Toilet roll holders - expanding peat thingies

You spent money on those, Scrungee? They must have been on special offer! Sorry! hee hee.

 

I was given them, so free (my favourite price).

Mind you, even bog roll tubes can work out very expensive, like these at £111,111.00 per roll!!! (+ delivery)

 

My missus threw out my collection of bog roll tubes but didn't tell me. So when I told the microhumans that we'd plant some seeds, which they were very enthusiastic about, it was nearly a disaster when I discovered that wife had chucked my collection.

They new accumulation since the clear out totalled a mere 6 tubes. The courgette seed packet said 'approx 8 seeds', so I broke the wife's law and extracted the tubes from two more bog rolls. That was surprisingly difficult, and a total waste of time, because there were actually six seeds in the packet.

 

And they haven't bio-degraded in all that time?

 

Last 2 times I sowed parsnips in bog roll tubes, in both years they started showing exactly 3 weeks later, this year it was in 3 weeks one day. So now I'm checking and planting out at every other day. Minimal fungus, but I forgot there's actually a right way up to stand them, otherwise they can start to spiral undone as the glue dissolves, the pointed end of the cardboard spiral should be on the inside at the top and outside at the base where it'll be held in place in the cell tray they're standing in.

 

To the rescue @Scrungee, cheers. I couldn't understand why some of my loo roll tubes were falling apart and others weren't. Consequently some of my Mange Tout seedlings got in a mess. Who'd have thought there was a right and wrong way of using them. I thought some were falling apart as they were from cheepo brand of loo paper not your fancy stuff. What I want to know is did you discover this? and if so how the hell did you, as I have never actually examined a loo roll tube that carefully. Off to sow more Mange Tout armed with this very useful piece of information and I'll be sure to get my loo roll tubes the right way up. Who'd have thought you could actually have a conversation about them!

 

It's the science of bogrolltubeology.

 

Selecting the right way up will prevent unwinding at the top with risk of top portion of compost containing seeds falling out.

 

My soil's so waterlogged that half the tubes of Parsnip seedlings planted out a few days ago have rotted away, I've just spent ages kneeling in slop replacing them, but think Parsnips might be a total failure this year. Paths in between plots are flooded, planting holes immediately fill with water and it looks as if I'll lose every single seed potato if planted in open ground and nothing can be sown/planted in open ground until June.

 

That's so disheartening @Scrungee
Especially when its Mother Nature causing the problems. Can you make raised beds for next year?

I've sown 30 parsnips in rolls, only 1 has germinated so far!

Hope the weather becomes kinder to you!

 

Hi, I've not read everyone's posts so sorry if someone's already said this, I bought a newspaper potting kit years ago & find that's better than toilet rolls. You literally cut strips of newspaper & wrap it around the pot maker & you are done, I've not had any troubles with mould, they are easy to move & water
Has anyone noticed how toilet roll cardboard inners have got smaller?

 

A lot of ground round here is still waterlogged too. It's not going to be the best growing year I think.

 

The one of those that I was given relies on the lower part of the rolled newspaper being scrunched in to form a base to the 'pot' rendering unsuitable for sowing parsnips in, unlike cardboard tubes which are open at the base allowing the root to grow out.