We still have a lot of seeds to start for our fall and winter garden,
and we’re starting many of them indoors in homemade paper pots.
Paper pots are free, easy to make, and easy to pot up and transplant to the garden.
We like to make paper pots out of grocery bags or black and white news print.
Today I’ll be using grocery bags.
You could buy a paper pot making tool, but we prefer to use common household items like these cans to help form our pots.
This 6 oz tomato paste can is the perfect size for making paper pots for starting seeds.
To make a pot, I first cut a grocery bag along one of its folds.
I then cut out the bottom.
When making pots with the 6oz can, I cut the remaining paper in half as shown here.
I center the 6 oz can on a piece of the paper, leaving roughly an inch and a half of paper on the top and bottom of the can.
I then form the pot, by holding the paper sung to the can and rolling the can.
When the paper overlaps by a couple inches, I cut off the remaining paper
and fold the paper to form the bottom of the pot as shown here.
I then remove the can
and crimp the paper on the top of the pot.
Making several folds will ensure the pot holds its shape when filled with potting soil.
I fill the pots with my favorite potting mix, which consists of 50% coconut coir, 25% organic potting soil, and 25% worm castings.
The castings also contain some red wigglers and their cocoons.
Today I’m planting kale, spinach, mizuna, and tatsoi,
which are all cold hardy plants that should do well in my hoop houses and cold frames late in the fall and into the winter.
I usually water on top until seedlings emerge,
at which point I start bottom watering.
The paper pots do a great job of drawing up the water from the bottom of the tray.
Though I probably won’t have to pot up any of these plants before transplanting,
if I did, I would just make larger paper pots using a bigger can, like this 28 oz. can.
I’d partially fill them with potting mix,
place the smaller pot inside,
and then top off the pots with soil.
Weeks from now, when the plants are ready to be transplanted into the garden, I’ll transplant them, pots and all.
By that time the pots should be partially decomposed.
In my case, there are usually red wigglers in the potting soil, and they do a pretty good job of eating through the paper pots,
which will ensure the plant roots can easily expand after the plants are transplanted.
If the bottoms are still intact, however, I’ll loosen up the paper on the bottom to ensure the roots have room to grow.
Once in the soil, the pots should decompose quickly, adding worm food and carbon to the soil.
One final advantage to the paper pots is that I’ve found I can easily start some plants indoors that don’t usually transplant well.
For example, most sources recommend not starting carrots indoors.
Using the paper pots, however, I can start carrots indoors and transplant them, pots and all, into the garden without disturbing their roots.
When doing this, it’s important that the pots are partially decomposed before transplanting,
so the carrots and roots are able to grow freely.
So, paper pots are not only free and easy to make,
they’re also easy to pot up and transplant.
And they enable us to start carrots indoors.
Well, that's all for now.
Thank you very much for watching,
and until next time remember
you can change the world one yard at a time.