Planting seeds doesn't have to mean buying lots of fancy seed trays and propagators from a garden centre. Caroline Lowbridge hears how rubbish can be recycled into useful gardening equipment.

As a community garden, Arkwright Meadows needs to be thrifty. "I beg, steal and borrow everything," says Rachael Hemmings, a community gardener educator at the project in The Meadows.

This thriftiness has led to some quite unusual and decorative solutions, such as using an old toolbox, bins and even a dog basket, which Rachael found in a skip, as planters.

And while those who use the garden could have bought lots of reflective tape to scare the pigeons from eating newly sown seeds, they have instead hung up freebie CDs on canes to ward the birds away. It is not only effective, but they also look rather pretty as they twinkle between the vegetable beds.

In fact, the multi award-winning Arkwright Meadows provides a brilliant example for gardeners new and old. Many people will be attempting to grow vegetables for the first time this year, and the first thing many would-be gardeners do is head to a garden centre. On display are myriad seed trays, propagators and pots of all sizes, and the initial outlay can put some people off.

But there is no need to buy any of this. Why buy plastic plant pots which will probably break after a year, when you can make drainage holes in the bottom of a yoghurt pot? Why buy a seed tray when you can use the plastic trays which shops use to package mushrooms or soft fruit?

Even if the containers do break after a year, they can be washed and recycled as you might have done normally.

Rachael will demonstrate many more ideas like this at the Great Spring Sowing, an event dedicating to sustainable gardening – and particularly sowing seeds.

One of her tricks is turning single sheets of newspaper into pots. Tools to make paper pots can cost more than £10, but Rachael will show how to make them using nothing more than her hands.

The pots are not only free, but they are better for plants too. "You don't have to take the plants out of the pot, you can put them in the ground and they will biodegrade so the roots won't get disturbed," says Rachael.

As well as giving tips for growing crops in every available space – even for those who live in flats and only have a windowsill as growing space – Rachael will demonstrate how to turn more or less any container into a plant pot.

"The whole thing about the Great Spring Sowing is to show you can grow your own vegetables, even if you live in an urban area, with money or no money."

The Great Spring Sowing will be held at the Arboretum park in Nottingham on Sunday March 22. A planning meeting will be held on Wednesday, from 7.30pm in the Malt Cross pub.

caroline.lowbridge@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk