Recycled Coffee Can Planter

My escapades with the Milk Jug Tomato Planter got me thinking about other things I could recycle and I came up with this:

A Coffee Can Planter!

I used an old plastic coffee can to plant my cherry tomatoes in (don't forget to drill drainage holes in the bottom). It will sit out on my porch instead of hanging from the porch.

The real reason I did this is because I didn't want to make another milk jug planter last night! It was a lot of work!

Now I need to figure out what to do about the strawberries!

Today I thought I would share with you my attempt at apartment gardening. We have a VERY small apartment with a garage so first I had to figure out what items I needed the most. I decided that tomatoes, strawberries (Corky's favorite), and herbs are what I use the most.

I started with the herb garden. I chose basil, parsley, arugula, and dill (for my homemade pickles and ranch dressing, which I will post about later). I planted them in a window box using organic soil. In the pictures you can see where I put the broken up peat pot (peat pots are biodegradable earth friendly flower pots that my herbs came in) in the planter along with everything else.

The finished product will be placed on the window sill of my garage window where it will get plenty of sunlight.

Next, I decided to use a hanging upside down tomato planter. But... I thought I could make one instead of buying one. I chose an old milk jug to be the sacrifice for this experiment. Using my husbands drill, I made a few drain holes-- one on each side and one on each bottom corner. Then I drilled a hole in the center of the bottom of the jug.

Using a sharp knife, I CAREFULLY (So I wouldn't have a repeat of cutting my thumb off) cut a cross in the bottom. Do a small cross first because you can always make it bigger later if you need. Also cut the rim of the spout off in order to make it easier to fill with soil.

Then, carefully take the tomato plant out of its planter and shake as much of the soil off of the roots as possible (this is easier to do if your plant is dry- mine was wet as you can tell by the messy pictures below).

Insert the roots of the plant up through the cross in the bottom of the jug. You need the cross to be big enough for the stem and roots to fit through but small enough for it too stay put. Shove as much of the stem into the jug as possible.

Now for the hard part! Fill the jug with soil by putting it in the top of the jug (this will be where you water the plant as well). At first some of the soil will fall out of the hole in the bottom of your jug but keep going, soon it will pack in there good enough where it wont come out anymore.

I looped a chain through the handle and hung it from a hook on my front porch.

So... it worked in theory but we'll see if it produces tomatoes! I'll keep you updated!

So, your wondering right?? Well, this is a project that Corky and I did this summer (I'm just getting around to posting about it) called Color Adventure. She named it herself, after the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode of the same name! In that episode, Mickey and friends discover that all the color is draining out of the clubhouse. To fix it, they must go on a scavenger hunt to find an object that represents each color of the rainbow. Well, when I made this little game I didn't realize that it was basically the same thing! She did however (so perceptive)!

Anyway, to make this, all you need is an empty egg carton and paints of various colors of the rainbow. Simply paint the inside of each crevice with a different color. Then take your child on an adventure. It is amazing how you can find each color right in your own back yard (flowers, rocks of various colors, a penny, some paper, mysterious piece of black plastic, leaves, a marble...)!! She still plays with her Color Adventure around the house when its too cold to go out!

So, recently our family has started to “go green”. It all started when I watched Oprah’s Earth Day show. I was mortified by the news that there is a monstrous “trash swirl” in the Pacific Ocean that is over ninety feet deep and twice the size of Texas!!! It’s just hanging out there, getting bigger by the minute! Also, the show enlightened me about the dangers of plastic bags.

We already were doing some things right, like using CFL bulbs and a water filter on our faucet. But I didn’t realize that we could be doing so much more! So our first step was to make sure we recycle EVERYTHING that can be recycled. For us that is plastic and paper/ cardboard. Next we decided to limit our plastic bag usage by buying reusable shopping bags. I always thought that they were too expensive or a waste of money, but the blue ones at Wal-Mart are only fifty cents. Also, some stores like Reasor’s offer an incentive when you use their brand of reusable bags. This was my favorite thing that we changed because I had no idea how dangerous plastic bags are to wildlife! And the reusable ones are bigger and sturdier (Is that a word? Spell check says yes!) than plastic. Right now we are working on switching out all our detergents and cleaners to eco-friendly versions. Surprisingly, homemade, eco-friendly cleaners are very inexpensive and work just as good!

We are still learning of things we can do, but for now it feels good to know that we have made some baby steps in the right direction!