Recycle your Keurig cups

We have a keurig machine and absolutely love it. It makes tea, coffee, hot cocoa and apple cider among other things. I just didn't like the idea of throwing all the little pods away and contributing to the landfill mess. It was time to get crafty so we are going to be showing you how to re-use your pods for seed starting cups.

First you take off the foil liner on top, this will be the only thing that goes in your garbage. 

Take one of the million plastic bags you have lying around the house and double line it and create a 'temporary compost bin' or throw it into your regular compost. Did you know that coffee and tea filters can be composted? Throw the entire contents of the k-cups into the rubbish.

Once you have the contents out, give it a quick rinse and you have your own little seed starter, with a hole for drainage.

This is a picture of a tea filter.

Some of the starbucks cups have these rings, do not throw them away, just rinse and place them in the cup for drainage. 

Another tip, make sure when you place your cups on a tray, they can still drain. sometimes when the cups are placed on a flat surface the hole won't act like a drain. Use a tray that has uneven grooves for drainage.

Lights for starting seeds indoors

Starting seeds indoors means fruit, vegetables, and flowers earlier. It also means you can control your seedlings get off to a great start. I saw kits that extended into the hundreds of dollars. Forget that! I picked up these at walmart. I got three of them. 

I then looked in the same lighting section for a bulb that is specifically used to promote growth and flowering of plants. I have seen you can use a regular bulbs on other sites. 

I just slip my finger or a knife in the side and remove the cover.

I remove the bulb.

I reused the plant bulb package to store the lights. 

    If you use packing tape on the end it will protect the bulb from slipping out and you can just relabel the package.

I drilled a hole beside the hardware hole.

I insert the S hook. You can use S hooks to lengthen or shorten how far away the light is from the seeds.

I replace the bulb.

I hang the lights. I really lucked out because we had a little closet with shelves by the kitchen. I hook all of the lights to a electric strip so I can turn them all on at once just by a flip of a button.