The Clever Reason Smart Gardeners Hoard Plastic Pots

Have you got lots of these? As gardeners, an unruly pile of pots goes with the territory. We use up to half a billion every year. Later I'll be showing you how to spruce them up, but first some alternative ways to use them so you'll never be left wondering what to do with them all. Best get on then! Cut the bottom of pots like this. Now this makes a nice little plant collar which is ideal for young plants and transplants, especially early in the season when it's a little bit chilly. Just pop it over your plant like that, push it in, and the sides will protect it against chilly winds while also protecting it against nibblers like earwigs or wood lice or pill bugs. Larger bottomless pots like this make excellent extra support for tomatoes. Now these are too big now to add it, but you can use the planting collar at planting time, pop it around the plant, and then plant into it. And what that will do is create extra space for roots to develop from the stem, anchoring it in nicely, supporting it, and giving more resources to draw up more nutrients and moisture. You can also add these a few weeks after planting. Just slip it over the plant while you still can, just jiggle it into place and then fill with your potting mix to give that plant an extra oomph. Now tomatoes are one of the few plants you can do this with because they will readily produce extra roots from their stem. Tomato collars will also help to capture some of that water as you water so it percolates down nice and easy. Pots also make handy storage containers for bits and bobs like pruners, labels, pencils, twine, and so on, just to fix it to somewhere convenient like a greenhouse bench, and then you'll have those things that you always need close to hand. Larger containers like this wind up using an awful lot of potting mix, adding both weight and cost. Now one simple way to reduce the amount you're using for shallower rooted vegetables like lettuce or fruits like strawberries is simply to pop in a pot like this into the bottom. Pop it in upside down, you might want to use two pots if the pot is a bit flimsy or the potting mix particularly heavy. Pop it in upside down and then just fill in your potting mix around it, simple as that, and this creates a bit of a sort of hole in the middle that will save a lot of this pricey mix. There you go, you'd never know, and oh that's so much lighter! Now this is a fantastic little project for wildlife enthusiasts of all ages. Take a decent size container like this and then pack it full of natural dry materials like these. Now what these will do is offer a lovely space for bugs, beneficial ones to overwinter in your garden, ready to come out in spring to keep on top of pests. That means autumn is a fantastic time to start a bug hotel as insects look for somewhere to bed down for winter. Now let me show you what I've got here, I've got some hollow stems like these, these are just chopped down bits of bamboo, I've got dried leaves, straw, moss would be good as well, sticks and then bits of bark. The important thing to do is make sure that everything as you fill the pot is flush with the rim so it's not sticking out. Now let's pop our bug hotel somewhere quiet and out of the way. There we go, it won't be long before those bugs move in! Earwigs are fantastic at controlling soft-bodied pests like aphids, but they can also nibble at young shoots and the petals of flowers such as dahlias. So here's a clever way to keep them in check where you don't want them, or indeed encourage them where you do, for example near fruit trees to have an at-the-ready supply of aphid munchers. Now I've got a pot here and I'm just going to thread it onto a bit of a cane like that, there we go, and now I'm going to stuff the pot with slightly moistened straw. Get it in there, make sure it's nice and firm in there so it doesn't fall out because we're now going to invert it and then stick this near to where our earwig issue is. Push it in like that and you want it about the same height as say the flowers you're trying to protect. What will happen now is the earwigs will walk up the cane to hide in the straw which they will find incredibly cozy and inviting. Now earwigs are mostly active at night so all you have to do is check your pot during the day and then relocate any earwigs you find by just shaking them out, or indeed leave them where they are. Some plants are well behaved, sitting tight and growing at a manageable pace, and then there are those rampant spreaders invaders almost that need to be disciplined. Potentially invasive plants like mint can quickly get out of hand and spread far and wide, but I know a clever way to keep them in check. Simply pot your plant up into an old container, this is some mint, and then bury the container into the ground, planting it so that just the rim is proud of the soil. Now what this will do is stop the roots obviously getting out and into the rest of the soil, it'll keep everything within bounds. Doing this also means you can tailor the potting mix within the container specific to the plant so you could have different things in the same bed that need different conditions, and it also stops searching tree roots and shrub roots like from near here, competing with the roots of what we're trying to grow. If you've got a surplus of lighter colored pots then just consider cutting them down into strips to make your own plant labels. This is a great way of having more of those things you always need, I'm always running short of plant labels, and then you'll have an at-the-ready stash for when sowings really pick up in springtime. If you're really keen you could even try having different colored labels from different pots for different crop families or different plant types, say for example one label type for flowers and another for salads and another for vegetables. Have you been caught out by a late overnight cold snap in spring? I know I have, but rather than digging up recent transplants, bringing them all back under cover only to replant them, an alternative is just to cover them with pots. Just take two pots, stack them inside each other to trap some air, now this will create a bit of insulation, and then just pop it over your plant. If it's particularly cold you could just throw on some sacking or something similar to really keep it snug, and then once it's safe to do so, just remove your pots. Get creative and get crafting! Paint or decorate pots to give them a new lease of life. Plant them up and hang them, or make an eye-catching display to add a wow factor to a drab wall or fence. Turn them into garden works of art, a flower pot man for example. Be outrageous or original as you dare. Show me a gardener who doesn't end up with too many seedlings and plants. Well, I like to maintain a stash of pots more than I could possibly use. It means I've got no qualms about giving seedlings and plants away, whether for my daughter's school fair or as a thank you to my ever-generous neighbor Trevor for looking after the garden while I'm away. It's worth keeping pots in circulation for as long as possible before throwing them out, and to help with that it's worth giving them a bit of a clean from time to time. Now things like fungi, diseases, pests, and their eggs can potentially hitch a free ride from one season to the next. Cleaning pots only takes a moment, and I have to say the end result is rather satisfying. Now all I use is water with a little bit of dishwashing soap or washing up liquid, and then a nice bristly brush like this just to lift off all of that old potting mix. Give them a scrub and then just let them air dry. Terracotta pots like this often get mineral deposits on the outside as they seep through the pot and it collects on the outside. It can look a bit unsightly. Now the best way to kind of lift this off is with a wire brush, so just as before but with the wire brush to kind of give it a bit more of a vigorous agitation. Now there's some debate about whether you should then soak your pots in a dilute solution of disinfectant to get them really clean. I don't bother, but if you want to make absolutely sure you could do this and then leave them to soak for anywhere up to half an hour before draining off. Some people use bleach but something more garden friendly might be a more natural disinfectant such as one made with citrus extracts. If you do find yourself swamped with pots just give them away. List them on sites like Freecycle or Craigslist, or just leave them out the front for passers-by to take. Black pots can be hard for the sorting machinery in recycling plants to see, but you may be able to recycle other colored pots either through a curbside recycling scheme or at a recycling center. Do check locally. Some garden centers also offer a take-back scheme for pots. Or why not avoid plastic pots entirely by going for pots that are biodegradable? This one is made from miscanthus grass, but you can also get them made from bamboo or coir fiber. Or even make your own pots for seedlings and transplants using newspaper and toilet roll tubes, and if you'd like to know how to do that I'll link to a video on it down below. In the meantime, did you know I've written a book and here it is? Well, I've got some really fantastic news for you. I've compiled an abridged version of all the best bits, still over 100 pages long, which you can download completely free just for signing up to our video newsletter. Sign up today and secure yours. I'll catch you next time!