A Homemade Soil Blocker and Starting Seeds

We’ve been wanting to get away from buying the plastic seed-starting trays since they get destroyed shortly after purchasing and almost never last more than one season. A soil blocker seemed like a good idea but we weren’t ready to commit to a purchase just yet.

So, Stewart devised a few homemade soil blocker from a couple of old supplement bottles. The gist of it was the cylinder of a larger bottle surrounding the bottom of a smaller bottle. The soil is moistened and kneaded and then tightly packed into the soil blocker. The soil blocker then pops the soil block up through the cylinder and this can then be set into old pans or trays for planting. The screw makes an indentation for the seed.

You can make them as big or small as you want, depending on the size of your bottles.

Stewart and the boys ended up making somewhere just shy of 200 of these soil blocks the other day and now they are planted with an array of greens, herbs, tomatillos, tomatoes, and perennials for the food forest. This sits in our south-facing window (next to my sourdough starter, coconut oil, and other kitchen stuff) and gets spritzed throughout the day to maintain moisture.

Now we’re just waiting for sprouts! How do you start seeds?