davaroo
Garden Ornament
I recently ran across a plastic tube out in the the woods. Originally, it was part of an insect trap, collection thingie, which had long since fallen apart. All that was left was the 4' piece of coroplast collection tube.
Being an inveterate "reclaimist," I took it home. Some use would present itself, I knew, and so I kept it out back on the scrap pile.
Lo and behold, it wasn't long before a use made itself known.
The use was inspired by Hattie's post showing the French container garden, here:
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/5434/cool-kitchen-garden-containers
... and so, I reckoned, why not? This tube could surely be turned into growing containers for something and then it hit me: Lettuces.
Im not much for radishes or onions or any of the other small fast growers, but lettuce, ahhhhh... there was the key.
Lettuce doesn't need a lot of root space, it grows fast and can be kept rotating often. The trouble is, bugs adore it. My garden was, until last year, wild woods. Much of it still is, at least the areas immediately around it. Most of the lettuces I've interplanted among my other crops, to date, have been nipped to nubs by the bugs. They seem to care little for the tomatoes or sunflowers, but they home in on the lettuces like a guided missile!
However, I thought that if I cut the tube into sections, I could get at least one loose head variety in each of 8, 6" tall tube section.s This would also keep the tender greens up off the ground, away from the endless horde of salad loving insects in my new garden.
So, as it often goes with me - to say it is to do it.
Here are the raw materials:
The seedling cups are just the bottoms of cheap paper drinking cups. I got these at the dollar store as party cups, 12 for a buck. The top halves make excellent collars to deter cutworms, by the way. The "lettuce tubes" are to the rear and the lettuce varieties I snagged for $.99 a pack, down in front.
When the time comes, I'll fill the tubes with soil, remove the sodden bottoms of the cups and just place the seedling cups down into the lettuce tubes. These tubes can also be used over and over - I can imagine a whole fleet of them.
It also dawned on me that you could makesuch tubes from Coroplast. This is the corrugated sheet plastic which roadside signs are made from, to name just one use. Just imagine, at the end of every election season you could collect the now-useless signs and be in the "lettuce tube business."
You'd also do some bit of good, as the signs often just end up forgotten amidst the weeds, a blight on the landscape.
I'll show some pics when there are actually lettuces in the tubes, soon enough. For now, thanks for looking.
Being an inveterate "reclaimist," I took it home. Some use would present itself, I knew, and so I kept it out back on the scrap pile.
Lo and behold, it wasn't long before a use made itself known.
The use was inspired by Hattie's post showing the French container garden, here:
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/5434/cool-kitchen-garden-containers
... and so, I reckoned, why not? This tube could surely be turned into growing containers for something and then it hit me: Lettuces.
Im not much for radishes or onions or any of the other small fast growers, but lettuce, ahhhhh... there was the key.
Lettuce doesn't need a lot of root space, it grows fast and can be kept rotating often. The trouble is, bugs adore it. My garden was, until last year, wild woods. Much of it still is, at least the areas immediately around it. Most of the lettuces I've interplanted among my other crops, to date, have been nipped to nubs by the bugs. They seem to care little for the tomatoes or sunflowers, but they home in on the lettuces like a guided missile!
However, I thought that if I cut the tube into sections, I could get at least one loose head variety in each of 8, 6" tall tube section.s This would also keep the tender greens up off the ground, away from the endless horde of salad loving insects in my new garden.
So, as it often goes with me - to say it is to do it.
Here are the raw materials:
The seedling cups are just the bottoms of cheap paper drinking cups. I got these at the dollar store as party cups, 12 for a buck. The top halves make excellent collars to deter cutworms, by the way. The "lettuce tubes" are to the rear and the lettuce varieties I snagged for $.99 a pack, down in front.
When the time comes, I'll fill the tubes with soil, remove the sodden bottoms of the cups and just place the seedling cups down into the lettuce tubes. These tubes can also be used over and over - I can imagine a whole fleet of them.
It also dawned on me that you could makesuch tubes from Coroplast. This is the corrugated sheet plastic which roadside signs are made from, to name just one use. Just imagine, at the end of every election season you could collect the now-useless signs and be in the "lettuce tube business."
You'd also do some bit of good, as the signs often just end up forgotten amidst the weeds, a blight on the landscape.
I'll show some pics when there are actually lettuces in the tubes, soon enough. For now, thanks for looking.
