Author Topic: playing at making plant pots (Read 8615 times)

Plantoid · « **on:** November 06, 2011, 06:45:59 pm »

This is something I have been playing with for about ten years .. 100 mm lengths of rain water pipe 75 mm across for the square or round tubes and sink waste pipe of 44 mm dia same length .

The sponge insert is of the same foam as the swimming noodles .. This white foam squares came out of scrapped trampoline side safety pads , I cut it into squares on my band saw .. I use the foam noodle cut into 12 mm rounds for another size tube with a bit of a modification to get it to fit well

Insert in a square tube

Square insert in a round tube

Leggy lettuce , should have been in the veg beds weeks ago but the landscapers failed to turn up in time ... they say towards the end of next week to get the front beds finished and rectify what was poorly done on the back beds area....fingers crossed

Quick transplants and watered in

Did some chancey strawberry runners where I cut a plant in four at the crown ..gave them a dust of rooting hormone and bunged them in a heated deep bed for 14 days .. they now have 2 mm root sprouts . I will treat them with a nematode dose tomorrow as I noticed a tiny white maggot when lifting them out the hot bed..posible the strawberry root saw fly

Added a few more things and decided that I'd beter re-do them in a bigger dia tube this time round as it is winter and I'll be looking to reduce the watering in the green house .

Small station sown seeds normally go in the smaller 44 mm bore waste water tubes because I can get more tubes stood upright in the trays ( thick cat litter trays ) that sit on the hot bed under the misting spray . These trays have a series of 5 mm holes drilled in the bottom as in grid pattern for drainage.

Extracting the plug with one of three extractors I've made for different size tubes.

This is just an example of how the plug and plant look , slice off the foam with a knife rather than break off any roots in it so as to not disturb things and attract insects that like cut/damaged plants. I've started dusting the holes the plugs will go in with a pyrethium based ant powder ( thanks guys ) .

The foam gets left to dry out for a week or so and then submersed in a mild bleach & wash liquid solution to sterilize the foam for a couple of hours , then rinsed outand left to dry before re use.
I now have some Jayes fluid so might try it on a few foams for sterilization to see if they survive it.

I've found that I can get more plant tubes in the cat litter trays than reasonable sized plant pots , they contain more earth than a comparable sized plant pot , because of this so they don't dry out so quick and the extracting of the and putting in a blunt ended dibbered hole is so quick and easy .
I also got sick of using those thin plastic plant pots that go brittle and break after two seasons of use the tube was my answer to them .. they work well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A stroke has affected my reading & spelling. Spell check does not locate incorrect words .. enjoy the amusing post , be thankful it's not you

little blue · « **Reply #1 on:** November 06, 2011, 07:01:59 pm »

brilliant!
Let us know how the Jeyes fluid goes - I use it to clean my very green greenhouse (algae!) so would be interested to know how it works on the foam that is so close to the plants....

WaltDisneyWorld · « **Reply #2 on:** November 08, 2011, 07:53:38 pm »

What a good idea!

knightquest · « **Reply #3 on:** November 08, 2011, 08:59:12 pm »

What an inspiration........ thanks! Am about to blatantly copy if you don't mind

Ian

delz · « **Reply #4 on:** November 10, 2011, 10:04:52 pm »

BRILLIANT IDEA!!!! When you think of all the off cuts & damaged plastic piping that plumbers just throw away. What a brilliant way to recycle and save space and watering time. I'm certainly stealing this idea. Well Done You

Plantoid · « **Reply #5 on:** November 11, 2011, 02:12:49 am »

The best pipe size for most starting off seeds is two inch internal diameter ground works pipe that is used to run phone wires through .
the rain water down pipe is 3 inch round / 3 inch square and better for things like strawberry runners , peas and beans .

Be aware that some plumbers use the smallest bore pipe they can gat away with that is the cheapest most profitable for them anything less than 44 mm internal diameter is not much use .

One last thing you can cut square foam pads to fit round tubes .. simply make the squares to the internal pipe diameter and squeeze the edges in to the pipe

chrismahon · « **Reply #6 on:** January 03, 2012, 08:25:42 pm »

Plantoid, that is a great idea and one I will copy. I'm a plumber and have loads of pipe offcuts. Trouble is standard waste is 32 and 40mm so no good. Urinals use 50mm but I don't fit them. Had some old 80mm guttering downpipe but threw it last week -thought I'd never use it -typical. Soil pipe is 110mm, but I wouldn't want to re-use that. Seen loads of offcuts of the subsoil red stuff in builder's skips though as, unlike the above ground internal work, you don't use short lengths much.

In exchange I'll share this one. Went to our reclaim yard and bought old porous clay land drain pipes about a foot long and 2" internal diameter. Disk cut them to 6" and put them over my leeks to get a really long white section. Good thing about them is they are porous, so drain well and the leek stems don't rot. They look nice to.

Plantoid · « **Reply #7 on:** January 05, 2012, 11:36:43 pm »

Used soil pipe is good for blanching leeks and celery , . Let the pipe dry of to get the juices away then cut it square in 14 inch lengths & deburr when dry after soaking it in a strong bleach for a couple of days .

It is also good when cut into two inch rings ... push the ring in the soil and sow just eight or nine cabbages , cauli , kale at a time and use deceent long lasting labels made from white guttering cut to 10 inches long x15 mm wide and point them for easy insertion, write on them with chinagraph of 4 b soft lead pencils.. some times they need wipr ot therr with a fine wet and dry to remove any hard shiny surface .

I have 25 x 3 inch square rain pipe for my leeks and untill recently had 20 x 110 mm pipes for our celery till the $"&*****%£ builders skipped them .

So this year I'm going to try and use some 14 inch long bits of white 110 mm perforated ribbed land drain instead .

Penninehillbilly · « **Reply #8 on:** January 06, 2012, 12:23:57 am »

great idea plantoid, some years ago at a plant swap I picked up a couple of plants in the square pipes, always meant to have a go and now you've inspired me.
I Like the square ones because I think the roots get away better

Plantoid · « **Reply #9 on:** January 07, 2012, 08:09:34 pm »

They fit /stand better in the cat litter trays and are easier to write on using a 4 B soft lead or chinagraph pencil.

But like me beggars cant be choosers , so I used what was handy & what i initially had lots of .

One thing I have been comtemplating making is a hollow tube /square about 8 inches deep , with a side wall of say 1/2 an inch , so I can slide it over the plant in the tube and push it down and out the tube/square like a syringe so I don't disturb the roots more than necessary as I eject the rooted plant and the by now slightly compacted growth medium .

Though I'll have to play a bit and also make one plunger for each tube size .
I can see many advantages in doing it this way ,including planting out those crops that do not normally transplant easily or the brassicas that tend to attract cabbage root fly when disturbed and transplanted .
It might also work in my 900 mm high raised beds for station sowing things like carrots , beets & onions .... which would be helpful for I'm slowly having diabetes take the sensitivity out of my finger tips .

I've also had to start using a soft silicone rubber tube ( fish tank air tube ) with different sized end bits from empty used ball pen refils and the ball point holder bits with the ball head cut off to make seed sucker tubes .

I simply hold the free end in my teeth and dip the reduce aperture end into the seeds which are all held in small sample tubes and suck out an individual seed to quickly & individually sow it in a bottomless plant pot or one of my nurturing casements . It works for all veg seeds , just alter the suctionhead for the size of the seed ..i can even pick up pead and kidney beans if/when needed.

The casements are made from old business card holder plastic boxes with a 15 mm middle for diddle hole melted through both outer and inner skins at one end and opened up to allow them to slide back from a well rooted specimen so I can plant the complete rooted plug / root ball in a fairly precise place.

Piccy to follow when I go back to the green house