Frugal Gardening Series: Homemade Seed Starting Trays

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the Frugal Gardening Series kick off!  Today I’m sharing  homemade seed starting trays and recycled seed starters and seed starter greenhouses with stuff you probably already have!

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You might have seen my post about starting seeds undercover where I got cracking with my tomato seeds and basil to get a head start on the season and I did it using recycled containers for seeds.

Seed starting can be one of the more expensive areas of gardening with so many seed tray, plugs, pots, pellets and everything else that’s available!  I’ve been there. I have spent a small fortune on seed trays, greenhouse covers and plug trays to start loads of seeds and they didn’t last. They didn’t even make it through the season because I’m pretty hand-fisted aka clumsy.

I now reduce my trash by recycling containers I have at home into homemade seed starters and DIY mini greenhouses for my seedlings.

Homemade Seed Starting

Erica over at Owning Burton Farm kicked off the Frugal Gardening Series with her post How To Start Your Seeds On The Cheap with an amazing list of containers you can use to start seeds in!

Seriously, I was blown away with some of the containers you can grow in!  It puts my list below to shame!

What do I recycle to start my seeds in?

• Salad containers
• Sour cream pots
• Yogurt pots
• Newspaper pots
• Plastic trays
• Bog roll inserts (toilet paper tubes)
• Kitchen paper tubes
• Disposable cups

I also use the following recycled materials to make a DIY mini greenhouse:

• Croissant, cookie and cake containers with clear lids
• Salad boxes
• Used polythene bags such as freezer bags, sandwich bags and food storage bags
• Plastic bottles
• Clear plastic cups

Starting seeds is the most frugal way to get growing your garden and I created a handy checklist to help you get started along with some seed starting tips to help you get the best of starting your seeds this season.  (Psst, if you are already a subscriber, you can find this seed starting checklist in the Misfit Gardening Resource Library).

Head on over to How To Start Your Seeds On The Cheap to find out more and let us know what containers you have reused and recycled to start your garden in?

Stay tuned to find out more even tips and tricks Erica and I will be sharing over the upcoming weeks in our posts to help you have the best frugal garden ever! You can also find out more frugal tips, Down the Garden Path weekly updates behind the scenes and embarrassingly frugal confessions from yours truly on Facebook and see the series videos over on YouTube.  

You can also find me on Twitter sharing allsorts just not my beloved sweet from England!  Erica and I also have a Frugal Gardening Pinterest Board that you can follow which is chock-full of Frugal Tips for you to peruse during lunch or coffee breaks.

If you have any tips to share with me or other readers please share them in the comments or at the Misfit Gardening Community Forum, we would love to hear your ideas and tips.

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