Growing veg in pastic bottles

[SomebodyBrokeThat]

Hi, does anyone know if it's Ok to grow veg such as carrots in the large plastic pop bottles or will nasty stuff leach out of the plastic into the veg. both space and money are short supply and i'm looking for ways to recycle household stuff and if this is Ok to do, then I could have carrots growing all over the place.

You have to grow carrots in ground or very large pot as once sown, you cannot move them cos of carrot fly, they wouldn't grow big enough in bottles. You can sterilise the bottles - try the garden centre for solution but not essential

I wouldn't grow carrots in bottles because (as daisy says) they need a very deep root run, unless you grow the round varieties like Parmex. If you used the biggest bottles, you could try other things like salad leaves. I'm sure any pop bottle would be safe to use, in that it has to be of food quality to be used for pop in the first place. You would need to add drainage holes - a knitting needle or skewer should do it.

Have you looked on Freecycle and similar sites for free plant pots? Our gardening society does pot recycling - members bring in their surplus pots and other members take them away again.

Thanks, it hadn't occurred to me that they wouldnt be big enough, i guess thats why my last lot were all mis-shapen, pot wasnt deep enough. I have got a few large pots and a big bag thing, i will take a look on freecycle tho. Thanks again.

B&Q and local big-chain garden centre both have a big plastic tub full of old pots - you can jsut help yourself to them. That might be a better option?
They have them so's if you've too many plastic pots you can chuck them in, pother folk who want them pick them up.

Plastic pots are good to grow plants for few days. For long duration, I don't think its a good practice.