the conclusion on toilet paper rolls in the garden

Things are growing around here. We are busy in the green house moving our heat loving plants into bigger pots as it it still too cold to put the outside. We are busy moving not so sensitive plants out of the green house and into the ground. We are busy in the gardens mulching and weeding and putting up things for our climbers to climb on.

I talked about in an earlier post that we were using egg cartons, newspaper pots and toilet paper rolls for our seedlings. I have come to the conclusions that TP rolls are out. I am not sure why but our seeds did not seem to do as well in them. They also dont seem to decompose very quickly in the soil. So after one short season of research this is our preferred method of starting seeds.

 The egg cartons are great for starting smaller seeds. They need to be kept moist. It seems that one of those pressure mister sprayer bottles works best. We tried a normal spray bottle and it took FOREVER. Once the seedlings get about this big you will notice their roots are starting to come through the bottom. Time to transfer to the newspaper pots.

The newspaper pots are great. I watch a you tube video to get the jist of it. Just don't use the glossy paper. Bad chemicals! They are good for planting bigger seeds like pumpkin and for moving small seedlings from the egg cartons into. When you plant them in to ground you can put the whole pot in but we have been carefully unfolding the paper and planting them without the pot. The paper seems a bit thick to me.

After the paper pots we have been moving some things into the ground into the green house, some things outside, and others into plastic pots. Whey need more room to grow but cant go outside yet, It seems a shame to use plastic now when we have avoided it thus far but I have yet to come up with a cheap alternative. Any ideas?!

the green little green house

Aprons are out and gardening is in at the moment. Okay who am I kidding I have been slack on the aprons for quite some time.

I have however been up to some new projects. Nigel made us a wonderful little green house. The frame was already here stuck under some trees. He found some thick plastic and got to work.

It is so great. We pretend it is our own little conservatory and have breakfast out there together when we are both home in the mornings.

I have been doing a bit of "green" reading the last couple years. I have been inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and No Impact Man and slightly freaked out by Plastic Free (I haven't yet finished this book, I got too scared!)
So with all that green info in my back pocket we are trying to grow veggies from seed and take care that we are thinking about what is going into them right from the start.
We found a place not far from us that sells heirloom seeds, and have been getting our seedlings ready in the greenhouse to go outside when the last hint of frost has passed.
Some cool ideas we have found out and put into practice are growing our seeds in egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and making our own newspaper "pots" for the bigger ones.
It all seems so much nicer than starting our seeds in plastic pots that may or may or be leaching who knows what into the plant!
Also nicer for the plant since at planting time they can just pop straight into the soil in what ever paper pot they are in at the moment.
 PS I am aware of the irony of trying to have a plastic free garden in a plastic green house!