I made myself a plastic bottle cloche the other week. It is a bottle that was lying around in the polytunnel and too old to take back to Lidl to place in their deposit scheme machine. Incidentally we got 7 Euros back yesterday for our cans and bottles. From next month all bottle tops will come attached to the bottles to prevent bottle top litter. A very good idea I think!
Regular readers will know that one of my hobbies nay passions is propagating perennials and shrubs. I do this by division and by takings cuttings. At this time of year I usually put a plastic bag over a new cutting placed in a soil or compost filled plant pot. Then I water it and the plastic bag helps the cutting retain moisture and form roots.
I find the hard plastic bottle makes a great mini greenhouse/cloche and two of my bottle cuttings experiments look like they have been successful and struck roots. They seem to retain the moisture better than polythene freezer bags which are fiddly to get off and put back on again.
The bottle cloches are great for protecting tender seedlings and young vegetables plants like lettuce from nematodes like slugs and snails..
Anyone else experiment with homemade plastic cloches?
Yes, bottle cloches do a good job..and glass jamjars to sit strawberries in as they ripen..speeds them up and keeps the blackbirds off!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea with the jam jars GZ. We put straw under our strawberries in the polytunnel yesterday. Hence there name straw berries.
DeleteWe do that with jam jars too!
DeletePrivate motor vehicles?😊 Cockney rhyming slang JayCee. Yes they keep the flickers away.
DeleteWe have always used plastic bottle cloches for our seedlings. They work a treat and can be reused many times.
ReplyDeleteYou know your stuff JayCee. Big water bottle cloches work even better.
ReplyDeleteThey work well, we have no redemption schemes here, so the few bottles we get, I keep and use only problem is storing them when not in use Marlene, Poppypatchwork
ReplyDeleteLidl have launched their recycling redemption scheme in Europe Marlene. I was sceptical at first on here. But now I think it is a brilliant scheme. I wish they would do a similar scheme for food packaging.
ReplyDeleteI agree, we need to recycle more plastic, we try and avoid one use stuff, it's not easy.
DeleteIt's not easy Marlene. We habe just got to try and make the best of a bad job and recycle and repurpose plastics.
DeleteHey, that's not fair. We don't get any money back on their plastic or tins. I shall complain . Those bottle tops have been attached to our bottles since last summer. They're a damn nuisance, get in the way of drinking and pouring, but a great idea. I understand and put up with it
ReplyDeleteThe Fanta bottle has had the top attached for some months now. It gets in the way for me when drinking from the bottle. Oh I see Linda has said the same.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rachel. Glass is natural and can go in land fill without polluting the environment. But we seem to avoid using it these days.
DeleteIt's good to clean one's plastic bottle cloches. Yours is filthy Dave. Both Monty Don and Bob Flowerdew would have fits if they saw that bottle!
ReplyDeleteYes it looks earthy and organic YP. Plastic is useful if we repurpose it.
ReplyDeleteDoes "earthy and organic" mean filthy as hell? Oh dear, my car windscreen is earthy and organic and so was Princess Margaret.
DeleteIf you are a Sloane Ranger with plastic mud attached to your Chelsea tractor YP.
ReplyDelete