In anticipation of starting my new tomato and pepper seeds, I started saving milk cartons to use as pots, and quickly amassed quite a collection (little kids will drink a ton of milk). I used my little seed trays with 1 inch cells to plant my onion, cosmos, basil, and oregano seeds, But tomatoes can get pretty big before the weather is right to transplant them, I’m lazy and middling environmentally conscious, so instead of intentionally going out to to purchase more plastic pots, I decided that testing out milk cartons could be good enough for now. Plus, although I already have the one inch seed trays, transplanting seedlings from one tiny pot to a slightly less tiny pot feels a little not-lazy-enough for me.

Growers transplant seedlings up into bigger pots because they take up a lot less room that way, probably less water too, and they have the experience to keep many plants alive during the transplant. I do not have that experience.

My experience largely consists of buying semi-rootbound plants and (it turns out) shoving them into holes that aren’t big enough and not well enough prepared. Who knew?

It’s too late for the herbs, onions, and flowers, they’re already tucked into their tiny plastic seed trays. But the more tiny seeds I put in tiny pots, the more I realize that eventually they will all have to come out again. A daunting task when you don’t know what they hell you’re doing. So I watched some YouTube videos and started looking around online.

I found these “compostable” grow bags on Amazon so seedlings can be planted directly in the ground, bag and all. I looked into that “compostable” claim too, and it checks out with one big asterisk. Does anyone miss that guaranteed prime two day delivery? I know I do. In the meantime, I prepped my milk cartons by using a utility knife to cut the top and each of the four lower corners off so that water can drain out and also be wicked up. It’s my favorite way to water potted plants.

Turns out out my milk cartons hold exactly four of the small-sized bags, so I started four of each, ‘Roma’ tomatoes, ‘beefsteak’ tomatoes, ‘red cherry’ tomatoes, and ‘sweet Cal wonder’ bell peppers.

I’ve mentioned before that I use canning jars instead of Tupperware, so I already had a canning funnel on hand that fit into these grow bags. Using the funnel to fill these up was a snap.

I’ve had such good germination rates with these Back To The Roots seeds, I went ahead and planted a single seed in each grow bag. No big deal if they don’t all germinate at once; I don’t need four plants all at the same time, so the extras are destined to be give-aways.

Follow OutdoorHedonist on twitter to find out as soon as these germinate!