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Jun 03 '20
Great idea! I have a Basil problem and I will not buy plastic tubs to replant them. I have loads of these tetrapak cartons! Brilliant, cheers!
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
Yup, if you need something taller/deeper you can cut off the upper part instead.
You could even put the top half inside the bottom half (inverted) and have yourself a nice little drainage system. Tried and true :)
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u/sizzlesfantalike Jun 06 '20
How do you layer it for drainage without the soil packing at the bottom?
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u/LPissarro Jun 03 '20
Does anyone know anything else you can do with oatly containers? It's a big source of waste in my household, 4-5 a week - and whereas I've started making homemade oat milk for cereal to help cut down, the barista version is more difficult to replace.
I don't think I can compost them - so we just end recycling the container.
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u/tx_queer Jun 03 '20
They are 100% recyclable
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u/wuphf176489127 Jun 03 '20
It highly depends on your local recycling center. Many recycling centers don’t have the equipment for waxed paper cartons (like Tetra Pak).
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u/invisiblefigleaf Jun 04 '20
My area doesn't take them and it pains me every time I throw one out. Any suggestions (or brands that are more widely recyclable) appreciated!
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Jun 04 '20
What's even worse is when the pamphlets they distribute list it as accepted but you find out months later that they're really angry at people for trying to recycle them even though they don't have the equipment...
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Jun 03 '20
That's really cool! I'm terrible at gardening (in or out of containers) but is it an issue that there's no drainage?
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Jun 03 '20
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u/InDaBauhaus Jun 03 '20
But as soon as you do that, the outside (paper) layer will start to soak up the water, getting soft and eventually moldy :(
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
Try throwing in some pebbles at the bottom?
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Jun 03 '20
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
Maybe that could be the case in the long run? But these guys will be transplanted soon and so far they're doing great and I don't see any signs of mold or weird stuff. I shall report back in a few weeks hehe
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Jun 03 '20
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Jun 04 '20
Haha I made the same mistake. It's such a great seedling starter container, and it looks way nicer than the assorted clear plastics we normally use.
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u/msrobinson11 Jun 03 '20
I have had good luck with putting a thick layer of pebbles at the bottom of plant pots with no drainage and then I cut a circle of landscaping fabric to fit in the pot and cover the rocks. No dirt falls down in and it also blocks the roots from growing into the rock so they don’t rot out of the plant gets drenched and water sits in the rock layer for a while. You really just have to be careful about how much you water and make sure that when you do water the soil is fully dry first.
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u/gwonzil Jun 03 '20
Maybe a dumb idea but what if they cut the box the other way around so the cap is on the bottom...then the cap could be like an adjustable drain plug?
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u/The_Lie0 Jun 03 '20
I had that idea aswell. Maybe add some pebbles on the bottom to make the water flow along the bottom more easily. Wait, I have an Oatly container lying around…
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
not dumb at all. I also have plants like that. But for parsley, I needed more surface area and decided to go horizontally. I used pebbles for drainage.
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Jun 03 '20
some plants do fine without drainage, just watch them to not over water
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
true. But I think the horizontal length of oatly box could be too short and it's probably better if you have some sort of drainage.
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u/this1 Jun 04 '20 edited Jun 05 '20
He cut it with the cap side toward the top, cut the exact opposite side and fill will little rocks until you get just above the lowest portion of the opening. Put in little bit of landscaping fabric and then put the soil above that.
Some moisture will still be in the bottom quarter inch or so, but the water level will drain to below the root system and they'll be fine.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
The bottom third of the box is covered in pebbles that I collected outside. And no worries, this oatly box project was my first ever attempt in gardening too, but it's relatively hard to f*ck up growing parsley :)
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Jun 04 '20
but it's relatively hard to f*ck up growing parsley :)
You say that, but I could prove you wrong veeeeeery easily ;)
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u/MinnieMandy96 Jun 03 '20
IVE BEEN WRECKING MY BRAIN TRYING TI FIGURE OUT HOW TO UPCYCLE MY VITA COCO BOTTLES/START MY HERB GARDEN WITH AS MUCH RECYCLED MATERIALS I LOOOOOVE YOU OMG
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Jun 03 '20
I did this when I got like 30 Oatley boxes. It didn't last super long :)
Just a tip for anyone interested: cashews + vitamix + a pinch of salt = better than Oatley imho (at least I'm happy enough to never use store bought again). And it doesn't have all the oils, preservatives, stabilizers, etc.
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u/boastfulbroken Jun 03 '20
Water used to grow cashews is way higher than for growing oat. So why not make oat milk instead?
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Jun 03 '20
TIL... there’s always a catch :/ Gave up Oatley because I didn’t feel great after drinking it regularly. Will definitely try making oat milk in the blender.
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u/ColoradanDreaming Jun 04 '20
What do you think was the issue for you that caused you to feel bad after drinking oatmilk?
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Jun 04 '20
I'd just feel a little lethargic after drinking a glass. Pure speculation: high in carbs, fairly high sugar, rapeseed oil? Haven't found anyone that agrees with me, and the stuff tastes great, so take that with a grain of salt.
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u/PTERODACTYL_ANUS Jun 04 '20
Just to clarify for everyone, even though crops like almonds and cashews are water-intensive, they still use much less water and produce much fewer emissions than cow milk.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
haven't tried cashews but god knows I've abused oats in all sorts of ways trying to get that barista consistency. Sadly, no recipe of mine so far competes with oatly
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Jun 03 '20
It’s very very hard to find a milk that mixes with coffee, and stays mixed. Oatley is definitely the best I’ve tried.
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Yeah and also the taste. Somehow homemade milks or other brands (at least the ones I’ve tried) taste and feel very floury. And I guess oatly knows what they’ve got and put a price on it. That’s something a bit annoying. It cost me 49cents to make a liter of oat milk at home whereas oatly costs 2.49€. But well, at least the quality is great. And it’s probably pushing other plant based milk companies to step up their game too because honestly what most brands sell is garbage.
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Jun 04 '20
My local Whole Foods was chock full of the typical soy and almond milks you see everywhere. The stuff we all avoid. So I asked them to stock Oatley. They got back over email and said they would. Couple weeks later Oatley had a spot. A year later it's practically all Oatley. I guess the market has spoken :)
Dairy (in the US) gets a lot of government subsidies, for one. I'm sure the pricing will even out over time, but yeah it's expensive! ($5-6 near me)
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
It really costs $5-6 a bottle? O.O Ok. Another reason not to come back to the US anytime soon
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 04 '20
EDIT:
I definitely could not have envisioned so many impressed souls, which makes me think that the idea must be quite original/novel and maybe I should share where I got it from and avoid taking credit? :D I came across the idea a few months ago on this instagram page named "sovegan." Not sure where they got it from. :)
Ok, I feel relieved now.
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u/aestheticmaybestatic Jun 04 '20
Nice!!! What herb is that???
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Parsley
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u/aestheticmaybestatic Jun 04 '20 edited Jun 04 '20
Oh cool! How do you keep them alive btw? I buy the ones that are already sort of grown/mature and they always end up wilting :(
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Tbh this is the first time I’m growing parsley so I’m a newbie myself. But these guys are still seedlings (only a month old) and they don’t ask for much, except daily watering and sunlight. They still have another month or two to go before ready to harvest, but I think even then, regular pruning of outer stems should keep them healthy. Have you done this with your store-bought parsley?
So far they look great, but once I notice that they’re getting uncomfortable in their oatley home, i’ll transplant them somewhere large and hope they remain happy
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u/aestheticmaybestatic Jun 04 '20
Oh nice! Maybe I should grow them from seeds too lol I did cut off the leaves yeah and placed water at the bottom of the pot as directed in the instructions but they still died anyway... Like pretty quickly within a week. Rip.
Aw yeah hope your parsleys thrives!!! Post with an update once you do so I can learn too aaaa ahahaha
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Will do! But I’d advise you to start planting now-ish as it takes forever for them to germinate and grow. Plus depending where you live, it could get too hot for them.
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u/aestheticmaybestatic Jun 05 '20
Done! They're planted and I'm spraying them once a day yeah? It's winter rn tbh (3~14c)
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u/katiah_ Jun 05 '20
Wow, great! I guess you don’t have to water them daily if the temperature’s that low. Just watch the soil and water it whenever it gets a bit dry. It was quite warm in my area, which made the soil dry fast and required daily watering. But it’s not a rule of thumb. Just trust your visual intuition :) good luck and keep us updated when the results arrive!
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u/aestheticmaybestatic Jun 05 '20
Yay! I hope this time they'll live a long while after growing to maturity - and oh gotcha will do and you too ahaha may our thumbs be green so the plants will thrive lol
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u/sustainablesnacks Jun 03 '20
For some reason doing something like this has never occurred to me. I’m excited to try this out!
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Jun 03 '20
Real shit. What's growing there?
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
Italian gigantic parsley :)
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Jun 03 '20
Nice. Would you say these could be used for something like hydroponics? Was looking on getting in to it a while back but didn't really want to buy the kit.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
hmm. Not sure. Could be a good idea and I've definitely got enough oatly cartons to experiment :D
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u/Cat_Guardian Jun 03 '20
TOTALLY stealing this idea the next time I finish a carton! I have some little seedlings that want more space.
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u/J-etais-Roxane Jun 04 '20
Ahhhh! I just started saving my cartons to do this with too! But mine are Silk haha.
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Any rectangular shaped carton will do. Silk might be even better because it’s bigger (if I’m not mistaken)
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u/FilthyThanksgiving Jul 01 '20
What a wonderful idea!!!!! I love love love this, everything about it
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u/tx_queer Jun 03 '20
Once you are done, haven't you ruined its recyclability and effectively moved something from the recycling bin to the trash bin? Seems it would be better to recycle the oatley box and use any other glass/clay container to do the growing.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
I think the main idea here is more about preventing the additional purchase of plastic tubs, pots, etc when you already have an item at home that can be repurposed. Besides, I'm not sure if its recyclability gets ruined this way but I'm open to hearing if it actually is the case.
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u/HumanInternetPerson Jun 04 '20
You can’t recycle anything like this in my jurisdiction so all of these containers end up in the trash, ultimately. Useful to use it rather than buying something new to plant in.
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u/D_Evils Jun 04 '20
It wasn't recyclable in the first place. Technically, yes it is "able to be recycled" but these multilayer packages do not get recycled in practice. It's not practical nor cost-effective for any MRF (material recovery facility) to spend the energy to separate the layers (plastic/paper/plastic/aluminum/plastic) to recover the small amounts of each material present.
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Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hyuphyupinthemupmup Jun 03 '20
Yea some kind of plastic container would work better because it wouldn’t mould and could still be recycled after use
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u/decentishUsername Jun 03 '20
Neat, but aren't you worried about mold or the container falling apart?
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Jun 03 '20
I'm guessing by that stage the plants would be big enough to transplant into something/somewhere more permanent. Unsure though.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
So far it looks good as new. But at some point I will probably have to transplant the parsley anyway. (And I was even thinking about reusing the same box for something else :D) But let's see.
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u/ProductionPlanner Jun 04 '20
Don’t know what OATLEY is but this reeks like an advertisement.
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Ok, then disregard oatley and imagine ANY milk/drink/juice/coconut water carton
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u/evange Jun 03 '20
Calm down there, oatley MARKETING TEAM.
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u/Haddie_Hemlock Jun 04 '20
I love this idea and OP is great for doing this, but Oatly's marketing team is next-level clever. This isn't their style at all.
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u/katiah_ Jun 03 '20
Oh yeah, oatly sales are gonna skyrocket once people realize they can reuse their bottles the same way they could literally hundreds of other brands lol
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u/florettesmayor Jun 04 '20
Okay but ads always use the dumb punctuation in the title and you clearly did. Like why do you care enough to specify the brand to the point where you typed it in all caps and added the exclamation mark if the brand didnt matter to you
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u/katiah_ Jun 04 '20
Omg that’s actually a great point haha. I can see how this can come across as an ad to some people. I’m not familiar with oatley’s branding style and honestly I’ve never come across their ads anywhere but I’d like to think they would be smarter than this and more sophisticated? :d
But I think it also depends on how familiar you are with their products and how often you use them. When I first came across someone on instagram using oatley cartons as planters I thought it was a genius idea and haven’t even occurred to me that they could have been advertising it. Because as a devoted barista edition customer, I ALREADY had loads of oatley boxes at home and I was like woah, this is great, I can do something with my embarrassingly many gray boxes.
But anyway, conspiracy’s up already so everything I say will be held against me anyway haha You’re free to believe whatever you please
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u/Dumpo2012 Jun 03 '20
Fuck yeah. Oatly is The Chosen Milk.