Whenever I finish a bottle of juice or carton of milk, I always rinse it out with plain tap water and pour the rinse water into my houseplants. It waters the plants, gives them a little feed, and cleans out the container for the recycle bin. My grandma swore by using diluted milk to feed her houseplants all winter and they always looked great.

If it's working, keep doing it! Those jugs are also awesome for storing caught rain water, should you be interested in that. Putting the lid on prevents mosquitoes from being able to access the water to lay eggs in it.

Great idea. I would have thought the milk would create an odor.

Ecscuba said:Great idea. I would have thought the milk would create an odor.

I agree, I would have thought that, too!

If you use plain milk, it probably would, but I'm talking just rinsing out the milk jug with tap water. The dilution is very great and I've never had an odor problem. I usually swish probably a cup or more of water around in an empty half-gallon jug; the water is barely milky when you pour it out.

As soon as the diluted milk hits the soil, all the aerobic bacteria and fungi acquire a "milk mustache" and turn it into more microbes plus CO2 before anaerobic bacteria can ferment it to release smelly compounds.

And isn't diluted milk one of the remedies for powdery mildew?

I would imagine it would be acidic, so it probably would be a good way to clean off mildew.