How To... Water Bottle Greenhouses (gardening)

Joe and I go thru quite a few bottles of water in a week. I was bothered by the amount of plastic bottles that were finding their way into our trash so started thinking of ways to reuse them, other than the obvious of refilling with water. :)

Since we have been working on our garden these past few weeks, that of course is where my mind wandered to. This is what I came up with... a little greenhouse for starting seeds for your garden. 

Last week I'd bought a box of 10 tiny strawberry plants, so thought I'd try them out with the bottle greenhouse pot. 

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What ya need...

• Water Bottle
• Scissors
• Soil
• Seeds or plant
• Water

Empty water bottle with label removed

Cut bottle in half

Fill bottom half with soil

Add seeds or plant

Make 6 cuts, 1/4inch long, along the edge of the top portion of the bottle

Using the cuts to fold the edge
inward, insert top half into the
bottom half of the bottle

Here are my 10 strawberry plants
in their little 'greenhouses'. 

Remove bottle lid for watering, replace lid to contain moisture.

I hope to let them grow a bit here before putting them in the garden.

UPDATE:

3/18/12

Joe and I put the strawberries out into the garden today and discovered a couple of problems with the my water bottle idea... 

1) they need drain holes in the bottom. We lost 6 of our 10 strawberry plants to over saturation from the rains. :(

2) The bottles need to be cut in half closer to the bottom. The way I did these, the bottle narrows just before the cut so when trying to remove the plants and root ball with soil, it's difficult to get pass the narrowed section. Solution: cut the bottle below the narrowing, about 2-2.5 inches from the bottom.