Sow and sow and sow some more!

Spring's sprung and so starts the sowing of seeds... 

If anyone is paying attention, you may remember last year I tried sowing some of my seeds in paper tubes... aka toilet roll inners. For those of you that don't remember I got the idea from My Zero Waste and although the initial carrot trial was a failure (probably due to their kamikaze flight on the collapsing cold frame :/) subsequent seeds were more successful.

So for the last 12 months we've been saving loo rolls and waiting for the sowing to commence! 

From my trials last year I've come up with my own loo roll method... maybe I should coin a term for this?! Anyway, I initially tried using the rolls as suggested in the link above, but as my tubes were sitting in a regular seed tray, I found them to be fairly unstable and also too tall to fit the lid on the tray. other posts I've found recommended folding the tubes into square shapes and cutting an inch up from the corners, before folding in to make a kind of pot. I liked the idea of this, but found they kept falling over as the bottoms opened up (only when unfilled and dry) and also found that unless you are taking some time to make your cuts all the same length the bottoms turn out fairly wonky.

And so was born Littlefoots little loo rolls... Ok I can't claim that this method is unique to me, I'm sure other people have done this, and there are probably also blogs and whatever about it (if anyone else is sad enough to sit and write about it that i!), but as I have not seen or heard evidence of this, here is my method.

So what was my ingenious solution I hear you cry??? 

Take your loo roll, flatten it out and then.... cut it in half! 

Voila!

Your loo roll is now (more or less) the perfect size to fit in a (B&Q) seed tray, with the propagator lid on top. And, as an added bonus you get twice the number of little pots!

Here are the little beauties waiting to be filled

Its easier to sit them in the tray if you put a couple of centimetres of compost in the bottom first and, following the old geometry rules, they fit more snuggly together if you fold them into squarish shapes.

Filled with compost.

And then, just to prove what a penny pincher I am, here are my plant labels. Made from margarine lids... well technically they are spreadable butter lids, but you know what I mean! Cut the edge off, snip into strips and use some kind of marker to write your label.

Is that a sneaky slug in the background? >:(

In my beds:

• The garlic is growing nicely, having survived the bird attacks.
• The onion sets have been planted, a little later than planned but hopefully they will be ok.
• Radish seeds have been sown (not on my plan, but was intrigued by the new Jamie Oliver seed range in Homebase)
• Spring onion seeds sown, went for White Lisbon ones this year, so will see how they go.

In the growhouse:

• Brussel sprouts
• Autumn cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Spinach
• Peas
• Leeks
• Loose leaf lettuce

More to do tomorrow.... busy, busy, busy!