In my garden shed, I use metal trash cans to store various items that come in bulk bags. Items such as vermiculite, coco fiber, and compost are items that I will decant into the cans as I don’t want to keep them in the orginal bags for several reasons—aesthetics, pests and ease of use being the top few! I love how they look, they last forever and are incredibly practical and useful. A win all the way around.

I’ve written before about how I use the soil blocking technique for most of my seed starting. However, for some of the seeds, sweet peas and ranunculus to name a few, I use trays because the soil blocks wouldn’t work for their needs. This year, I tried using Erin’s (of Floret) recipe for a soil mix and it made a lot! Thus, I needed something to keep it in and a metal can was a good fit. I purchased a larger can for the soil than what I use for other items because I had so much. The cans are available from most hardware stores; I bought mine from a local feed store. I also always put wheels on the bottom of my cans for ease of use. This way, I can roll the cans to wherever I need them and roll them right back under my workbench when done!

Using a drill, it’s easy to punch holes in the metal. The worst part is figuring out how to space the wheels on the bottom of the can! You will need swivel casters, I used three inch for the large can, nuts, bolts and washers. For the small cans, I used 1.5 inch wheels. I think for even more stability, four casters would work too, though I’ve never had an issue with tipping with just three.

I label my cans using metal tags that are embossable so that you don’t have to worry about the ink fading. I also use these on trees and plants.