Drill the hole before you fill the pot
Eight conversations say a container without a drainage hole drowns the plant. What free things are good for, and the treated-wood question answered.
Built from people who had a bucket, a takeaway tub, a milk jug or a heap of old fence boards and did not want to pay for a pot: thirty conversations, 384 accounts, 2012 to 2024. From the eight conversations that say drill the hole first, the five that use clear food tubs as seed greenhouses, the three that start seedlings in egg cartons, the two that pierce a jug’s cap, the three on treated wood and the two long arguments behind them, and the regulators’ dates that settled what the arguments could not.
You have a five-gallon bucket, a stack of clear takeaway tubs, an empty milk jug and a pile of boards from a fence somebody took down, and you are about to put soil in all of them because a pot costs money you would rather spend on seed. The people in these conversations — thirty of them, 384 accounts, 2012 to 2024 — are the source here. Two other pages on this site are about the garden that costs nothing to start and about whether a garden saves money at all; this one is about the ten minutes between having the container and filling it.
Make drainage holes in the bottom of any container before soil goes in.
And do not grow food in reclaimed wood you cannot date; the second section says why.
The hole
Eight separate conversations say the same first thing: a container that holds water waterlogs the roots, and the plant dies of rot. A bucket, a tub, a cut-down jug, a lidded box — drill it, melt it, twist a screwdriver through it, but make holes enough that water poured in runs out. One account’s whole potato method includes the line that drainage is essential; one account says check the soil every other day and water when the top is dry, and that even then the container must drain. Soil preparation and drainage detail beyond that are gaps in these conversations, so the rule is the plain one: if water sits, make more holes.
What the free things are good for
The clear plastic tubs — the ones roast chickens and berries come in — are for starting seeds, five separate conversations say, because they are the right shape and let the light in: a miniature greenhouse with a lid. Keep that distinction. One contraindication and one caution say do not grow a plant on in a clear or translucent container, because light reaching the roots grows algae and rots them; clear is for the lid over a seed tray, not for the pot. One account cuts the bottom off a milk jug and sets it over a seedling as a cloche against wind, frost and birds; one account uses cut bottles for winter sowing; one account says a cardboard box wrapped in film works as a temporary greenhouse until the damp softens the cardboard.
Three separate conversations start seedlings in egg cartons, paper or plastic, because the cells pull apart and a paper one can go into the ground whole without disturbing the root. One account cuts yoghurt pots into strips for plant labels that outlast paper tags.
The milk jug is the watering can, two separate conversations say, and the first question below carries how to pierce the cap without scalding your fingers or drowning the seedlings, from the accounts who argued about it. One account uses the big water-cooler jugs for a pumpless hydroponic system, with the caution that they must be painted or wrapped so light cannot reach the roots. Single accounts also use jugs as gym weights, coin banks, emergency water, fermenting vessels, a camping shower and a Christmas-tree stand, which is not gardening and is here so you know the jug has a life after the seedlings.
The wood
Three separate conversations say chemically treated wood should not be used for growing food, and the argument about whether that applies to the boards in front of you runs four accounts to three in one exchange, three to five in another, seven corrections passing between them, and none of it settled, because a board cannot be dated from a photograph. The second question below carries what the regulators and two university extension services say, and the short form is this: arsenic-treated wood stopped being sold for homeowner use in the United States in December 2003, and stopped being used for garden wood in the United Kingdom and European Union from mid-2004; the copper-based treatments sold since are low in toxicity for vegetable beds; old wood of unknown age is the risk, and colour is not a test. One account says orange tint is the tell and one contraindication says do not grow food in it; one correction says a green tinge is as likely to be algae or moss; two cautions say weathering can hide the visual signs of treatment.
For the build itself, single accounts say: cut the angled tops off fence pickets and use them as sides; use square posts as corners and screw the boards to them; double up thin pickets or keep the bed short, because one caution says thin boards bow under soil and one says old fence wood may not be sound on a long side; lay logs and branches in the bottom of a deep bed so you fill less of it with soil. One exchange, two accounts to one, argues a liner against none — the liner side for old wood and renters, the other because a liner wears out before an untreated box does. And two accounts leave the woodpile alone because the cat has taken it, an argument this page will not adjudicate.
If your free wood is a railway sleeper, a utility pole, a dock timber, orange-tinted, or simply older than you can vouch for, this page’s answer is: grow flowers in it, sit on it, and grow food in something else.
Whose bucket it is
Some of the containers in these conversations belonged to someone. The big water-cooler jugs carry a deposit, one account says, and one caution says an employer may have to pay a deposit for each one you destroy; two exchanges argue whether keeping them is fair when the delivery service has stopped collecting, and the accounts who say ask first — one prerequisite with two accounts behind it — are the ones this page sides with. One account returns jugs to the shop for the deposit and calls that the frugal move; one says the recycling bin is fine too. One account gets used pickle buckets from a sandwich shop for a small donation, and the page here on bakery buckets is the same idea. If the bucket is yours, none of this applies.
What these conversations do not answer
How to cut plastic without leaving a sharp edge, whether the plastic of a given tub or jug leaches anything into soil over a season, plans for the bed, pests in containers, keeping reused soil healthy, which varieties suit a small space, how long anything takes, and how to test wood for arsenic. One exchange, one account each way, argues whether rainwater off a roof is safe for vegetables, and it is not settled here. The hole is settled, and the date on the wood is settled, and that is the page.
Common questions
How do I turn a milk jug into a watering can without it gushing?
Two separate conversations do it the same way: heat a needle or a nail and push holes through the cap, so the jug pours a gentle spray instead of a flood that flattens seedlings — three accounts in one objection say the open spout is too much for anything small, and two accounts in one exchange say the modified cap gives a mist. The details are from single accounts and they disagree. One caution with two accounts behind it says do not hold the hot needle in bare fingers — pliers or a cloth — and two accounts say burning plastic smells and is not something to breathe; one account avoids heat altogether and twists a screwdriver through the soft cap instead, and one exchange of two accounts to one argues heat against twisting, with the decider being safety — burns and fumes — against how easily the harder plastics pierce. One account says pinprick holes spill more than you expect and too-large ones gush, and that a cone-shaped hole made by twisting regulates the flow; one account uses a power drill; one account says put a small air hole at the top of the handle so you do not have to squeeze the jug to pour. Two other single accounts use the same jug differently — one pierces a single hole and stands the bottle upside down in the soil for slow watering over several days, one cuts a bottle in half and inverts the top so water wicks up a string. One account fills the jug from the tap and leaves it a day before using it, on the theory that the chlorine leaves the water; that is one account, and this page did not check it. Whether the plastic of a given jug is safe in long contact with soil, how to cut it without leaving a sharp edge, and how long the holes last are gaps in these conversations.
Is old fence wood safe for a vegetable bed?
It depends on what the wood was treated with, and the accounts argue it hard — four accounts to three in one exchange, three to five in another — because a board’s treatment cannot be read from a photograph. So this page checked the authorities and gives you the envelope instead of a vote. The concern is a preservative called chromated copper arsenate, CCA, which contains arsenic. In the United States the Environmental Protection Agency records that manufacturers stopped making it for homeowner uses in December 2003; in the United Kingdom and the European Union a 2003 directive stopped it being used for wood in gardens and public places from the middle of 2004. It is still made for utility poles, pilings and dock timbers, and existing structures did not have to come down. So: wood bought new for a garden after 2004 in either place is not arsenic-treated. The modern treatments are copper-based, and two university extension services checked this year say they are low in toxicity — one study found copper rose in the soil only within an inch of the bed’s edge and did not rise in the plants at all — so they are treated as acceptable for vegetable beds, with a heavy plastic liner between wood and soil offered as an option rather than a requirement. Old wood is the problem, and it is exactly the wood that turns up free. A fence, a deck or a pile of posts that was standing before 2004 may be arsenic-treated; one account says orange-tinted wood is the tell and one contraindication says do not grow food in it; one correction says a green tinge is as likely to be algae or moss as treatment, and two cautions say weathering hides the signs anyway, so colour is not a test. A home test for arsenic in wood is a gap in these conversations; none of the accounts has one. The extension guidance adds railway sleepers and anything treated with creosote to the do-not list. The rule this page takes from all of it: if you know the wood was bought new after 2004, use it, liner optional; if you do not know its age, or it is orange-tinted, or it is a sleeper or a pole, grow flowers in it or use it for a bench, and grow food in something else — one account says new cedar is the fallback and that a local nursery gives better wood advice than a big shop. The accounts on the other side are worth hearing: two accounts in one note have used pressure-treated wood for beds without any trouble, and the three on that side of one exchange say the exposure from shop-bought produce is higher than from a bed. That may be so, and it is a reason not to panic about a bed already built, not a reason to build a new one from wood you cannot date.
Can I plant the sprouting potatoes from the kitchen?
The accounts split on it, three exchanges deep, and the linked page called *Grow the herbs, not the potatoes* carries the arithmetic on whether a bucket of potatoes is worth growing at all — one exchange here runs four accounts to three on that question and the answer is mostly no, unless you have no ground, or you want to. On the sprouting shop potato: one account says the ordinary shop varieties grow fine from a sprouting eye; one account says shop potatoes are treated so they will not sprout and may carry fungus, and that certified seed potatoes from a garden shop are the reliable route; one caution says a treated potato can give you no crop, and one caution and two accounts say a shop potato can bring blight or fungal spores into soil you will use again, which one account says is hard to get rid of. So: a shop potato that has sprouted on its own has already beaten the treatment, and it is a gamble with the soil, not with your health. If you plant, one account’s method: eyes up, add soil over the shoots as they rise until you reach the rim, let the leaves die back, then dig; one correction says you add potatoes only on day one and only soil after that; one account cuts a pail down or nests one cut pail inside another to take potatoes from the side, and another uses a fabric bag with a flap for the same reason, so nothing has to be tipped out — which one caution says is the messy part. Two corrections and one account say the claim that a single bucket gives fifty pounds of potatoes is not credible — a bucket cannot hold fifty pounds of potatoes and the soil to grow them — and that any such figure is a year’s harvests, not one. Two accounts in one note say leave dug potatoes in the sun for a day to toughen the skin. And if a potato has gone green, the page on reheating carries the safety line; do not eat the green ones.
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