There are lots of other savings to be made – containers are one. Keep all your empty margarine tubs, yogurt pots, egg boxes, and the cardboard from toilet and kitchen rolls – they can all be used for seed sowing. Plastic fruit punnets and meat packaging from supermarkets also make excellent containers or lids to cover your seedlings early in the year, as are one litre pop bottles – when cut in half they make excellent mini-greenhouses for your plants. I also use florists buckets, when I can find them; cut the bottoms off, stand on the soil, and fill with compost to use for deep rooted veg such as carrots and parsnips.
Larger containers such as old recycling boxes or an old plastic babys’ bath also come in useful for something like potatoes. Plastic takes a long time to decompose but if you put it to another use, rather than sending it to be used as landfill then you are helping to save the planet as well. Large clear plastic bags split down the sides make excellent cloches or as a covering to warm up the soil before planting, and potting compost bags turned inside out can be used to line window boxes and hanging baskets.
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