Where to find empty 2L bottles, or other *free* plant pots?

Cafe Society
1

Howdy all!

Attempting to start my first og-honest vegetable garden but have had a “life happens” moment that has left me pretty cash strapped.

Have some good looking seedlings going (tomatos and sweet peppers) that are in shallow communal-by-species starter trays. (Big mistake, will never do again, strapped for both cash and time.) They should have been trasnplanted a few days ago, alas hasn’t happened yet…

So my jam is I need single trays with a diameter large enough for them to thrive for at least a couple weeks without paying a cent. I’m thinking the best choice might be plastic 2 litre bottles, as I need about 40-50 of them yesterday and if I could find a source for them, nobody would mind me carting them away.

I have a bit of free time tomorrow, and it’s not beneath me to fill up two garbage bags with what I need and haul it off from a recycling bin. What I don’t want to do is go more than one place, looking around “garbage picker” style.

So I’m racking my brain trying to think of where there would be an abundance of plastic bottles! My best guesses so far are places like churches and community centres, where youth groups/birthday parties may happen, or something like a small private school, places too small to have a soda fountain.

I have thought about perhaps trying a nursery to ask for old discarded actual pots, but I am uncomfortable with the idea as it feels like “begging.” (Which carries no shame when TRULY needed, but I feel a little dorky being too poor for flower pots.)

No real gardener friends, no-one else I can ask.

So, I figured no better to ask than The Teeming Millions, any ideas or answers are appreciated at this point!

Thanks everybody, and take care!

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Take a laundry basket, line it with a garbage bag, add soil (peat moss, whatever) and then add your seedlings.

Another option is the same as above but using cardboard boxes.

Just don’t over water the plants as there won’t be an easy way to drain them off (you don’t want root rot).

3

Just take them from random recycling bins (assuming it isn’t actually illegal to do that because your locale needs them to justify the recycling). Your local recycling center might let you have some. If the bottles are crushed, they should still be usable when you re-form them.

4

Great suggestion! Thank you very much!

My current setup is very similar, using “flats” (shallow cardboard boxes intended for holding 24’s of beer cans) filled to the brim with soil, about 3.5" placed atop garbage bags on a table under a windowsill with auxillary lighting (Two lamps.)

Ends me up in the same place I am more or less, athough it may end up to be the temporary solution I employ!

Thanks and have a good one!

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Nah, big metropolis (Toronto) so the bottles will be nobody’s concern really… Awesome, thank you! I cannot believe my own nearsightedness. Who to call for discarded recyclables? Well, durr probably The People Who Recycle Plastic Bottles, perhaps? Ahh, panic… Makes us forget the forest for the trees. Local recycle depot shall be one of my first calls tomorrow! Their final fate shall be the recycle bin once again, I can’t forsee it being a problem.

Thanks dude(ette)!!!

6

Visit some large nurseries in your area. They often have piles of those cheap plastic used flower pots laying around, which they might give you, or perhaps sell to you really cheap.

7

Not begging at all. On several occasions we’ve gotten pots this way. In fact, right at this moment my wife is driving out to a landscaper’s to pick up some bluestone discards to use as stepping stones. They don’t re-use the pots, and simply have to discard them.

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It’s a little late for this year, :wink: but next year I intend on making newspaper pots to save some money. This year, I had some Jiffy peat plugs left over from last year that I used. Next year, rather than have to buy new plugs, I figure I can recycle, and get something useful for free!!

After watching the video, I decided that I’m going to soak the paper thoroughly, and gently tear a couple holes in the sides of the pot. I’m worried that the roots might not bust out…

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That’s genius! I’ll be sharing that with Mistermage since he grows a tiny greenhouse worth of peppers and others every year. He gives some to his mom for Mother’s Day since they’re grown with his own grubby green hands :smiley:

The other “green” thing one can do is save up paper towel or toilet paper rolls. Cut in thirds or half, shove in peat moss or whatever growing medium and you have your own Jiffy pot plugs.

Mistermage lucked out a few years ago when at an auction for a greenhouse going out of business: we have more pots, hanging pots and trays than can be used so we give away a lot of plants in them (he always grows more plants than we have room for).

They (he and his BFF) also snagged a giant roll of the plastic and are thinking of building an actual greenhouse. We all went and watched a demo that Iowa Ag (official of some sort) was doing on how greenhouses work with our changing climate. While inside they scoped out the set-up and concluded they could build one w/o the plans. It’s just a matter of the 400 other projects they have going on getting done. Me? I want the hot tub up and running this year. I have given up on the swimming pool ever getting put up. I still hold out hope at least one of the dune buggies getting put together and being street legal.

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Another vote for asking a landscaper/nursery. For the most part, they’re just dumpster fill (or maybe recycled but you’d be recycling them yourself). I’ve worked for landscape companies for the last 20 years and none of the places I’ve been at have been protective of their pots.

Obviously, ask first before taking and it’d be worth a phone call just to make sure they have some around.

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If you can salvage the tops of the 2 liters - or any plastic bottle - what one of my friends does is cut off the bottom and “plant” the top (upside down) like a funnel, next to his vegetables. That way, whenever too long a time period goes by that there is no rain, he doesn’t waste water on the soil not growing anything. He just pours the water into the “funnel,” and it delivers water directly to the root system.

If you get a large number of bottles, you might want to put them in the recycle bin *after *the growing season!! :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, they have cows, and he told me they throw a “pie” in the bottle, to rinse down the fertilizer a bit at a time. I’d always heard fresh pies were bad for plants, but I have to admit, he had the biggest, best personal garden I’ve ever seen!!

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Senegoid, Dinsdale, and Jophiel: Thanks for the advice, it’s more or less the same thing as asking for pop bottles, and probably about a million times less strange! I think this will be my next course of action.

As a quick update, I was less busy than originally anticipated and only managed to call a nearby recycling depot. The guy I spoke to basically laughed and said that at the point they get it, it’s a sea of meaningless plastic, and there would be no way to discern a particular bottle by size.

Why and misty, I skimmed the video and that looks like an interesting idea! I must admit I am a little green for such… Advanced technology! Let me get back to you guys when I have a little more time

Re: Recycling (On phone, on tapatalk right now, so hard to see previous discussion…) Yes! Of course, as aforementioned “their eventual fate will be the recycle bin.”

The upside-down-automatic-bottle-waterer has always fascinated me since I was young, I have done it on more than several occasions! I’m going a little more hands-on, 100’ hose for soaking the bed, and I use spray bottles in the nursery (guest room! :stuck_out_tongue: - thank you for your patience Mrs. Bays!)

Thank you everyone for your responses. As has been said before: “Ah’ll be back.”

Happy Doping, and Happy Gardening!

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…Sorry…

“…was much MORE busy…”