Gardener Turns Plastic Party Cups Into Seedling Pots With A Clever Potato Peeler Trick

If you've ever hosted a party, you've found yourself with leftover plastic party cups. Rather than designating these to the recycling bin, you should hold onto them for future gatherings, or make use of them in another way. You see, plastic party cups are a go-to many gardeners choose as an alternative to plastic seed-starting trays. The downside to cups is that they do not have drainage holes in the bottom. To remedy this, one gardener came up with a clever solution using a common kitchen tool: the potato peeler.

In a reel posted to Facebook, @House.of.Esperanza creates drainage for her plastic cup seed-starters by trimming off sections of the cup with a potato peeler. Turning the cups upside down, she rotates them while simultaneously slicing four slivers through the bottom of the cup. These slivers are small enough to maintain the structural integrity of the cup and hold the potting soil and freshly prepared seeds in place, while also being large enough to allow water to drain through with ease.

Potato peelers are naturally sharp out of the box, and are specifically designed to cut through numerous different kinds of vegetables, fruits, butter, and even chocolate. Their intended purpose is not slice through plastic, but the reel shows that a sharp potato peeler can in fact do so with ease. However, there are a few reasons why you may want to use a different tool for this job.

While @House.of.Esperanza definitively shows that a potato peeler can, in fact, be used to create drainage holes in plastic cups used as planters, it may not be the best tool for the job. While using plastic cutting boards has been linked to microplastic contamination in food, it stands to reason that using a potato peeler in the aforementioned manner could create microplastic dust that, if not washed away, could end up in your food. As such, if you want to utilize this method, it might be wise to acquire a spare potato peeler used specifically for this purpose.

Another potential downside to this is that plastic is known to dull blades over time;the peeler blades, which are designed to cut through vegetable skins, could certainly become dull if used to cut plastic cups. Thankfully, you can easily sharpen your potato peeler with the help of an everyday nail file. However, there are other tools that may do the job better.

If you want to put a few holes into the bottoms of several cups all at once, a ¼ inch drill bit will get things done in a jiffy. You can also use a screwdriver, scissors, or a utility knife to manually poke holes into the bottom of the plastic containers. So long as you are effectively getting drainage holes into the bottom of your seed starting cups, your seed starting efforts should be successful.