A couple of weeks ago, I sowed some Peach Habanero chilli seeds and I needed a seed propagator to nurture their germination. I could have gone to any of my local garden centres and bought one for a few quid, but I decided to see if I could make my own.

You’ve probably heard about the little moneysaving tip of using toilet paper rolls as seed pots. I wanted to do something along same lies (that is, taking essentially household rubbish and giving it a purpose). I found that the shallow plastic trays that you get tomatoes in was just the right size to hold 6 toilet roll seed pots. The cloche is fashioned from a clear plastic punnet. The type used for plums, peaches, etc. provide the best headroom as the grape punnets are a lot less deep. It also turns out that the length of the punnet is roughly the same as the tomato tray, giving a neater finish to the ensemble.

As you can see from the photo above on the far right, the propagator worked a treat and the first seedlings are just starting to push through.