Plant pots, seed trays and propagator lids

randombar

Hi All,

I'm just looking for recommendations for where to get these items.

At the moment I've found the following:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XGY3QTS/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XGY3QTS/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XGY3QTS/

Just two questions:

Are these reasonable prices?

Would the 17 cm 2 Litre pots be suitable to keep 18 inch saplings in or would I need bigger?

Want to get the daughter into growing things and I reckon a few things from seed would be great (any advice appreciated) thinking strawberries and a few other bits.

my3cents

Just find a gardener and ask them for some old pots. I need to make a trip to the tip as over the years must have collected enough to fill a small van.

2l 3l and 5l are all good sizes for saplings as they grow. Probably start out smaller at no more than a 1l. If you pot on too early into too large a pot there is too much compost to hold water and you can easily have problems with waterlogged compost which kills the plants roots.

Wheety

These kind of things are very cheap in garden centres or the likes of IKEA.

looksee

What age is your daughter? Suggest you wait till the spring if she is young, its a long wait till next year for things planted now. Sunflowers are the usual starting plant, they are so dramatic! Beans - green beans, runner beans - are also good and you get to eat the results. For now, put a bean in a jamjar lightly packed with paper and the bean between the glass and the paper. Keep moist with some water in the bottom, and watch the bean grow. Stocks - night scented or 10 week - are good directly into a small patch of garden, pretty reliable for a patch of flowers. Don't be codded by mixtures of flowers, they are impossible to keep track of because they are all different seedlings.

You could put some bulbs in the garden or pots now for next spring, they would be interesting to watch.

my3cents

looksee wrote: »

....

You could put some bulbs in the garden or pots now for next spring, they would be interesting to watch.

Hyacinths spring to mind the forced ones for growing indoors either in soil or in water in a hyacinth glass http://www.image.ie/life/gallery/emma-hardys-hyacinths-in-glass-jars/ .

You can also get special jars for growing hyacinths

randombar

looksee wrote: »

What age is your daughter? Suggest you wait till the spring if she is young, its a long wait till next year for things planted now. Sunflowers are the usual starting plant, they are so dramatic! Beans - green beans, runner beans - are also good and you get to eat the results. For now, put a bean in a jamjar lightly packed with paper and the bean between the glass and the paper. Keep moist with some water in the bottom, and watch the bean grow. Stocks - night scented or 10 week - are good directly into a small patch of garden, pretty reliable for a patch of flowers. Don't be codded by mixtures of flowers, they are impossible to keep track of because they are all different seedlings.

You could put some bulbs in the garden or pots now for next spring, they would be interesting to watch.

Ya she's just turned four and would love all that. If you did a few things indoors would they not grow anyway? Excuse my ignorance.

Thinking strawberries and the likes.

I remember the sunflowers myself all right, that was a great one.

Thanks for the advice guys.

lazybones32

Cheap german supermarkets sell the propagator trays quite cheap and most garden centres will have them too.

Try any garden centre - even the chain diy stores - rather than buying empty pots. The chain stores dump their stock, so you could just remove the pot. Nothing to lose by asking.

looksee

On the whole, things that are supposed to grow outdoors don't do very well indoors once they have got past the germination stage. Plants need natural light so many hours a day - it is the day length that mostly spurs things to get started, as much as heat. There are some things you can grow indoors but at this time of year you would be pretty much limited to the bean in a jar (it will just grow then get straggly, but the initial phase is interesting), the bulbs mentioned - you need to grow things like the forced hyacinths, ordinary daffs will just sprout but not do much else indoors.

Mustard and cress on paper towel in a sunny window (buy seeds that are specifically packed for sprouting). The mustard and cress you allow to grow till it has long stems and a couple of seed leaves on top, then eat it on a sandwich. You can also put the top of a carrot - just cut off about half an inch of a healthy looking carrot top and it will sprout new foliage if you put it in a saucer on a bit of tissue with some water. Turnip will do the same. A piece of fresh root ginger will sometimes throw up a bud, plant it in a pot of compost when a bud appears.

Don't go buying loads of trays and pots and things, a pack of three seed trays and lids will be loads to get started, and as the others have said, any gardener will have spare pots - just give them a wash (the pots ). Also get some John Innes potting compost, it is more reliable and keeps moist better than the ordinary stuff. But the two of you go to a garden centre in the spring and buy some seeds together. Easy annuals, nasturtiums, mixed salad leaves - a very sparing pinch in a good sized pot will give you lots of salad leaves to pick once the spring is well started.

Wheety

I grew some sunflowers this year and they were big :-)

Around 8ft. I started them off indoors and moved them out. But it's too early to replant now. I harvested around 1000 seeds. Hoping they'll come up again next year. Could send you some if you want? My first time harvesting the seeds myself so can't guarantee they'll germinate.

randombar

looksee wrote: »

On the whole, things that are supposed to grow outdoors don't do very well indoors once they have got past the germination stage. Plants need natural light so many hours a day - it is the day length that mostly spurs things to get started, as much as heat. There are some things you can grow indoors but at this time of year you would be pretty much limited to the bean in a jar (it will just grow then get straggly, but the initial phase is interesting), the bulbs mentioned - you need to grow things like the forced hyacinths, ordinary daffs will just sprout but not do much else indoors.

Mustard and cress on paper towel in a sunny window (buy seeds that are specifically packed for sprouting). The mustard and cress you allow to grow till it has long stems and a couple of seed leaves on top, then eat it on a sandwich. You can also put the top of a carrot - just cut off about half an inch of a healthy looking carrot top and it will sprout new foliage if you put it in a saucer on a bit of tissue with some water. Turnip will do the same. A piece of fresh root ginger will sometimes throw up a bud, plant it in a pot of compost when a bud appears.

Don't go buying loads of trays and pots and things, a pack of three seed trays and lids will be loads to get started, and as the others have said, any gardener will have spare pots - just give them a wash (the pots ). Also get some John Innes potting compost, it is more reliable and keeps moist better than the ordinary stuff. But the two of you go to a garden centre in the spring and buy some seeds together. Easy annuals, nasturtiums, mixed salad leaves - a very sparing pinch in a good sized pot will give you lots of salad leaves to pick once the spring is well started.

Appreciate that, basically wait till the spring for all this stuff, sounds good. As usual I'm probably getting ahead of myself.

Wheety wrote: »

I grew some sunflowers this year and they were big :-)

Around 8ft. I started them off indoors and moved them out. But it's too early to replant now. I harvested around 1000 seeds. Hoping they'll come up again next year. Could send you some if you want? My first time harvesting the seeds myself so can't guarantee they'll germinate.

That would be great if you could send a few on. She'd love that.