Storing plant pots
Gran's_garden
Posts: 3
I have lots of used plant pots of a variety of sizes. They do take up a lot of room and mostly end up jumbled up in a large container. Does anyone have any ideas about storing these in an easily accessible and orderly way that does not take over the greenhouse or shed?
0
Posts
Omg yes, ive got the same problem here, i did buy one of those large plastic boxes with a lid similar to a blanket box, in no time at all it was full up, this year our tall freezer packed up, so its now housing most of the pots that i have accumulated, i really think they reproduce themselves on a daily basis, i give carrier bags full of them away every year and still they multiply lol.
Thread them upside down through the centre hole on to a long rope hung from a high point. The rope needs to be just thick enough to take a clothes peg without slipping.
As each washed pot goes onto the rope you hold it up with a peg clipped beneath it on the rope. Each wet pot drains out as it goes on and they are easy to remove as you need them. Best to keep one size on any one rope. I shall be interested to see if it works in practice.
I have the same problem and I came across this solution on another website which I'm going to try. Buy a few of those scrunchy things (40p each in Wilko today) that you use in the bath instead of a sponge and carefully cut the cord holding it together around the middle. You will now have a tube of plastic netting approx 12 ft long that you can cut into manageable lengths - I've gone for 3 ft. Either tie a knot or use the discarded cord to tie a knot at the bottom of each tube. The net will stretch widthways enough to take pots 10 in or 25cm across. Put similar sizes into each tube (maybe putting 2 or 3 towers of the smaller sizes into the same tube?) and suspend from cup hooks. If you're a bit of a tidy nut like me, you could label the different sizes.
i'm optimistic this could work!!
I use the shelving from deceased plastic greenhouses. They are lined up against the back wall of the house/garage in my work area and I store round and square pots of different sizes on separate shelves. The top shelf is handy for trays of seeds, seedlings, cuttings and divisions as it is a north facing wall so doesn't get sun till after 3pm.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I have been making a new garden for the last 4 years & have acquired literally hundreds more plant pots over that time.
I sort mine by size and shape and store them in piles on the bottom shelf of greenhouse staging. That is now well and truly full so I am now completely ruthless about getting rid of the sizes I have too many of or which I will not reuse regularly.
We have a small independent nursery not far away and I asked them about plant pots. She will take any off me that are clean and the sizes & style they use in the nursery. They are so cheap to buy it is not worth their time to clean them up themselves but I don't mind doing it for them because I hate seeing things like that going to landfill.
We can take spares to our recycling centre so they don't go to landfill.
I can also take clean pots to a nursery that specialises in summer bedding and hanging basket type plants and leave them in a great container where other gardeners can help themselves.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw