This article provides a simple and eco-friendly method for seed starting using newspaper as a growing medium. The soil should be moist before planting the seeds, and the best way to water the newspaper pots is by pouring about half an inch of water on the tray or tote box. This will allow the water to seep through the bottom part of the soil mix.
The author suggests using a half sheet of newsprint, which yields a pot 2.75″ square by 3″ tall. Phone book paper can also be used for creating seedling pots. To avoid over-watering, the author advises only watering the seedlings from below, directly into the tray rather than the newspaper pots.
When planting the seedlings, it is important to water them daily. Once the seedlings are ready to be transplanted, the entire pot should be planted in the newspaper. This project allows you to recycle newspaper into biodegradable seed pots that are ready to plant. If you need smaller pots, you can reduce the size of the newspaper page, while if you need sturdier pots, double the size.
To ensure proper watering, it is essential to keep the soil moist and not saturated or soggy. If using peat pots, you can use a small house plant type watering can with a fine rose. The author recommends using a little and often approach to watering the paper pots, as they are very small.
In summary, this DIY project is a great way to start seed starting with newspaper as a growing medium. By following these steps, you can create a beautiful and eco-friendly way to grow your seeds.
📹 DIY: Newspaper Pots for Seed Starting/Cuttings
Spring is right around the corner and I need to get seeds started. I don’t have any small plastic pots so I’m using these newspaper …
📹 Newspaper Plant Pots by Michele Made Me
Create your own simple and eco-friendly seed planting pots using only a pair of scissors, newspaper and a jar. Use black & white …
I love gardening and am so glad I found this. It has taken me several hours to make one. No joke! I have cognitive and spatial deficits so it takes me a LONG time to figure out things like this. This is my third day of trying and I made one!!! So proud that I didn’t give up!! This is gonna help my brain heal! Not only do I have a new gardening project, I have a new brain game. I’m gonna show this to my neuro rehab guy. It’s tasks like this that give me more hope!!!! Thank you! And I started writing this comment about 20 minutes ago! TENACITY!
You just saved me a ton of time and money. My husband will be coming home from the hospital soon, and here I sit with bags and bags of soil and seeds, and no pots. I do have a ton of newspaper from my woodstove, so this is really going to work out for me. I can’t go anywhere with my husband needing care 24/7, and this is PERFECT for my situation. Thank you SO much for this, I thought I was going to lose another chance at starting early. You made my day! Bless, Sheila
This is the second (possibly third, I can’t remember) year of looking up this article to fold pots for the seedlings I start in December and plant out in spring. I use the advertisement paper that is delivered weekly for free. You made it possible for me to make pots without buying them and then the seedlings I start produce food for several months, another financial bonus. When one is between jobs every little bit helps. In short: this article is helping me every year, so thank you very much!
Thanks so much for posting this! This is working so well! Peppers and tomatoes already germinated and I know just when to water them because i can feel the moisture level on the sides of the newspaper pots. This not only saved me money but took out the moisture guesses which could kill a seedling whether too dry or too wet. I’m planning on cutting around the bottom corners when I plant them out, because they’ve held up way better than I thought. Note: when you water, these do expand a bit from their original size. Something to keep in mind when planning the size of trays you’ll need.
My young son and I have just began our first nursery (greenhouse). The paper boxes/planters are an excellent inexpensive resource. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas. Your article was precise and very good quality. I will suggest your article to my son’s school who are in the process of starting their own Veggie Garden.
Hi just watched your article and think this is probably the best paper pot design I’ve seen so far. I’m going to be growing lots of seedlings and potting them on in spring/summer and I can;t spend any $ for pots. I’m hoping a solution for trays will happen by then. I think I’ll fold them over the winter leaving them flat and open them into pots as needed. Thanks for such a great instructional article. It will help a lot of gardeners. I know I will link to this article quite a bit.
Very nice, no tape, no glue, looks sturdy enough and doesn’t flop over. Also, clear straight forward instructions. No background music or any other distractions to get in the way. Good job on your tutorial! I liked that other person’s idea on making a bunch of them ahead of time and leaving them folded up somewhere until needed. Good thinking!
Absolutely perfect Reminds me if how we used to make paper hats. I used xerox paper I had many left from errors. Slight adjustment but just as good. I will be saving my paper now… What I like most is no more labels to lose. I can just write on the top of this box. Thanks so much for the tutorial… This is a definite keeper.
OMG this looks sooo complicated when you watch it at first, but then when you follow along with it while you’re doing it, it is very easy to follow. The last fold blew my mind a little bit but I figured it out and I made a perfect newspaper pot THE FIRST TIME. Thank you for these clear instructions! I dedicate whatever plants may germinate this late in the season to you, sir.
Thank you for a wonderful tutorial. I was NOT lacking in plastic pots as a group of growers donated hundreds and thousands of plants to my complex last year. I attempted to retrieve as many of the plastic pots as possible to return to a garden centre in the summer time because they offer a credit 🙂 (saving money for me both last year and this year!) I wanted to make sure I had as many of the plastic pots as possible to return so i opted to start seedlings with this lovely little seed starter pot. With an unlimited supply of recycled newsprint that we use for our bunny, this was a very easy thing to do! Happy growing 🙂
6 years using this method and it works great, I had been trying some of the other compostable designs but they don’t decompose fast enough. These things last just long enough to get them into the ground and then they melt into nothing so roots can actually grow/spread. But yes like others said, I do have to come back every year lol.
Thank you for doing this article. I used these with my kids at daycare and they worked wonderfully,,,and didn’t cost anything. Four of them fit perfectly in the lid of a Styrofoam carry-out tray, which the children’s lunches come in. That way, I didn’t have to worry about excess water. Thank you again!
So glad I came across this! Just got a grow light for mother’s day. I was surprised how easy it is. I had seen a comment of someone asking about them holding up during use, so after I made the first one, I tried making one with a whole sheet of paper. Still easy to make and much more sturdy. I’m using the little flats I have left over from when I buy canned veggies in large numbers to put them in. Love it!
I was with you right until that last little fold, the one you said would naturally want to go down when you open the pot. Mine had absolutely NO desire to go down, but I’m gonna watch this and work at it until I get it. These appear to be much sturdier than the ones you wrap around a can. Thanks for posting!
Thank you for sharing. I used a old A4 paper that the kids drew on. Works just as well but smaller cube than oblong shape. I’ll get a commuter newspaper and use hat instead. Very easy instructions and love how the base is double insulated. But as some other comments mention – be good to put in drainage holes.
No matter how careful you are and how precise you are with your instructions, there are still those people out there who will find fault and do dumb things like using too much water and trying to raise seeds inside etc and then blame you for them getting sick from the mold created by them not adding some common sense. I liked your article and I am going to give them a crack. Well done!!
I liked the idea and was excited to make these newspaper pots.I wanted to make plant pots I could put directly in my vegetable gardens soil. For Cucumber, and Squash plants. But these Newspaper pots turn to mush and fall apart when you get them wet. What a waste of my time making them. I’ll just stick with the 2&1/4″and 4″ tapered plastic pots. I’ve been using the same extra heavy duty plastic pots that are at least three times thicker than conventional ones for over thirty five years. Years ago,a machinist friend of mine,made me two, two piece tapered molds out of solid stock aluminum. I used around 50 pounds of new plastic pellets that someone gave me.That I melted in an old oven outside. Then squeezed the molten plastic into both of the two piece molds. Dipped the molds into cool water . Trimmed them and out comes perfect plastic pots that will last a lifetime.After I transplant all my vegetable plants, from the non GMO seed I’ve been saving and using for over 50 years. I just soak the plastic pots in a 5 percent chlorine solution for a hour . Rinse them out and allow them to dry. I now have Sterilized Pots. I just spray some vegetable oil inside the ones that will contain Cucumber and Squash plants. They slide right out. Without disturbing the roots. I despise peat pots. All they do is get moldy and never seem to end up decomposing into my vegetable gardens soil. The roots of most vegetable plants have a hard time making their way through peat pots. I will make my own biodegradable pots.
Wow, what a great article! Thanks for sharing this great $$ saving idea! This is definitely one of the most useful articles I have seen on YouTube to date!! Also, a solution to the break down issue, just line them up in a shallow card board box or similar and dont mess with them other than watering when needed, until they are ready to be planted out.
I don’t have newspapers but what I did have was a huge pile of packing paper from Amazon deliveries. each perforated sheet makes a pot which is about a 2 inch cube. Perfect for me as I don’t want to keep my seedlings in the pot for too long before planting out. If you cram them in a tray for support and then are careful when planting out the paper holds up well.
This is fantastic, thank you. I’m attempting to be more ecologically friendly with all aspects of life, and being an avid gardener this is a great one to try. Does anyone have a rough idea of how long these will last, without breaking down, when they are being watered each day? I assume they’ll last long enough for an average seedling to get big enough to transplant outside?
Cool article! So I tried this out with some cut up printer paper. It seems to work good if paper is about twice as long as it’s width, then you fold it into the square. I made ~1 inch pot from a 4.25″ x 8.5″ piece of paper. Not sure what you would do with an 1″ seedling pot… Maybe to fit all the new little sprouts into a tray and if one starts to show damping off you can easy remove it? Or use it for paper clips at the office
I made one, I was smart enough to get it on the first try with a few pauses even though my newspaper is a different size. (the part you tuck in doesn’t have to fold perfectly). Anyhows, I took it a step further due to the fact that I need smaller seedling containers. What I did was cut the newspaper into to four pieces so to keep the proportion. It worked well, I am now producing cubes that are about 1.5 inches wide and deep. My next step is to make like 8 of them so I can plant my culantro in my germination tray. I still have a few 10 pack carboard trays to use but I’m going to use these next because I like them better. I like them better cuz I made them out of newspaper that was just going to get thrown away. 😀 Genius!!!!!!!
The newsprint I used was 11″x22″. I’ve made them with other sizes but it leaves a lip or rim around the top which doesn’t go all the way to the bottom. If your paper isn’t as large as what I used, I would assume any size as long as it’s twice as long as it is wide would suffice (10″x20″, 8″x16″, etc.).
For anyone checking this out 11 years later, I couldn’t get it to work no matter how hard I tried. I finally realized the AARP newspaper I was using has a different ratio of width to height than his newspaper, and it needs to be correct. You need height x 53% for width. (Just under 53%, but 53 will work.) Otherwise, this is a great bit of origami and well-done tutorial.
I made one but it’s fully drenched in just one watering, coz the sides of the paper pot absorbed a lot of the water from the soil. Those who’ve been using these pots: how long do they last? I feel like mine’s going to disintegrate really soon. Any quick fix after they disintegrate? I mean, if the seedlings are not ready for repotting by then. Btw, it’s a pretty cool DIY hack! Very easy to make and costs nothing.
I had the same idea, because I did not want to spend $ on seed starting pots. About a month ago, I started my seeds in newspaper, paper towel and toilet rolls pots. All handmade. Today as I was trying to transplant some of my plants found out that all those “paper pot” either rotted and desintegrated AND had very tiny white WORMS. I suppose they come from the paper material. Some (a lot) of the seeds have not germinated at this moment, its been longer than a month I suspect they might not. It is a fantastic idea to recycle, but seeds are pretty expensive and not worth the chance to use paper to pot them in.
I have been using newspaper pots for two years now. They should be put on a tray that will hold them because it doesnt take long and they will be VERY fragile. I only use them for short growing time produce like cukes, melons, squash, pumpkins, beans and the stuff that you dont grow indoor for a long time. let them dry a lil when you take them out to plant because they will hold a lil better. but the nice thing is you can plant the whole thing. I use a ‘pot maker’ bought it from jung seed co.
Update! I just started making these using two whole sheets of newspaper instead of one half sheet. No need to tape them together. Treat it exactly the same as the small one, just “pretend” that it’s already been folded in half once and start by folding the bottom corners up to the existing center crease (the one where you would normally tear the sheet in half). It makes an excellent second stage size for tomatoes once they’ve outgrown the 2 inchers!
On thing that @CroutonCrackerjacks missed is the ratio of the size of the news paper. The rectangle length and width should be in the ratio of 2:1 for this pot to be created nicely. Other than that the instructions is excellent. I created 6 pots for seed staring by trimming the newspaper length and width to 2:1 ratio.
Hmm – the plants grow reasonably well in most of them, though I had some issues with mold occasionally. I heard bad things on newspapers as well though – especially colorprinted ones – which are most of them these days. It is important to use complete rolls though. I tried using half rolls and they just seem to dry out too fast.
Seems to take quite a bit of time. What i do is I use the cardboard rolls that are inside toilet paper rolls. Either use the whole or only half and fill it with some soil, compact it a bit at the bottom and fill it up loosely. They have to go, just like the newspaper version, into a plastic tray of sorts as they will leak water and a bit of soil. They can be planted with the seedlings. They are open at the bottom, so roots can come out. Seedlings should be transplanted within about 2-3 weeks.
Hmmm, I just tried it on a smaller size of news paper. You know, the smaller flyer section that comes inside the Sunday papers. Most of it came out alright, but the bottom does not come out square. I think the ratio of length vs width is not the same as a larger piece of news paper sheet. I shall have to try it on a normal sized sheet and see what happens.
You can use the same method in greaseproof paper for making one person Victoria sponge cake 58g sugger 58g butter self-raising flour 1 egg gas mark 4 ontil cooked you can add chocolate to this recipe or if you don’t like chocolate you can have blueberries or even try lemon to make lemon cake go’s well with custard after dinner.
Thank you! I used some brown paper sacs I scrounged from our local organic shop, the sort that bulk dry goods come in. I also added a circle of brown paper inside the pot to reinforce the bottom and make sure the compost stayed in as my bases weren’t as neat as yours! All the best from sunny Normandie, Sue