Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The simplest form of biodegradable pot has to be the inner tubes from unbleached
toilet and kitchen rolls. Provided you start collecting them early enough in the
year and keep them somewhere dry to prevent them unwrapping, these are
adequate for most needs and provide enough depth to give even peas and beans
a good start. Thinner tubes have a tendency to sag or tumble over time, but if you
see this starting to happen, just tie them loosely together with string. So long as
you pack the tubes closely into a seed tray and tamp the bottom layer of compost
down well with your fingers, there is no need to make a base for them. By the
time you come to plant them the roots of the seedling will hold the compost
together, if you handle them gently.
If you need slightly larger biodegradable pots, they are easy enough to make
with newspaper and an absolutely straight-sided plastic drinking glass or some-
thing similar (see box opposite). Don't use real glass as it's likely to break and
could cause serious injury. Once you get used to it, these pots take about a
minute each to make and children love to help.
Mark says:
“While the practice of bleaching paper with chlorine has been almost
completely replaced by an oxygenating process, the paper itself can be
from a variety of sources and is often pulped using chemicals that you
would not want in your garden. Either way, the actual source of the material
cannot be ascertained. So, while we might hope that it was pulped
mechanically and that the paper was from a reasonably good source, it
might just as easily contain heavy metal-based inks and have been
bleached using chlorine compounds.
If you feel unsure about introducing paper into your garden, organic coir
(coconut husk) pots are a good alternative. Coir is a renewable by-product
of the food industry, although it has to be shipped from the tropics and so
its use cannot be regarded as truly sustainable. Transport costs make coir
pots more expensive than toilet rolls or newspaper, but until a truly
organic domestic recycled paper product becomes available, they are
probably the best option if you want to be certain.”
In use, biodegradable pots tend to go mouldy after a couple of weeks. This is not
a problem for the plants, as the moulds you see specialise in rotting down dead
plant material and not live tissue. Once the pots are planted these organisms
quickly get to work, and within a few weeks only the rim of the pot will remain.
Cleaning the cover
Even though the day length is increasing, light levels are still very low at this
time of year, and anything you can do to help will be appreciated by your plants.
This makes it absolutely mandatory to clean the outside of the polythene cover
