Dispensing Spoon for Garden Chemicals - DIY

At one point in our gardening lives, we eventually may need to use garden chemicals. And there are many.

There are pesticides (insecticides, fungicides), herbicides (weedkillers) and all kinds of fertilizers. These garden chemicals, oftentimes inorganic, are typically in powdered form.


Less than a Spoonful of Garden Chemicals

Unless you're into large-scale gardening, you're more likely to use these garden chemicals sparingly. A dilution ratio of 1 table spoon (tbsp) of powder to 16 liters of water is fairly common.

So for a spray solution that will require only a liter of water to apply on, say, three to four plants, you only need to dispense 1/16 of a tablespoon. To dispense powder that little, what utensil would you use?


Dispensing Spoon with a Small Bowl

A teaspoon is still too big. A spoon with a smaller bowl than that of a teaspoon would be ideal. Dispensing spoons that are plastic and disposable would be good. The only disposable spoons with small scooping bowls I could think are those used for yogurt, ice cream or sherbet.

But those plastic disposable spoons have short handles. It would be difficult to use if garden chemicals are stored in a tall jar. Once dropped inside a tall jar, it may take a while to retrieved a short-handled spoon.

I suppose it is possible to find a plastic spoon with a small bowl (scooping part of a spoon) yet with a long thin handle. It may be possible, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one.


Make a Dispensing Spoon for Garden Chemicals

The procedure to make a garden dispensing spoon with a long handle is easy. When finished, keep it handy in your fertilizer storage rack.

Materials

• Small plastic spoon. Disposable plastic spoons you could use are those that come with yogurt, ice cream, sherbet and the like.
  
  
• Ordinary plastic utensil. A disposable fork, spoon, fork-spoon like the ones for Chinese takeout are good.
  
  
• Epoxy. Use a 2-part (hardener and adhesive) general purpose epoxy.
  
  

Procedure

1. With a hacksaw, carefully cut a disposable plastic utensil in half as shown below.
   
   
   
   
   
2. With a piece of sandpaper, smoothen the rough burrs on the cut piece. Get a small plastic spoon and align its bottom part and the top part of the cut half.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. There should be an overlap of about 1/2 inch. This overlap is the area where the epoxy will be applied.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Mix equal parts of the 2-part epoxy thoroughly.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Apply the mixed epoxy evenly on the overlap.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Notice the applied epoxy appears only at the bottom of the garden dispensing spoon. Smoothen the epoxy that holds the two pieces together. Allow to dry and cure.
   
   
   
   
   

Practical Uses of the Garden Dispensing Spoon for Chemicals

In the two photos below, notice how the garden dispensing spoon comes in handy when scooping a very small amount of powder from a tall bottle or jar. In the example below, urea fertilizer is dispensed.

The garden dispensing spoon works well when putting chemicals with any conventional garden sprayer for misting. The spoon is also useful when picking up a small amount of powder and releasing it into the narrow opening of an improvised spray bottle.

I sometimes use an ordinary plastic bottle for my sprayer. After pouring the dispensed powder into the bottle, I screw in the spray gadget, give it shake and then I'm ready to spray chemicals like insecticide or fungicide to garden plant foliage.