Kitchen Tin Planters and a cautionary tale

Old tins make fabulous planters for a kitchen windowsill right?

I guess you would call this up-cycling. It's an idea I'd seen all over pinterest, using old tins as planters, they look great so I thought I'd have a go. I've made mistakes so you don't have to, read on for my cautionary tale...

I actually started with this "vintage" OXO tin. I say "vintage" like that because really it's just a bit old and I'm not sure if it properly qualifies as vinatge. It was a freebie from OXO back in the 80's and was one of the things I kept when sorting out all my mums things. It's kind of cute but very "of it's time" - apparently only white people used OXO cubes in the 80's and am I the only one thinking that guy on the far right looks a bit like Hitler (ooo, far right ... spooky)

Over the last 6 months I've just kept my eye out for red food tins (to go in our red kitchen) and now I have 4 I feel this is enough to share with you.
At first I imagined fresh herbs on my kitchen window sill - how lovely that would be. Turns out herbs are quite a lot of work!

• they get big quickly
• they get straggly looking quickly, unless you use them all the time in everything you cook
• a lot of them are annuals and die off in the autumn

If you use a lot of herbs in your cooking you go for it.
I moved to more of an "any easy to grow" plant theme.

The OXO tin is not water tight so I lined the base of the tin with thick plastic and put a dish in the bottom just to make sure water doesn't get inside. I added a plant still in it's plastic regular pot too. This is one of the babies from when I showed how to take cutting from these succulents.

The next tin I found was the Black Treacle tin, once the treacle was all used up I washed it out and planted it up. I figured this tin was made for liquids so I wouldn't have any problems with it leaking.

I planted it up with soil directly in the tin using some Jade or Money tree babies, also from my plants for free post. It doesn't leak but 6 months on it is going rusty on the bottom: 

Not a massive problem but I'm thinking this might leave rings on a windowsill which could be hard to clean off.

Turns out maybe not everything you see on pinterest is as simple as it seems! 

• make sure your tin is sealed or waterproof and line it if it's not
• herbs are lovely but not super easy to look after
• consider putting regular plant pots inside your nice tins rather than planting directly into them
• watch out for rusty bottoms!

Luckily the tin I've got that's gone rusty is the easiest to replace, as soon as we've used all the treacle in the next tin I can swap this one out. It would be a shame to use a lovely vintage tin that took ages to find though and then ruin it. 

In the other tins I've settled on a mixture of artificial plants and putting a plastic lining to the tin, with the plant still in it's plastic plant pot. I've not planted directly into any of them.

And finally, just because she is rather lovely, here is the cow milk jug that sits on the windowsill with our kitchen tin planters.

I'm still keeping my eyes open for foods that come in red tins so I can add to the collection. Have you tried using anything unusual as a planter and had any unforeseen problems? 

You might also be interested in:

Plastic tub Planter

Pretty Garden Planters

Ikea cactus gift wrap

Taking succulent cuttings

I'll be linking up at these great link parties, why not check them out!