How to Make Newspaper Seedling Pots – Well, it’s that time of year to get all the seedlings started. Usually I just get those little plastic seedling trays to start my plants in but I’ve never been thrilled with the result for my tomatoes which grow stronger when started in roomier pots. And well, why not save a few bucks and be environmentally friendly at the same time. Simply use the newspaper you already have in your recycling and you can whip up tons of these little pots in no time.

I found a YouTube tutorial that explained how to make newspaper seedling pots but really, you can figure it out pretty quickly just by looking at these photos.

Materials:

• Newspaper (the good old Saanich News is what I used – it’s a smaller tabloid size which is great for this)
• Some sort of can (soup, beans, spaghetti sauce… whatever size you prefer)
• Scotch tape

Instructions:

1. Take one sheet of newspaper and fold it into 3 sections so that when you put your can on its side, it’s about 1.5-2″ longer than the can.
2. Roll the newspaper around the can making sure you have your newspaper hanging over one end (don’t roll too tight or you’ll have trouble getting the newspaper off the can).
3. Gently put a small piece of tape on the edge of the newspaper once it’s completely wrapped around the can.
4. On the end of the can that had newspaper hanging over, fold over the newspaper towards the middle of the can until it’s all folded down. Tap and squish down the paper by pushing the can against a table or other hard surface.  Use a small piece of tape to tape it down.
5. Remove the newspaper pot from the can.
6. Fill your pot with soil and plant your seeds or seedlings.
7. At this point I put all the soil filled newspaper pots in a low plastic watertight  tub that fits about 16-20 pots but you can use whatever you want.
8. Pour water into the bottom of the tub and it will soak up through the newspaper and into the soil.
9. When your plants are ready to go into the ground, you can either pop them out of the newspaper pot to plant or just put them straight into the ground since the newspaper will decompose (I’ll likely rip off the bottom of the pot to make sure the roots have room to grow).