Making A Milk Bottle Propagator

This little recycling project is a great way to get free propagators to start your seeds. It is a speedy job and works surprisingly well.

What You Need

All you need to get this job done is a milk bottle and something to cut it with, a marker pen to draw a cut line makes things easier for you.

Step 1 - Mark your cut line on the milk bottle.

You want to have a sort of staggered cut like the above. Also, make sure you leave plenty of bottle attached at the back.

This back section will work as the hinge for the bottle and allow you to open and close it.

Step 2 - Cut

I used my needle nose fruit pickers - available in my store - but any sharp scissors will work just as well.

After all, we are only cutting through thin plastic here.

Step 3 - Fill with compost and seeds!

Use some seed compost and fill your propagator up.

I sowed some sweet pepper seeds in mine as you can see above.

Because of the large top of the milk bottle, you even have enough room to fit a plant label in there too.

And there it is, closed back up with my seeds inside.

I will now pop this on a windowsill indoors for early seed starting.

So, Does It Work?

Yes, it works really well.

I popped some sweet pepper seeds in and put the propagator on a windowsill above a radiator.

Next news, seedlings, lots of seedlings.

The seeds in the propagator germinated weeds faster than the same seeds I put in a module tray!