Wednesday 10 January 2018

Greenhousing It




Supermarkets are probably evil by definition but Morrison's, nevertheless, has at least two redeeming features: 1, it was invented in Bradford, West Yorkshire (as, coincidentally, was I) and 2, it has a salad bar.  I mention this because, viz. the aforementioned evil, said salad bar provides disposable plastic salad receptacles.  Disposable plastic is bad.  Most of it ends up in the sea, as I believe I've mentioned before.  Almost all of it is not only never recycled, but never even re-used.  We've all the plastic we're ever going to need.  The only thing left to do is make good use of it.  A monstrous situation, but here we are.

The disposable plastic salad tubs look like this:



Which gave me a little idea: mini greenhouses!  They're absolutely ideal. Having collected a few of them over the winter, today I set about poking a few air holes in each of their lids, filling with compost, and planting some seeds.  I've started with red cabbage, spinach and celery.

That's not all.  Another investment arrived today: lots and lots of greenhouse plastic sheeting, which, when unfolded in my front room, looks something like this:


I took the measurements of the greenhouse frame on the allotment last week, and this morning I've been setting about cutting this sheeting to size, and researching the best way of fixing it to the metal frame.  Plastic to metal?  The best option seems to be duct tape, rather than glue.  Plastic to metal glue does exist, but is expensive and confusing.



Time for another experiment.  Here you can see one of the little glass shelving units I keep on my kitchen windowsill for starting seedlings.  While cutting the sheeting to the size I'll need it to fix to the greenhouse frame it became abundantly obvious that I've bought far too much of the stuff.  Which gave me another idea...



Insert salad seed trays into shelves, cut pieces of plastic to three sides, duct tape it all together, and I've got myself a tidy little kitchen windowsill greenhouse.  Feeling pretty bloody pleased with myself, I can tell you that.


And you know what?  Those prayer plant cuttings I took the other day are already showing signs of rooting.  Look closely:


Those little brown nubs?  They're going to become roots.  I'm calling it now, on January 10th: spring is here.  Celebrate it.





Related posts

Hibernation and Allotment Planning
Repurposed juice cartons and propagating succulents
Grow Your Own Meals Indoors, Forever and Ever?


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