Using recycled K-cups as seedling pots

Every year I start a good amount of my garden plants from seeds. Actually, I start just about everything but the annual flowers I put in the planters. I'm also frugal, so I often buy my seed starting supplies when they go on clearance in the fall. This past year I bought some 'mini greenhouse' kits with growing pellets for $.99 each. At that price I bought all 3 that they had! This is how I started my seeds this year. 

I simply watered the pellets to make them expand, added seeds, put the lid on then filled out the diagram. I put the mini greenhouse in a sunny window and waited. Everything was sprouting well and really filling in the growing pellets. I was starting to wonder where I'm going to move them next, when I remembered.....

Now bear with me a second here cause this is where we go back a few months. In January my husband showed me an article that mentioned how many hundreds of thousands of K-cups end up in landfills every year. Great! Like I needed something else to feel guilty about...right? 

So I started saving them with hopes of finding a way to recycle them. I peeled off the foil tops and shook the coffee grounds out to use in my garden and compost. I let the cups dry out, but didn't really know what to do with them. 

In February though, Lisa from Fresh Eggs Daily wrote a post about using K-cup as seed starters. Great idea! Unfortunately I had already started my seeds at the time, but these would be perfect now for thinning them out!

I lined up the recycled K-cups in the same configuration as the growing pellets. I actually used the lid of the mini greenhouse since I wasn't using it anymore, and it worked perfectly! I also wrote the name of the seedling on the outside of the cup in sharpie for good measure! 

Next I added my soil mixture and watered them all so the soil would settle. I gently teased apart the soil in each pellet using a toothpick and transplanted 1-2 seedlings into each K-cup. I filled in each cup with soil and watered again, being careful that the seedling didn't fall over and was well supported by the soil. 

Then I moved them back to my sunny window and that's it! The K-cups should give them enough room that they can establish a strong root system for when I transplant them into the ground in a few weeks....plus I saved some plastic from the landfill!

This is the before & after.

Now granted, this only save a small fraction of K-cups from the landfill. Some is better than none though, right? I am looking for other ways to reuse K-cups though so if you have a great idea, please forward it to me so I can give it a try! Thanks and happy healthy seedlings to all!

~L  

Want gardening and healthy living information sent right to your email weekly? Click right here to join my newsletter list and get new posts sent directly to you the day they're published!