Starting seeds and rooting cuttings

• Make seed holes with chopsticks

Instead of buying a dibber — the wooden garden tool used to poke seed holes in the soil — use a chopstick or pencil instead. You’ll get the same holes for free. Another choice is a full-sized pair of folding nail clippers, the blunt arm of which you can poke into the soil and twist. When the time comes to transplant seedlings, use the same arm of the clippers to work a seedling and its rootball from the soil.

• No dibbing (or watering) required

An alternative to dibbing holes into the soil of a seed tray is to wet the soil, lay the seeds on the surface then cover them with another thin layer of soil. Cover the tray with a tight layer of plastic wrap and your job is done. Condensation on the wrap will drip down to keep the seeds moist until germination.

•  Spice jars as seed sowers

Before sowing seeds directly into a seedbed, put them in an empty dried herb or spice jar — the kind with a perforated plastic top. Then shake the seeds out over the seedbed or along a row.

• Sowing tiny seeds

Seeds of impatiens, lobelia, carrots, lettuce and a few other flowers and vegetables are so miniscule that they are difficult to sow evenly. To remedy the problem and make seedlings easier to thin out once they sprout, combine the seeds with fine dry sand and add the mix to an empty salt shaker. This will put some space between tiny seeds.

•  Make your own plant markers

To label your seeds tray by tray so you won’t risk confusing your specially chosen tomato varieties, turn empty yogurt pots, cottage-cheese tubs or other white plastic containers into plant markers. Cut strips from the plastic, trim the ends to a point and use an indelible felt-tip marker to write the plant name (variety included) on each. Stick the strips into the edge of the trays as soon as you plant seeds so you’ll know which plant is which from the start.

•  Paper-cup seed starters

Small paper drinking cups make excellent seed starters. They’re the right size, you can easily poke a drainage hole in the bottom and they’re easily cut apart when it comes time to plant your seedlings. Note that we specify paper cups: polystyrene cups may sit in landfill until your great-great-grandchildren have come and gone.

• Dry-cleaning bag humidifier

To provide the humidity needed to root a tray of cuttings, lay a dry-cleaning bag over the cuttings, making sure that it doesn’t touch the plants. (Paddle-pop sticks or pencils can serve as ‘tent poles’.) Clip the bag to the rim of the seed tray with clothes pegs or small bulldog clips.

•  Root rose cuttings under glass

An easy way to root a cutting from your favourite rosebush is to snip off a 10-15-cm piece of a stem that has flowered and plant it in good soil in a pot. Then cover it with a large glass jar to create a mini-greenhouse.

• Willow-tea rooting preparation

Soak a handful of chopstick-sized fresh willow twigs in water to make a solution of natural plant-rooting hormone tea. Cut 6-8 twigs from a willow (any species), then split them. Cut twigs into 7-cm pieces and steep them in a bucket filled with 9-12cm water for 24 hours. Use the tea either to water just-planted cuttings or as an overnight soaker for the base of cuttings.

•  A rolling seed tray

Recycle an abandoned, old toy cart into a seed tray on wheels. Poke holes in the cart bottom with a screw-hole punch and hammer, then fill the cart with coconut fibre peat pots or expandable peat pellets, labelling as you go.

•  Potatoes as transporters

When moving plant cuttings to another location, you can use a potato as a carrier. Simply slice a large potato in half crossways, poke three 2cm-deep holes in each cut side with a chopstick or pencil, then insert the cuttings, which should stay moist for about 3-4 hours.