Spring is here and that means it’s time to start your seeds indoors. If you’re interested in starting seeds indoors but don’t want to buy pots, you can make your own out of newspapers.
Newspaper pots are easy and quick to make. The only thing you will need to make these is a page of a newspaper and maybe a scissors to cut the newspaper.
Benefits of Newspaper Pots
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Newspaper pots are able to be planted into the ground once your seedlings are big enough to go outside. This makes it easier to get your young seedlings in the ground without damaging their roots.
Newspaper pots are also inexpensive to make, especially if you already get a newspaper. It’s much less expensive than purchasing pots for your seedlings.
Concerns With Using Newspaper
One concern some may have with using newspapers in the garden is the ink that newspapers use because newspapers used to be printed with ink that was considered toxic.
Thankfully, newspapers now use non-toxic inks. The Chicago Tribune says that most inks used today are safe to use in the garden. And
Gardeningknowhow.com says that newspaper ink used now is 100% non-toxic.
Just make sure that you use newer newspapers for your newspaper pots and not old newspapers.
How To Make A Newspaper Pot
To make a newspaper pot you will need one-half of a sheet of newspaper. Just cut the sheet of newspaper down the middle so you have one page of the newspaper.
Line up the top and bottom of the page and press down to fold in half, being careful of the fold that is already there.
Fold in half again.
Unfold the last fold and take note of the fold mark. Then take one of the corners of the folded side and fold it to the fold line in the middle of the paper.
Fold the other corner to the middle.
Take the top of the page, making sure to only grab the top side of the paper and fold it down to the top of the folded corners.
Fold it over again.
Turn the paper over to the other side.
Fold one side in to the middle fold line.
Fold the other side to the middle line as well.
Fold the bottom up to the flaps near the top.
Fold it up one more time.
Open it up a little.
Pull the flaps back a little, this is where the bottom gets folded into.
It should look similar to this once you have the bottom folded in.
Smooth it out.
Fold the pointed end over and crease it. Then do the same on the other side.
Take the pointed end and fold it over to one corner at the top of the triangle. Crease only the bottom part of the fold where my fingers are.
It should look like this.
Open it up until it looks like a little square pot. You may need to help it fold over completely.
Crease all the corners on the sides and the bottom.
It should look like a square pot once you are done.
I hope that you were able to follow along with the pictures and make your own newspaper pots.
One tip about using these, you will want to place them in a plastic tray of some type to keep them stable and catch any extra water that may seep out of the pot.
Have you ever made these pots before? How did they work for you?