About our recycling

1. The children/students will need some sort of seed trays for seed sowing. The trays in which supermarket mushrooms and tomatoes are packed are ideal. Make holes in the bases - perhaps with a compass -  and use a cork from a wine bottle to prevent puncturing fingers or desks.
2. Wide-top plastic pots, such as margarine tubs, are good but individual size yoghurt pots are often a bit small. Again, holes in bases are required.
3. You can also use wooden or plastic crates (supermarkets and greengrocers use these for containing fruit). The crate then needs to be lined with a dustbin liner, puncturing drainage holes into it  - and you have created a large seed tray, which is very useful for growing salads.
4. Also needed are old pencils to make mini drills in seed trays, or little holes for seeds in pots.
5. Masking tape is perfect for labelling the containers - it's very cheap, a roll lasts for ages, it sticks on the side and will not get pulled off or knocked off by accident. Write on it in biro.
6. Clear polythene bags are needed to cover some of the pots. Or you can use supermarket croissant containers - the ones that have six in a pack. They separate out into a domed top and bottom - perfect for propagation!
7. Always check out the rubbish trolley in the supermarkets as you pass – you can discover some amazing stuff there.  It may help to make a list of what you are trying to collect and ask the store manager to help you by keeping those items.  If the manager knows what you are trying to do, there is always the chance that he/she may want to donate some seeds, pots of herbs past their sell by date, veg that could be planted …and so on!
   
8. Collect 500g and 1kg yoghurt/cream pots as well as the plastic pots from ready made soup (not tins!).
9. Ready-made curry sauce plastic pots are an ideal size for sweet peas – which need tall pots for their long roots.
10. Remember – drainage holes in the base, a good selection of small and medium stones, pebbles and bits of rock for the bottom of the pots and plenty of WELL WASHED containers.