Home Grown Tastes Better

We’ve all had to spend a lot of time at home recently. Staying indoors for long periods can start to have an impact on your mental health, especially, if like me, you enjoy being outdoors in the fresh air.  

So it’s important to try and keep yourself active and keep your brain stimulated. One way of doing this is to try new and rewarding activities - like gardening.

The good news is that even if you’re stuck indoors you can still start growing your own plants, fruit and veg. Better still, you can also do it using everyday household items, so it won’t cost you a penny.

A few weeks ago, I set myself a challenge. I wanted to start growing my own spice garden indoors, before later replanting them outside. At the time the garden centres were closed, so I couldn’t buy any pots or compost. Luckily I’d already bought some seeds, but if you don’t have any seeds you can still grow from the seeds in tomatoes and peppers, which will work just as well.

Here’s what I did over a two-week period - with no materials. It’s really simple – so why not give it a try?

			1  Firstly, collect some used tea bags, an empty cardboard toilet roll tube and a water bottle.
			2 Using a pair of scissors, cut off the bottom third of the water bottle to use as a flower pot.
			3 Take your toilet roll tube and cut 3cm strips downwards
			4 Fold the cuts inward to make a solid bottom for the cardboard tube. (the fold supports itself)
			5 Empty the loose tea from the teabags into the tube.
			6 Plant your chosen seeds into the loose tea within your homemade cardboard pot.
			7 Water occasionally and around two weeks later you’ll have a healthy young plant that you can then either plant in the garden or in a larger pot, as appropriate.
You can replant the whole thing without having to remove it from your makeshift cardboard pot. The reason for doing this is that it will make replanting far less stressful on the plant and the cardboard will breakdown and release carbon into the soil. Good luck, Connor McGregor     ?