POSTED BY KIM — In the past I have told customers about this “great trick” to use when container gardening. Rather then fill your entire pot with expensive potting soil, fill the bottom 1/4 (or whatever) with styrofoam peanuts — it’s brilliant! Makes the pot lighter, in case you have to move it around, it recycles the peanuts, and saves you money on potting soil. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Right?
Until the end of the season when you pull the plant up. Then you have styrofoam peanuts blowing all over your yard, plus stuck in the root system of the plant you’re discarding — so if you’re composting or throwing the plant out in yard waste, you have to *dig out* all the little styrofoam pieces. Imagine you have 20 pots on your deck — some of them rather large — and this tedious, ridiculous exercise has to be repeated each time…
I’m reformed! Earlier this season I used sweet gum balls in the bottom of my containers, and I *love* it. It was an interesting exercise this weekend when I cleaned out many of the pots on my deck. If I was going to compost the plant, I just yanked it out of the pot and voilá! Done. I ran across a few pots that I hadn’t cleaned all the way out last year. I yanked out the plants and AAACK! peanuts everywhere.
Plus when the roots start circulating in the very bottom of the pot, I’d prefer to have them living in organically rich sweet gum balls (because by then, decomposition has started) rather than the eternally plastic styrofoam.
So I’m converted. JUST SAY NO to styfrofoam peanuts. I am…
4 Comments
October 12, 2009 at 9:51 am
Sweet gum balls, Kim that is Brilliant! There are enough people around that do not pick them up off of the street, so they are easy to acquire. I will definitely use them next spring. Thanks
October 12, 2009 at 10:12 am
Another trick, if you DO want to use the styrofoam peanuts, is just to put them inside a plastic garbage bag, twist-tie it shut, and stuff that down in the pot. No blowing, no peanuts mixed in the soil. But I do like the sweetgum ball idea. Possibilities for next year…
October 13, 2009 at 2:36 pm
What a great idea Kim!
November 5, 2009 at 3:45 pm
LOL I totally thought you were talking about candy gum balls the whole time.