I love recycling!

Here's my little contribution to WS brainstorming sessions, so far. Before I discovered WS, I'd been saving mushroom boxes because they stack so well and are about the right size for sowing.

I came up with the idea of using them inside my U-cut milk jugs.

- It's easier to remove the plants when the time comes

- They're easier to clean than a milk jug

- They give the roots their desired darkness, where the milk jugs don't

AND BEST OF ALL

- They stack, which is a prime concern to me reusing stuff year after year

I haven't figured out yet how to store the milk jugs, but may have to go with hanging them. I like the U-cut because I don't need tape or wire, but none of the designs seem to store very well.

Here's a picture of my U-cut jug with the mushroom box liner. The liner takes about 3 cups of my soil which is a mixture of bat guano and worm castings sold by Foxes Farm.

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Then yesterday, spurred on by our lack of milk jugs, I was tickled pink to realize my favorite rice crackers and the fresh spinach containers would make good candidates for mini greenhouses.

AND THEY CAN STACK!

So with the sleet coming down outside last night, I began experimenting with these easy-to-stack containers, and used the soldering iron for the first time. So far, so good.

Here's the spinach box with two side-by-side mushroom box liners. There should be a fair amount of head space in this design.

The cracker tubs with a small plastic lid in the bottom (from a salsa tub) to help keep the soil in will not have a lot of head room, and I'm looking for a better liner system so plants are easy to remove. BUT AT LEAST THEY STACK!

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I planted:

Kenilworth ivy,

Verbascum polar summer, (mullein)

Chinese Chives

Armenian fireball poppies

... and put them all outside in the falling snow.

I am planning the next grocery list with containers in mind! Of course this year I will save containers so I can catch up with you amazing gardeners, but I may be keeping my milk jug collection to a minimum in favor of the more stackable containers. They're great on head room; not so good on storage and cleaning.

Now if I can just figure out a faster way to make labels!