I started a massive cleaning and overhaul on my seed starting area today. I got new lamps and mats for xmas this year and need to rearrange my hodgepodge lamp setup from last year to accommodate my new smooth, svelte 4-ft-4-bulb T5 fluorescent lamp and 48x20.5" heat mat. So in addition to cleaning all the storage mess in that area from previous years, I'm moving whole swaths of lights. I decided to hang the new lamp up top of my deep shelf where I have the greatest surface area, and move the lamps there to my other, shallower and smaller shelves where the weaker lights and less surface area covered will be less relevant. Which meant drilling new hooks into my ceiling in the basement to hang the light from because the bigger size meant needing a new spot. 
I'm also slowly reorganizing my pots and pondering a seed pot problem I have.
I'm trying to find a good low-effort long-term solution for seedling pots. The problem is pretty simple. Biodegradable pots (such as peat, cardboard or newspaper) are bad for my seedlings roots when doing a simple, low-effort, bottom watering system. They encourage fungus, algae and (most importantly) root rot. But when they degrade they improve the soil and there's no cleanup at all afterwards, it all just gets dumped into the gardens.
Plastic pots degrade, shatter, break, chip apart, get stepped on and generally demolished within a couple years, often outdoors where I find myself cleaning up plastic bits from around my garden beds, etc. It's a problem obviously, and the replacement turnover time on a plastic that isn't very recyclable is upsetting for my waste-not buy-less mentality. Even an upcycled plastic contained will shatter and break very fast. But the plants seem to thrive in them.
So I've been thinking about how I wish I had something like my rabbit food bowls for seed starting (https://www.entirelypets.com/petmate-crock-nesting-with-microban-3-oz-small.html). These sturdy plastic bowls have put up with the rabbits chewing, froze full of water thawed then refrozen over and over again, being stepped on, thrown across the lawn, buried in rabbit urine soaked hay, washed in bleach, sat in the sun for weeks and otherwise abused in every way a farm could possibly abuse a plastic object and still hold up 5 years later with nothing but some scuff marks and worn edges.
These pet bowls on their own are a bad size/shape for seed starting. They'd need to be twice as tall, with holes in the bottom for drainage. Bonus points if they are square not round. I've done a TON of digging and can't find anything even a little close. The best I have found is a $9 acrylic vase 4" cube that I'd have to drill my own holes into.
As a small grower it'd be really nice to have some non-disposable seedling pots to re-use every single year without any risk of them breaking, even if they get left out in the snow and get stepped on. So I'm considering the possibility of molding my own permanent seedling pots out of acrylics or resins and seeing what I can come up with. I know several people with degrees in polymers and product design that I wonder if I could reach out to and learn from. I may experiment with some prototypes this year. We'll see.
I'm also slowly reorganizing my pots and pondering a seed pot problem I have.
I'm trying to find a good low-effort long-term solution for seedling pots. The problem is pretty simple. Biodegradable pots (such as peat, cardboard or newspaper) are bad for my seedlings roots when doing a simple, low-effort, bottom watering system. They encourage fungus, algae and (most importantly) root rot. But when they degrade they improve the soil and there's no cleanup at all afterwards, it all just gets dumped into the gardens.
Plastic pots degrade, shatter, break, chip apart, get stepped on and generally demolished within a couple years, often outdoors where I find myself cleaning up plastic bits from around my garden beds, etc. It's a problem obviously, and the replacement turnover time on a plastic that isn't very recyclable is upsetting for my waste-not buy-less mentality. Even an upcycled plastic contained will shatter and break very fast. But the plants seem to thrive in them.
So I've been thinking about how I wish I had something like my rabbit food bowls for seed starting (https://www.entirelypets.com/petmate-crock-nesting-with-microban-3-oz-small.html). These sturdy plastic bowls have put up with the rabbits chewing, froze full of water thawed then refrozen over and over again, being stepped on, thrown across the lawn, buried in rabbit urine soaked hay, washed in bleach, sat in the sun for weeks and otherwise abused in every way a farm could possibly abuse a plastic object and still hold up 5 years later with nothing but some scuff marks and worn edges.
These pet bowls on their own are a bad size/shape for seed starting. They'd need to be twice as tall, with holes in the bottom for drainage. Bonus points if they are square not round. I've done a TON of digging and can't find anything even a little close. The best I have found is a $9 acrylic vase 4" cube that I'd have to drill my own holes into.
As a small grower it'd be really nice to have some non-disposable seedling pots to re-use every single year without any risk of them breaking, even if they get left out in the snow and get stepped on. So I'm considering the possibility of molding my own permanent seedling pots out of acrylics or resins and seeing what I can come up with. I know several people with degrees in polymers and product design that I wonder if I could reach out to and learn from. I may experiment with some prototypes this year. We'll see.
