Thrifty Gardening

I have been working in an Italian restaurant and I find it really difficult to just throw away these big cans that the parmesan cheese comes in, so I have been taking them home and storing them away until I could come up with a good use for them. Firstly, I thought of making lanterns but I decided to grow plants in them instead and save the lantern project until later. 

THIS IS SOO SUPER EASY AND ANYONE CAN DO IT. 


Weekend project: Turning old, unused tins into productive plant tins!
Time: approximately 15-30 mins
You will need:
- old tins
- hammer or screwdriver (to make drainage holes at the bottom)
- soil/potting mix
- plants 


So, what I did was to make some drainage holes in the bottom (this is important). Filled the tins with some soil and planted some cuttings from other plants in the garden. In this case, I just used the old trusty succulent because these will withstand anything, and if you have not got a green thumb or too lazy to water. these can look effective. I also took a cutting from a coleus plant I had in another pot. So super easy, all you do is cut a stem off, stick it in the soil, keep it moist and roots will grow and there you are...you have a whole new plant. Now who can't do that?  GET TO IT. 


p.s. Another great use for old olive oil tins is to turn them into planter pots and they look really good in the garden. The tins will start to rust up a little but this just adds  to their charm. 

To sow this month (temperate):

If you have not already I have got seeds of broccoli, leek, spinach, parsley, garlic, lettuce, beets, cornflowers growing for my winter staples. Not sure if I will have enough room for carrots this year. Will see how it goes. Check out my propogation station made from an old ironing board I found in a council clean-up...great use!

Propagation Station - where I like to propagate a variety of plants and grow a variety of seeds. 

Parsley is SUPER easy to grow from seed. Why would you not grow it yourself. It is such a great herb, there is really no excuse. 

I cannot believe for some time that I was buying punnets of spinach seedlings. It is SO SO easy to grow from seed. I will never go back. This is the silverbeet spinach and gets so much use in our kitchen. It is a definite staple in ANY garden and can be very easily grown in a pot.