Oh, thank you for the link Sherri ... $3.25 for a package of 8 is very reasonable!

I love the way one good tip always seems to generate more!

Thanks for the link and tips!

You're welcome!

Nice!

I like deeper containers, also... found some 16 oz cups that are a little taller/narrower than the usual plastic "party" cups (plus they're translucent, like the solo cups)... and for 36 cell trays, I always go with the "deep" 606 inserts.

I've been using half gallon milk jugs for winter sowing for years, and for that purpose I usually cut them halfway up... but last spring I used a few for shrub cuttings in early spring, cutting the jug so I could put a good 8 inches of soil in the bottom part (for winter sowing seeds, I usually use just 4 inches of potting mix). That worked so well, I'll be saving more half gallon jugs to use that way. (The half gallon ones are shaped so that they have taller straight sides than gallon milk jugs... I basically cut the jugs about where the handle starts, and I don't cut all the way through so that the handle forms a "hinge" between the upper and lower parts of the jug.)

I also rooted a few cuttings in the sturdy cardboard cylinders that coffee beans come in... they're maybe 4 inches across and deeper/taller than a gallon nursery pot.

I agree that these tubes would be great for rooting a bunch of coleus cuttings or starting seeds... you could get a whole lot of plants going in a little bit of space, without resorting to those shallow 72 count trays!

good tip on bottom watering with these tubes, too.

Thanks!!

I've been saving empty soda bottles from work for next Spring. Two liter bottles will make big flowerpot with very straight sides, but that's not for seed-starting, that's for giving away plants. And they will be tippy! (I'll cut off the top and b urn or drill holes in the base.)

I'm also saving 20-ounce plastic soda bottles (2 3/4" diameter and 5 1/2" tall). These are still biggish for starting seeds, but good for potting up seedlings that I started in a 72-cell-tray of 6-pack inserts, or a 128-cell propagation tray.

The problem is that few soda bottles have straight sides. I save "Sobe" and "Vitamin Water" because they are mostly straight with small indentations. I'm hoping that root balls will still come out. They should, unless I let them get too root-bound. And if they are root-bound and circling , I need to spread those roots out anyway! That's what I'm telling myself, but I'll find out next spring.

Very rarely, someone at work will throw away a tall, narrow straight-sided water bottle. I forget the brand name, but they are cloest to your straight-sided lab-tubes.

My main design consideration is simple: the price is right.

I save paper coffee cups whenever I get one. My thoguht there was that, if I gave someone local a seedling in a PAPER cup, they will HAVE to plant it out or pot it up before the paper disintegrates. Is that too fiendish?

>> "deep" 606 inserts

I always wanted to try "deep" inserts, but when I tried mailorder, they were always out.

But I found a local wholsalke place for nursery/greenhouse supplies (Steuber's Distributing). They have some very deep (like 4 + inches) 50-cell propagation trays. They seem slightly sturdier than some other prop tyary, and of course much sturdier than tear-apart "insert" trays.

I think it was $3 for the tray. That makes each cell only 6 cents, but when you go to push each seedling out of the tray, it is less handy than single tubes. Being able to b uy them locally saves S&H, which can be as much as the cost of the trays.

Usually I cut prop trays up into 3-4 rows of cells when I want to turn them upside down to shake seedling root balls out. The 50-c ell trays divide into 3 sections: 15 cells or 20 cells. Since I sldom fill a whole tray with one variety, that works out OK for me.

(Cutting them down to just two rows is possible, but then they are tippy.)

I use mostly milk jugs for wintersowing, but 2 liters work well too. And they're good for cuttings


I also use yogurt cups for seeds and cuttings, and sometimes styrofoam cups.

Karen

Great ideas everybody! I found these cylinders and I could not help but notice the item above it looks like a littler box and I have purchased cheep litter boxes for 2.99 from Walmart and drilled holes in the bottom for seed starting. The ones they have are only 1.00 and you can purchase several and use them over and over.

I also found some fun things, like the coffee cup shaped like a toilet. Great gag gift for a co-worker that spends too much time in the bathroom I think.

That 4 inch deep 50 cell tray sounds terrific!

2 liter bottles that Coke, etc. comes in have straight enough sides... main thing is that they don't have any part of the side that curves inward... even a little indented ring (like you see on many water bottles) can make it really hard to get roots out without cutting the bottle.

>> even a little indented ring (like you see on many water bottles) can make it really hard to get roots out without cutting the bottle.

I am afraid of that. I'm hoping it will motivate me to plant out before they get too root-bound.

I just recently had a devil of a time getting some plants out of a bottle like you speak of Rick. So make sure you don't wait too long. I won't be making that mistake again any time soon!

Sigh. I now have three big garbage bags full of plastic soda bottles, many more 24 ounce than 2 liter. I guess I'll make a small test at first.

I got a knife out & tried running it all the way around the inside of the bottle & STILL it was tricky. I really sort of ended up having no choice but to manhandle/shake, rattle & roll & dump the whole contents out. Thank goodness it was rain lilys I had in it so it was easy to find the little bulbs in the mess that was the result of getting them out of the bottle.

If you've got a Dremel or other rotary tool, that might be the way to cut open a quantity of soda bottles if needed... find a way to wedge the bottle in place as you work so the cutting disc doesn't slip! (If a vice isn't an option, I've put things between a couple of fireplace logs to hold them still.)

It might be an application for the "hot stretched wire" I saw someone make.

Nichrome wire, with resistance such that a 1-foot length gave enough Ohms that the wire only heated up and glowed red, not white.

Stretched between two 2x4 uprights braced ~ 12" apart.

AN ON-OFF switch

Heat the tight-stretched wire, roll the plastic bottle along it, and only singe some roots while cutting the indented part off clean.


Maybe a deluxe model with a fuse or variable transformer like a large toy railroad set might have, designed to avoid home fires.

The web site that sold many different Nichrome wire types had some designed to heat up gently like heating pads, others designed to get REAL hot like clothes driers, and others designed to flash into vapor and INTENTIONALLY ignite anything close to them. Kind of like a primer charge for small solid rocket motors.


Or a "gun" style soldering iron plus a steady hand might let me melt a narrow line..

I'm just hoping that my indented grooves are shallow enough that I can bang out the root ball and re-use the plastic pot. If the root ball is really wound up tiogght, I WANT to unravel and disrupt it before planting.

I may be dreaming!

I find that most of my plastic bottles & jugs (indented groove or not) end up being single-use as winter sowing containers. The plastic often gets brittle after a season out in the sun. When I'm done with the container, I just put it in the recycling bin (where it would have gone in the first place if it hadn't been re-used for plants). I often cut my containers not-quite-around so there's a "hinge" between top & bottom... when I'm hardening off plants, that hinge gets cut, and i've found it's easier to use a new container after that if I need it to have a top. Old ones do get pressed into use for up-potting smaller seedlings or HOS before they get planted out.

I hope you won't need anything quite as complex as your described system above for getting your WS plants out of their containers!

>> I hope you won't need anything quite as complex as your described system above for getting your WS plants out of their containers!

Me too, thoguh I am only thinking of using them for potting-up, not WS. The only ridge I have to worry about is very shallow, and very near the bottom. I am hoping that it will be no problem after banging the inverted bottle really hard on its rim. An d if it disruopts roots circlin g the bottom of the bottle, good. I'm often timid about doing that as I plant out, but I know I should unrtavel those cicrcling rolots, or even c ut them off.

The worst part will be if I give them away to people who are reluctant to WHACK a plastic pot against something to get the plant out.

My hope is to nevfer have plants in these pots long enough for them to get a lot of UV. 3-5 weeks would get them pretty root-b ound, and I plan for most of that to be occuring ine arly sprin g. MAYBE in a cold frame, if I get around to that next year.

I only tried WS once, and then I used 4" square pots for each variety, and used a big translucent plastic tub as the humidity-container. A HoS the size of a milk jug would be WAY too many seedlings of one variety for me. Actually 4" square is bigger than I would really want for that. If 6-pack-inserts from 72-cell-trays were packed together more tightly, those are about the size I would rather WS, if I were trying WS again.

My "Winter" is more like cold spring anway, and if the tub was out in partial sun during the winter, its interior would be warm enough to sprout many times (and many weeks) before the last hard frost. I think my climate lends itself more to a very-well-vented cold frame, and starting seeds 4-8 weeks before the last frost, mostly inside, then moving seedlings into the cold frame or under plastic in their final beds.

Rick, I use half gallon jugs too, as well as 2 liter and 1 liter plastic bottles for WS... If you get a big mass of seedlings in your container, no problem, you just divide it up into however many plants you want... the seedlings will "duke it out," and in the case of clump-forming perennials, you'll end up with a nice full looking plant much sooner (if multiple seedlings win the contest for survival). Guess what I'm saying is -- give it a try sometime when you're running out of inside space.

I've done that Jill, I think it is called the 'Hunk of seedling method', just use a plastic spoon and scoop up a spoonful and put in each pot. If you end up with too many plants you could give a few away. Everybody loves plants, right? Make someone happy!