Dear Editor,

In response to the letter from Mr. Robert Wills of Thorne:

Mr. Wills, I applaud your reuse and repurpose spirit. I firmly believe that everyone profits when we take time to reuse and repurpose.  

Those pill bottles you mentioned are perfect for storing vegetable and flower seeds; either store bought opened packets or the seeds gathered at season’s end.  You’ll need to poke a small air hole in the lid with a needle or drop a repurposed desiccant packet from vitamins into the bottle with the seeds.  As an aside, I store the reusable desiccant packets in empty pill bottles.

Large soup cans, opened at both ends, can be planted in your garden to deter cutworms.  Use them like an in-the-ground sleeve to surround the stalks of your tomato, potato, or cucumber plants. The smaller cat/dog food cans are great for planting seeds in. A good upcycled planting medium is a half-and-half mix of used coffee grounds and soil. 

A repurposed plastic cake or sushi container with a clear dome makes a perfect mini greenhouse for the seeded cans.  Finally, sushi containers are also useful for growing salad sprouts.

Et voila! Common recyclables to suit gardening needs. 

Sylvie-Anne St-Aubin, Aylmer