as a planter we've sown some of our peas and beans in them and the extra depth seems to work really well. Most come complete with drainage holes so are ideal as deep seed trays. This batch of pea-shoots are also standing in an old mushroom tub which serves as drip catcher.


And then there's the obvious - it always alarms me when I read "living without plastic" articles and social media posts that advocate throwing out what you have and replacing it with terracotta/ceramic/paper etc. - NO! Please, please, please use any pots, modules and seed trays that you have.



Most of these have been around for years and still have plenty of years life left in them and the best thing we can do for the planet is to keep the plastic we have in use for as long as possible - once it's binned it's just hazard to our soils, waterways and wildlife and that's the last thing any of us need to be causing.

On broad beans and plastic pots

Yesterday was the allotment's turn for some attention before Storm Freya landed and made all outside work inadvisable for a couple of days.

Slightly cloudy but still unseasonably mild we popped up to deliver more card ready to lay as new beds and to plant out the first sowing of Aquadulce Claudia broad beans. These have been growing on in a covered propagator in the back garden for the last month or so. The aim was to get them growing just enough to make them unattractive for the mice and voles but not so big that they were leggy and hard to transplant. The plan seems to have worked and we ended up with about 20 healthy little plants that are now in their new home. We've covered them in an old plastic tunnel just to give them a bit of protection from the expected heavy rains and the pigeons/pheasants/deer etc that all like to nibble on fresh green growth.  The cardboard is for creating more potato beds - you can just see the first early bed in the second and third photo below - card on top of a roughly weeded bed with manure and compost on top in the no-dig style that works well for us.

Make do row spacer!

All planted out

Safe from the pigeons-we hope

Plastic pots ready for re-use

Eagle-eyed folk will notice plastic still being used here despite our low-impact ethos - all the pots and plastic tunnels we use are ones we have had for many years and will continue to use until they fall apart and then if necessary we'll buy new non-plastic or, in the case of pots, more likely use second-hand plastic ones. Despite the hype and all the adverts for brand new eco-friendly this, that and the other I think it's far better to use what you have and keep them out of land-fill for as long as possible rather than ditch all your perfectly serviceable long-life plastic and replace with brand new non-plastic items. However, a caveat if you will, if something is breaking up please make sure you gather as many of the bits as possible and put them in the bin rather than let them fall into the soil and create a hazard for the wildlife. If you are starting from scratch and really need to buy something, then yes please go for a more earth friendly option but bear in mind if the plastic pots are already out there, lurking in your shed or even your granny's shed then they will be out there for several human life-times so it's best to use, then hand down or pass along, things that already exist rather than use yet more of the Earth's precious resources creating new things. Oh and when it's empty the chicken manure tub you can see in the picture makes a great kitchen compost caddy as it's lightweight but strong and the lid seals nice and tightly to keep any smells at bay...

Pondering on Plastic

Friday was Transition Stratford's monthly Film Friday and this month we watched the wonderful Clean Bin Project about a Canadian couple who challenged each other to live for a year without producing any waste. This funny but thoughtful film provoked much discussion and gave me plenty to think about as I plan this month's shopping list. The stand out comment for me came when Grant was questioning the validity of what they were doing but Jen pointed out that so many of the current environmental problems - The Big Things - Global Warming; Peak Oil; Air Pollution; even I suspect Famine and World Hunger - would be sorted or at least reduced if only we could cut down on over consumption and by extension waste.

Plastic- What do you do with yours?

Underlining this was a feature mid-film about the plastic island in the middle of the Pacific and the alarming rate at which Albatrosses which nest on Midway Island are bringing it ashore - plastic floating in the water looks like food to an albatross and other sea life you see - and even more alarmingly they are feeding it to their young and killing them. If you want to know more about this and see some heart wrenching photos of plastic-choked skeletons then head over to the Chris Jordan website. To be honest even if you don't want to see the photos you really should try to look at them, but be warned they aren't pretty. Chris helped produce the Journey to Midway film which sought to highlight the problems being caused by human waste in an area about as far away from human habitation as you can get and still be on the planet.

For those of us in the UK wanting to know more about reducing the waste we generate by changing the way we shop the team over at The Rubbish Diet Blog have plenty of ideas. If you are up to it they have issued the Rubbish Diet Challenge and our own Transition group will be re-issuing the Plastic Challenge later in the year.

The overriding message for this weekend is that if we use it we need to take more responsibility for it and that brings me back to the old environmentalist mantra - Reduce, Reuse, Repair & Recycle - and whilst Recycle gets all the headlines the most important of these by far has to be Reduce.

So it looks like there is no hiding place for me - time to look at that bin and revisit the shopping list. Will you do the same?