maxcelcat | Gardening With A Spoon And A Drill

I have an extremely small "garden" here in the cluttered one bedroom flat I share with

schnitzelrug. A large portion of my garden, in fact all bar one plant, is made up of succulents. Cacti and the like.

Yonks ago I picked up half a dozen random little mini cactus's, in pots about the size of a thimble. There are well cute, and thrived surprisingly well in the flat. Of late, they were starting to look a little cramped, some two years after I got them. And

schnitzelrug had taken a liking to one of them and kept on pulling it from its pot, so I thought it time to repot the little guys. Which is kinda a pity, because then they'll just go on to be bog-ordinary normal sized cacti.

A while ago (regular readers might have heard mention of this) my family sold our ancient beach house. I picked up a whole bunch of random crockery, mainly because I couldn't bear to see it thrown out. Including a lot of random cups from the Seventies. My flat is so tiny, nothing is allowed to be in here unless it's useful for something. So I decided to make 'em into flower pots.

Now, a flower pot needs one important thing - a drainage hole. Which is kinda the opposite of what a cup needs... So I had to figure out a way of making holes in these things...

And it can be done! All you need is a ceramic drill bit, the sort of thing you'd use to drill tiles, and a drill, and a lot of patience. Especially if you're a masochist and have only got a borrowed hand drill. I managed to drill holes in the bottom of three cups and a vase thing, two others were such stubborn bastards that I had to give up on them. But I found new homes for all of the mini cacti:

cacti in cups

Wow - that picture is some weeks old now, both these plants are a lot bigger now! The cups were so tiny I had to put the potting mix in with a spoon... I should write a book called "small flat gardening" :-)