Life in a toilet paper roll (sounds wierd I know) #Farmvoices

A few weeks ago I found an old packet of bean seeds I forgot I had. Unfortunately they had expired. I took the chance any way just to see if any would come up. The problem I had until just the last week was cold, rain soaked soil. We had the worse winter ever in 47 years here in Northland, New Zealand. It was hopeless I was at the point of considering moving the animals off the property completely it was that bad.

You may have seen a recycling tip about planting seeds in empty toilet rolls. I've done it for years. It it protects the seed and the young plant,, plus gives a great alternative to using plastic. I put the entre roll into the soil once the plant is big enough to transplant into the garden.  Out of the seeds (which I didn't expect to germinate) one came up. I photographed it over 48 hours literally growing in front of my eyes.

I'm intrigued how in just two days from a small seed a plant emerges which will later produce something that will feed my family. Recycling your empty toilet rolls is a great way to help the environment and save more rubbish headed for the landfill, or being burned in the fire pile. Over the last few years, I've noticed more and more plastic is being used to package up our food in. It's not good for our environment. Each year thousands of tons of plastic end up in our oceans. We need to change that reliance on plastics for our packaging and come up with a better alternative. Recyle where you can. I compost our cardboard,  newspaper and food scraps in old tyres it works and the tyres don't end up polluting the environment. Worth thinking about.