Starting Seeds in Milk Jugs

I am always look­ing for ways to save money in the gar­den.  Peren­nial flow­ers from the nurs­ery can be very expen­sive if you are plant­ing more than small planters, so I thought I would try my hand at start­ing seeds in milk jugs.  My fam­ily goes through nearly a gal­lon a day or so, so I have plenty of milk jugs on hand!.  This is not a new idea, but its one I have never per­son­ally tried  before so I thought I’s give it a whirl.  I found some great detailed infor­ma­tion on how do do this here.  I am  start­ing mid Feb­ru­ary, so I don’t know how well it will work or if it is really the same con­cept as win­ter­ing over.  Also, it is rather mild where I live in the win­ter.  (My day lilies are already com­ing up!)  So I guess I am exper­i­ment­ing a bit.  I began by burn­ing holes in the bot­tom of the jugs for drainage.

This wood burn­ing multi-tool melts plas­tic like but­ter.  Next, I cut the tops with a sharp knife, but left a lit­tle bit attached so they would be eas­ier to tape shut.

After that, I had some lit­tle helpers (my daugh­ters) fill the bot­toms with soil, plant the seeds, and lightly water them.

The next step was to tape the tops back down with pack­ing tape in order to keep the soil warm with a kind of “green house” effect.  I also labeled each con­tainer with a sharpie pen so we would know what we planted.

Then I moved them all to the back cor­ner of my yard in my lit­tle gar­den space that I inher­ited from the pre­vi­ous owners.

Now I guess I just wait and see if any­thing will sprout.  I fig­ure if its too cold I can try it again in about 4–6 weeks.

Whoa!  Looks like some­one needs to buy a shovel!

Tagged as: flower starts, garden, gardening, germinating seeds, greenhouse, milk jugs, starting seeds