Karl's Garden Blog

Please see the note at the end before you try this!

Ok, it’s well known that I’m not a southerner. And if there’s one thing southerners hate besides not-southerners, it’s hippies. When people hear I’m from the west coast, they start asking the weirdest questions.

And it’s all true. I know a few lesbians. I have some Ani DiFranco MP3s. I wear wool sweaters in the wintertime, I own a pair of birkenstocks and a pair of Tevas, and I have worn both while wearing socks. I go hiking. And… *gasp* — I believe firmly in reducing my footprint on the earth in the form of recycling and re-using things I’d otherwise throw out. Shocking!

One of the things I end up with a lot is beverage containers. They usually go right into the recycling and out to the curbside, but this year I’ve saved a bunch of them to use as planters. Why? Well, there’s an intermediate stage for a lot of my plants where they’re not quite ready to end up outside but definitely outgrowing their containers. As a result, I need to “upscale” transplant a bunch of stuff.

My Collection

(Yes, they were stored in a spare dog crate used for guests to keep the mutts out of them…)

For your average planter, you need something that will hold dirt, something that will keep the light (mostly) out of the root area, no top for the plant (and hopefully a lip that will allow you to easily extract the plant and it’s dirt later) and holes in the bottom to drain out excess water. A used beverage bottle is, with a few small modifications, capable of providing them. And since you’d just be throwing it out anyway, why not use them?

I’m using two sizes. The first is the normal size of a water bottle. I’m using these for small plants that will only be in there for a small amount of time, or for starting much bigger faster growing plants that need to be planted deep — sweetpeas and greenbeans are a good example of this kind of plant.

You can't see them, but there's green beans planted two inches deep in what used to be a gatorade bottle.

It’s worth noting that I used only clean food-quality plastic containers, and took steps to make sure that they weren’t harboring any bad bacteria or chemicals. Well, besides the plastic itself.

When implementing this idea, the most important things to remember are those “Dark” things and the “drainage” things. For drainage, I drilled holes in the lowest points of all the bottles.

Drilling drainage holes

I didn’t take a picture of it, but I have the bottoms of the plants wrapped in black plastic doggy doo bags. (No not used.) They’re held on with rubber bands. I can easily lift the plastic bag to check on root growth and decide when the plant has developed well enough that it can be moved outdoors.

The best part is definitely the price. Free is awesome.

Free ended up not being so awesome. I potted a lot of seedlings in these pots, and none of them lived to make it in the ground. The main problem was the leggy seeds problem; I didn’t have enough light for my early-start seedlings. The problem with most of the hippie planters ended up being that they were difficult to get plants out of without completely turfing the root system. For those that were easy to get the seedlings out of, something about the plastic didn’t seem to foster good growth. I’m clueless to explain why, but I’ve put all of my chopped up plastic bottles back into the recycling bin.