I've used just about anything that holds dirt as a pot over the years. Coffee cans are not the best, but they do in a pinch. Just remember that rusting cans will change the pH of the area near the edge, (eventually throughout the soil), plants that like sweet soil will decline once their roots approach the can area. Another thing is that the dirt will stay wetter, but for many plants that won't matter. I think the cans lasted about 3 years before it started coming apart. There's not much you can do when the seam opens. I wouldn't bother painting them.

Maybe you should switch to plastic "cans". Now, those are some plant pots a-waiting.

I'd be concerned w/ rust & sharp edges; I recently cut myself on a soup can before I even knew what happened. Also, the proportions of the cans are wrong, they're too deep, at least for my plants.

I too drink lots of coffee & I reuse the cans all the time to store soil amendments & different mixes. Cans of perlite, peat, long sphag (that has a plastic bag in it so I can moisten it w/out rust concerns), leca stones.

Keeping cans of different mixes (if one uses different ones as some of us do) is very useful especially for an emergency repot. I grow succulents, Hoyas, Sans. & a few holiday cacti, for which I use different mixes, so I keep my mixes prepared for each, stored in labeled cans. That's my coffee can recycling.

ok so maybe i will start switching over to the plastic cans, its a different brand of coffee but i dont really care as long as i get my caffeine and as long as it tastes good. i dont really store enough stuff to use them as just storage, when i mix my own soil i get stuff that comes in resealable bags and i mix everything up in a recycling bin and then put it all back in the bags and seal them up... just did this about a month ago and i already need more homemade soil. PG now that you mention getting cut i had forgotten about a year ago i cut myself really bad on a can of veggies and i really dont want to relive that so ill stay away from using metal cans. is there anything else from around the house that you guys sometimes use as pots? more than anything im gonna be pretty much just potting stuff up for the winter, next year we will have a little more money available so that i can start switching everything over to clay pots (i just love the look of clay pots and that they let the soil breathe and also you can tell if the soil is still damp by the color of the pots).

For all those Hoyas you recently got cuttings of, if it were me, I'd still want plastic. I only use clay for large, top heavy Hoyas, of which I do have a few.

Small cups for small Hoyas, pudding cups (punctured), Solo drinking cups. For stuff I'm potting up for other people, maybe yogurt cups, the bottoms of which I've punctured.

I don't use it, but some folks use margerine tubs or those from whipped butter.

yea maybe ill do solo drinking cups, any idea if these a decent spray paint or other paint that would stick good to plastic which i could paint them with so they might look a little nicer? then next year i can little bit by little bit buy nicer pots to move them into.

If you cruise over to the frugal forum, you should find enough reading and ideas to keep you busy. Basically, if it's plastic and you can cut a hole in the bottom, it's fair game. Even if it's the wrong shape, you can just cut it off when repotting time comes. Something like a solo cup or plastic water or soda bottle with the top cut off works too. OT but also handy for making decent-size cooler ice too.

They make spray paint specifically for plastic.

Do you have access to outside Amber? You have small kids right? I'd be careful painting plastics around small children if it were me.

(If I'm confusing you w/ someone else, then apologies in advance.)

yes i have access to outside so any painting would be done far away from the kiddos. we have a nice size garage and a sun room where i can do all of my work and be able to keep the kids away from it. ive been thinking about decorating wine glasses as holiday gifts and would probably do this in the garage or sun room so thats where i would do any other painting too. i would never do any painting inside unless it was with a small paint brush and somewhere where the kids couldnt get to.

Rust will not alter pH....just wanted to mention that. Dzit had said something about that.