DIY Gardening: Starting Seeds in Recycled Egg Cartons

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Victoria Vitale

Good news: Ellen Drews is joining us for another gardening tutorial! Last spring, Ellen shared her DIY container gardening technique (pictured below). Today, she’s going to teach us how to start our own seeds in egg cartons! Have you ever done something like this before? I can’t wait to give it a try!

Before we get to her wonderful post, I did want to take a second to let you all know that Anne and I leave for Greece tomorrow! (Follow me on Instagram to see some pictures of our trip.) We will be home in three weeks, and I’ll be back to blogging in late July with more projects, recipes, and some pictures from our trip. I’ve got an exciting collaboration and giveaway coming your way later this summer!

Without further ado, Ellen:

As a backyard vegetable gardener in Somerville, Massachusetts, I am always cooking up ways to feed my gardening addiction on a tight budget. I love finding ways to use recycled materials to grow my vegetables safely in the city. This year in my container garden, I decided to see the process from start to finish. I was going to start my own seeds in my own DIY greenhouses: egg cartons!

Starting seeds indoors is an important concept for vegetable gardening. There are some vegetables that prefer to grow right where they’re planted (i.e. cold-tolerant plants like spinach, or delicate root-crops like carrots). For these crops, I put seeds directly into my container garden as soon as the soil has thawed.

Other plants must be started indoors and then transplanted to the outdoor garden as seedlings, such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil. These warm-season crops evolved in hot climates with longer growing seasons and so they have a long, leisurely lifespan. Where I live in New England, we can have frosts as late as Memorial Day, which would most likely kill a seedling before it had a chance to bear any fruit—the ultimate prize of the tomato plant. Starting tomato seedlings indoors as early as April allows you to get your plants going so they will reach fruiting maturity by midsummer.

Seedlings are available for purchase at farmers’ markets, grocery and hardware stores, and big-box stores like K-Mart. However, there are awesome benefits to starting from seeds:

Choose varieties! There are thousands of beautiful heirloom seeds out there and many cool ones are available through seed companies with the mission of saving these varieties (Seed Savers Exchange, Hudson Valley Seed Library, High Mowing Organic Seeds, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds are some of my favorites).
Save money on fancy organic seedlings and use the seeds you already have. I’m still using seeds that I bought or traded two years ago (with proper storage, seeds can last up to 5 years).
Avoid the pitfalls of buying cheaper, mass-distributed seedlings at stores like Home Depot and K-Mart. Devastating diseases can spread across the country via these discount seedlings. For example, in 2009, late blight on tomatoes spread across the east coast because many people bought tomato seedlings from K-Mart, Walmart, and Lowe’s—all of which carried a fungus originating in a handful of greenhouses in Alabama. (Read one article about it here.)

So, now that you’re convinced that starting your own seedlings at home is a good idea, I’ll show you how I started mine this year!

Starting Seeds in Recycled Egg Cartons

Materials:

Plastic or cardboard egg cartons, empty (avoid Styrofoam or heavily inked cartons)
Nail or awl
Organic potting soil or mix (Look for varieties that contain compost. You want your seeds to access as many nutrients in their little cells as possible.)
Seeds!
Spray bottle or watering can with a gentle sprinkle

Step 1: Using the nail or awl, punch three holes in the bottom of each egg cell to allow excess water to drain.

Step 2: Fill the egg carton cells with the potting soil. Use your fingers to gently press divots into each cell and re-fill the divots with more potting soil. You want to give your seeds as much material in each cell as possible without compacting the soil. For many weeks, the nutrients in the soil will be all they will get so you’ll want to fill ‘em up!

Step 3: Put 1-2 seeds in each cell, following the directions on the seed packet for how deep to put them (it will be under “seed depth”). Cover with a light topping of potting soil.

Step 4: Soak the cells with water using a spray bottle or a gentle sprinkle of water. You want water to drip out of the holes at the bottom of the egg carton to ensure that you have really soaked all the soil. BUT you also want to be careful that you don’t dislodge the seeds or compact the soil so it’s important to be gentle when watering!

Step 5: Place egg carton seed-trays indoors in a sunny window or under grow lights. Seeds should germinate in about a week! I also got fancy and used the lid of the egg carton to create a greenhouse effect over my seeds. The plastic roof kept moisture in and trapped some heat from the sun. I also punched holes in this “greenhouse” roof to keep things from getting way too humid in there.

Here’s what my tomatoes and tomatillos looked like after they grew up a bit! Now that it’s June, it’s a bit late for starting tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant like I did here, but it is a great time to start seeds for fall crops such as broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, chard, fennel and kale.

And here’s what my garden looks like today!

Leave a comment if you’ve found other ways to use recycled materials in your garden!

Note: All photos were taken by Ellen Drews.

An Afternoon at Petit Jardin en Ville

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Victoria Vitale

Today I would like to share with you all Scissors & Sage’s very first small business profile. I chose a small business that I am continuously drawn to: Petit Jardin en Ville. This “little garden in the city” can be found tucked away in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood, and it instantly transports you to Paris. Claudia Roux, Parisian florist and garden designer, is the owner of this magical storefront. She offers her floral design services for weddings, special events, parties, restaurants, and hotels, as well as her garden services for your every garden need year-round.

When I contacted Claudia to see if she would be interested in having her small business profiled on Scissors & Sage, she was delighted. I couldn’t wait to head over to Petit Jardin for an afternoon. From the minute you walk in, your senses are fed. Beautiful flowers, found objects, gardening tools, and whimsical French music fill the space. Claudia, with the help of her French-born husband, Vincent, assist customers both in and out of the shop. (I have personally received two flower deliveries at my front door from Vincent — what a happy sight!)

Claudia sat down with me and spoke of her journey to Petit Jardin en Ville, and below are some segments from our conversation. At the end of my visit, Claudia, Vincent, and I clinked apple tart slices to celebrate Petit Jardin. This shop, first opened in May 2014, has quickly won the way to my heart. I am excited to share Claudia’s story with you all today. Be sure to check out Petit Jardin en Ville online (Official Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook) or stop by in person!

From Claudia: After I met my husband, and right before we got married, I moved to France. We were living in Paris. I had always been artistic and had worked with florals, but I really didn’t find my path until I moved there. Flowers are part of the culture in France, so I started to take horticultural classes. I worked very closely with my teacher, Catherine Muller, who was the protégé of Christian Tutora. I studied with Catherine for the five years that I lived in Paris. I still continue to take classes with her now. Her aesthetic is very similar to mine. It’s a very garden-y kind of style that I like a lot. France is a mixture of old and new, which really brings an interesting aesthetic. It’s where I gained my understanding of combining both of those.

My husband and I spent a lot of time in different regions in France [collecting found items]. For example, in Bordeaux, you can find old metal grape pickers with leather straps that you would throw the grapes in as you picked. A lot of the areas we go to are in the countryside. We find a lot of farm pieces, which really appeal to my aesthetic, too. We like to go and find things that others haven’t found yet. We do bring some city-type things such as a parking sign and original advertisements from the 1940s. Of course, I choose many things that I can put flowers in, like bottles and glasses, to evoke a feeling of a relaxed, carefree atmosphere that you find in the countryside where people spend so much time outside.

Philadelphia as a whole has changed over the years. When we were looking at spaces, we kept coming back to Old City. We wanted to be part of a neighborhood, and to emulate the spaces you would find in Paris. Those spaces tend to be small and have a very special kind of dark feeling. The flowers bring the light to the inside. You know, I came from the suburbs where everything is big. When we moved to Paris, there were so many things that I left behind that I realized I didn’t need. You can live so beautifully and simply by just editing what you already have. It enabled me to see a different way of life, and I love small spaces now.

Blogs are really important for people like me to get feelings from. I look for interesting blogs that have a little bit of my aesthetic but also bring something different. If you’re doing different kinds of projects, it’s always super interesting to me. I love everything that you can do with your hands. The more you do, and the more you create, the more people will see.

If you have a really great idea, go with it. Don’t second-guess yourself; don’t hesitate. If you really like it, and if you can spend the time with it, it shows to other people and they will like it. In retrospect, I would have tried to start earlier and not be so afraid to start something new.

DIY Leaf Flowers

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Victoria Vitale

Three years ago, I read an interesting guest blog post on Design*Sponge by artist Kate Pruitt. She took autumn leaves and transformed them into a beautiful bouquet of flowers. How did she do it? I was sure to find out. Living on a breathtaking college campus in upstate New York at the time, I walked the campus to find fallen leaves. It was such a fun project that I decided to make it again for you here today. It’s the perfect time of year to be collecting leaves of all shapes, sizes, and colors — ingredients to surely make a beautiful arrangement!

Materials:

15 or so leaves per flower (dry and freshly fallen)
Thin, straight sticks (one per flower)
Washi tape

The first time that I made these flowers, I used maple leaves and followed Kate’s instructions more closely. This season, it has been quite difficult finding rich, red leaves in Philadelphia. I adapted my folding technique to work with these pretty yellow leaves I collected. Above are step-by-step picture instructions on how to fold and create your own flowers.

This is one DIY project where I wished I had three hands. It can become difficult as you add more “petals” to your flower to hold them, fold them, and then place the stick in the center of the bunch to begin taping it. My third yellow flower completely fell out of my hand when I began taping it to the stick, so I started over. If it becomes frustrating, take a break and go make some tea. The end results are completely worth it!

Below is a picture of my red leaf flowers three years ago. They kept their red color and dried beautifully. My housemates and I enjoyed them on our dining table for about three months!

What are you making this season? Share your fall DIY creations on Instagram with #scissorsandsage.

Container Gardening With: Ellen Drews

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Victoria Vitale

Today’s blog post comes from a dear friend, Ellen Drews. Ellen is a banjo-playing, bug-loving, and plant-praising kind of gal. She has recently moved to the Boston area, and has hit the ground running managing several community gardens. From Ellen:

As a resident of densely-populated Somerville, Massachusetts, and a manager of three community gardens in Lowell, I have been putting a lot of brain power towards the challenge of growing delicious, seasonal vegetables in places with contaminated soil—or no soil at all! In my opinion, no one should have to pass up the fun and tasty rewards of vegetable gardening just for lack of workable land. So why not grow food above the land—in containers! Well, that’s what I did in the parking area behind my apartment. And my landlord keeps telling me he can’t wait until “we” are reaping the bounty. I guess he’s expecting me to share.

Container gardening offers many benefits: soil in containers warms up earlier in the spring, so you can plant those heat-loving tomatoes, peppers, and basil a bit earlier than you could in the ground. Containers can be put in locations with ideal sun exposure. And containers offer less territory for weeds and pests to take up residence—often resulting in healthier plants.

There are also a couple of limitations that container gardening brings that are important to be aware of:

Vegetables grown in containers cannot spread their roots very far to find the perfect mix of nutrients in the surrounding soil. Everything they need must be present right there in that compact space. Therefore, it’s necessary to fertilize your containers a few times during the growing season with yummy compost or organic fertilizers.
Soil in containers dries out easily, especially if the container has the proper drainage it needs to avoid root fungus. Dry soil is of no use to a growing plant—the plant requires water to exchange nutrients at the roots. What’s more, if a young vegetable seedling goes through the stresses of repeated “droughts” or under-watering, it will never reach its full potential!

But some of us have day jobs—so how can we keep our containers at the perfect, constant moisture level without running outside to water them every few hours? Easy! Build self-watering containers.

Self-watering containers are somewhat misnamed. They don’t water themselves infinitely—you will still have to go out and water your plants every couple days to every day on hot, dry days. However, wicking action will draw water through the soil from a reservoir below and will reduce major moisture fluctuations in the container. Your job is to make sure that the reservoir always has some water in it, and the container will do the rest! You can buy self-watering planters, but DIY containers are easy to make and much cheaper.

Self-Watering Container Garden

Materials:

2 five-gallon food-grade plastic buckets (available at hardware stores, or for free at many restaurants!)
4-6” piece of PVC pipe or PVC fence post
Drill and drill bits (1/4” bits work best – anything on the larger side is good for making drainage holes)
X-acto knife or sharp clippers
Sharpie marker
Organic potting soil (if it contains compost, great! If not, get some granular fertilizer like PRO-GRO to mix in for nutrients. I used Coast of Maine organic container soil.)
Seeds or seedlings of your favorite veggies (look for varieties like “compact” or “bush”)

What to do:

Start with one bucket—this one will be nested inside the other, and will hold the soil and your plants. Turn it over and use the drill to cut out a big circle in the bottom of the bucket. You may need to use the X-acto knife or clippers to fully punch out this circle.
Then, drill about a dozen “air holes” randomly throughout the bottom of the bucket. These holes will allow air to penetrate the soil and will drain excess water into the reservoir bucket below.

The piece of PVC pipe or fence post will serve as a “spacer” between the two buckets, holding them apart and also forming the “wick” part of the container where garden soil comes in contact with the water in the reservoir. Drill several holes throughout the PVC spacer, making sure that about 4-5 of the holes are within a 1/4” from the bottom edge of the spacer. This way, it will be able to draw water, even if the reservoir level is fairly low.
Position the spacer in the middle of the second (hole-free) bucket and nest the other bucket on top of the spacer. Mark where the bottom edge of the inner bucket reaches with a Sharpie on the outer bucket. Drill out a hole that meets the edge of the inner bucket about 2” across and 1” tall. This will be your access point for re-filling the reservoir and for checking the water level with a finger!

Remove the inner bucket and fill the PVC spacer with potting soil. Pack it gently to remove any large air pockets, but don’t compress the soil too tightly. The spaces between the soil particles will allow water to wick through the spacer and up into the soil of the inner container.

Nest the inner bucket over the spacer so that the circular hole in the bottom lines up with the PVC spacer. Fill the inner bucket with potting soil. The soil inside the bucket should be making direct contact with the soil in the spacer, so that it forms a continuous wick throughout the bucket. Fill to within an inch of the top rim of the bucket—you want your plants to have as much soil as possible in the limited space so don’t skimp out on filling up the bucket.

Water the soil until it starts to drain into the reservoir below, then fill the reservoir using the side access hole in the bottom bucket. Now you are ready to tuck in some seeds or some seedlings and watch them grow!

I’m growing kale and scallions in one self-watering container, and I’ll put a tomato plant into the other container, now that we’ve passed the last frost date for Boston. I’ve also got beets, arugula, lettuce, and nasturtiums growing in other found containers like a milk crate and a Coca Cola rack. What else can you turn into a container for gardening? -Ellen (with a slug)