Pine Cones - How-to Treat for Crafting and Gardening

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If you have pine cones on your property it is tempting to use them for 1) seasonal crafts and 2) to top newly planted fall crop beds (keep out neighborhood cats and dogs).

There is more than one method to kill the insects and mold living in pinecones but I have always used the oven rather than the chlorine bleach or vinegar methods.

Heating them in the oven for 30 minutes at 250-degrees F not only makes them better (debugged) household decorations, it causes them to dry out and expand to be a bit larger as the sap melts and the moisture evaporates. The melted sap adds a little sheen, too.
Single layer on cookie sheets in oven
Collect the number of pinecones you need for beds and/or crafts.
We filled a wheelbarrow in 10 - 15 minutes in our back yard, picking up the in-tact ones and leaving the broken and moldy ones.

We're collecting for newly planted beds at a local school plus tiny ones for holiday table decorations.

We constantly pull pine tree seedlings from our flower beds but if you want to grow trees from the pinecones you collect, there's a YouTube video for that. Read the comments section, too, where others give more tips on their methods.

You could also make these cute sprouted pine cone bonsai for your holiday table.
Put the bottom of a lime-Sulphur-treated pinecone in a cute container filled with soil and keep it moist.

If I had any crafty ability at all I'd make these cute people!

We have lots of pine cones if you want some.




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