Seedling pots from the newspaper: how to do it yourself?
February for gardeners and flower growers is the beginning of a hot season. After all, right now is the best time to start such an important matter as growing seedlings. After acquiring seeds and a nutrient substrate, the question arises - where to sow them? The choice of containers for growing seedlings is simply huge: these are special trays, and peat tablets, and disposable cups. However, everything requires financial investments. In the case when you need to get a large number of seedlings, the issue of cost savings plays an important role.
And here folk craftsmen come to the rescue with their ideas of using improvised means, such as newspapers. From paper material you can get convenient, practical and cheap cups, since every house has unnecessary booklets, catalogs, etc. All that is needed is old newspapers, a little time and patience. So, how do you make your own newspaper seedling pots?
Step-by-step instructions for preparing pots
First of all, from newspapers, you should fold (or cut) strips of the required width, depending on the height of the future pot-cup. To do this, fold the sheet in half twice. The number of paper layers in a cup depends on the quality of the paper - the thin newspaper must be wrapped several times.
It is best not to use colored newspapers and glossy magazines for paper cups, as they release dye when wet.
You will also need a base to shape the cup. For these purposes, you can use a glass cup or a tin can, but from plastic bottle it is better to refuse - it is springy, and it will be inconvenient to wind the paper.
Then do as follows:
- Wrap a strip of paper on the base not very tightly so that you can remove it. Leave an indent on the bottom from one edge.
- Press the left edge of the newspaper to form the bottom of the pot.
- Remove the workpiece from the base. The glass is ready!
A Few Practical Tips for Preparing Paper Pots
To prevent the cup from unfolding, you can choose from two options:
- at the stage when the newspaper is wound on the base, tie it with a thread;
- before you start wrapping the paper around the base, fold the newspaper strip with an edging from the top edge, and when the glass is ready, slightly unfold the edging on one side and overlap it on the other side.
Paper cups are not stable enough, therefore it is necessary to select a suitable container (2/3 higher than the height of the cups), and place them tightly next to each other. You can pull them off with a rope after the soil has been poured. It is important not to pour the seedlings in paper pots, otherwise they will quickly get wet and fall apart.
When transplanting seedlings, the seedlings can be easily removed from the cup, or they can be planted with it - during the season the paper will have time to decompose in the ground.