Growth industry

Packaging is bad... and yet it is so good. How I love me some good typography and a zesty palette. When I see a good package that has served its original purpose I endeavour to find it a new purpose and hence extend its lease on life.

Meanwhile, there's a new 99p store in the Elephant & Castle shopping centre, and an even newer 98p store too. This tomatoes-in-a-bag growing pouch (99p, get 'em while you can) gave me the idea to upcycle this coffee package from Morocco. I'm going to use it as a planter - it's almost the same size at the prefab pouch garden and it's waterproof. Once it contains some soil, seeds and rainwater, my work here will be done.

Below are some other planter ideas. The box is from my family home in the US and it was originally used to ship live pansies to the original owners of the house in the 1920s - it still has the shipping label on it. The blue bag is an upcycled grain bag that was transformed into a shopping bag by the good people at John Lewis. I poked drainage holes in the bottom and it became a house for pea plants last summer. I also used a milk jug for a rosemary plant, a zinc bucket for more peas and a wallpaper paste bucket with holes drilled in the bottom for courgettes.