Newspaper is a great material for making your own seedling pots, and once grown they can be planted whole in the ground without disturbing your delicate new plants.
I love this little DIY because as I head more into a plastic-free life I stumble across lots of little things that I never thought of like seedling punnets. I can now re-purpose my local newspaper and plant my own seeds rather than buy seedlings at the nursery or trying to hunt down and eco-friendly option.
What You Will Need
Newspaper
Scissors
Glass jar or bottle
How To make Seed Pots From Newspaper
Step 1. First, cut your newspaper into strips. You can adjust the width of the strips to make your pots higher or lower.These ones are around about 10 cm wide.
Here I'm using a small bottle of rose water. Make sure your jar or bottle isn't too wide or your seedling pots will end up quite large.
Step 2. Place the strip under the bottle, making sure the long edge of the newspaper is around 4cms longer than the end of the bottle. (you will need this section for folding).
Wrap the strip of newspaper around the bottle tightly ......
At the bottom end (below), you can see I have left space here for the next part.
Step 3. Make your first fold below (it's kind of like wrapping the end of a gift really).
Then Now fold the opposite side down ....
Now fold in the remaining sides....and it should look like the picture below
Now Slide the pot off your bottle and press the bottom folds tightly so they hold together.
Step 4. To finish off, at the top open end , fold over about 2cm so that it goes inside the pot. This will hold it all together.
Mine are a bit inconsistent but this isn't going to matter at all.
Step 5. You can now fill these with potting soil and pop your seeds in. Water regularly.
I recommend keeping these on trays or in a plastic tub, and don't forget to get around to planting them. The newspaper isn't a long term seed pot but will give you plenty of time to get things sprouting.
Just plant these straight into the soil and the newspaper will biodegrade.
I have seen similar projects using toilet paper rolls which seem more convenient because it just requires folding the end. The problem with this is that the cardboard tubes are often a little too sturdy and wont allow the roots of your seedling to grow through as time progresses.
Enjoy upcycling your old newspapers into these nifty seedling pots.