I have used toilet paper rolls!! I didn't care to much for them, they tended to dry out extremely fast. I even had them in a pan where I could water from the bottom.

I will be honest I gave up on the rolls and just tossed rolls dirt and seeds in one of my flower beds in hopes that it would grow like that.

Jodie,

Save yourself the $$ - get another pack of seeds or use it to pay for postage on trading seeds.

Take some newspaper and a glass jar 3 inches in diameter and at least 3 inches high. Roll 2 sheets around it a couple of times creating a 3 inch height and tuck in the bottom. You can tape with masking tape to keep in place. Slide it off the jar and voila!! you have a newspaper pot which did not cost you much of anything.

Fill your pots with soil and tuck into a bigger container which has drainage holes and solid sides. If you really tuck them in tight, then they are less likely to dry out. Sow your seeds after you wet the soil down (your soil might compact a bit so you may have to add a bit more before you sow the seeds).

You can also use a square container/shape to make your pots and in that way they tuck in nicely against each other.

When they are next to each other like that, they won't dry out so often. I've used this method a few times and like it. When transplanting, yes you can remove the bottom, but it is equally important to remove any exposed newspaper from the top of the soil as it will wick moisture away from the root area.

I have used peat pots and toilet paper rolls and newspapers are my choice by far.

* Posted by tiffy ... Wed, Jan 19, 11 at 12:46 ...

You can also use a square container/shape to make your pots and in that way they tuck in nicely against each other.

We were recently watching a 1929 Russian propaganda movie and some women in a factory were making square pots this way. I never cared for the round newspaper pots. We cannot find newspapers anymore.

Is it alright to keep that layer of paper above the soil? I made mine an inch too tall to keep cutworms at bay.

For cutworms, use collars made from plastic recyclable containers. Examples are small pop bottles, ice cream and yogurt containers, etc. Your 'collars' can be cut so you can remove them and reuse simply by overlapping the edges.

As I previously said, if you leave paper which is around the root ball of a plant above the soil, it will wick out moisture and dry out the root area.

I'll be honest.... call me lazy or just a VERY BUSY mom of 4 kids but making all those newspaper pots would not be my thing if I could get the same or similar results with the dixie cups. Especially if I pay a penny a piece for them at Aldi's!!!

I would want to sow poppies and maybe larkspur in them. Things that DON'T like to be transplanted!!

What else DOES NOT like to be transplanted that I could sow in them? Sunflowers?

As tiffy said, don't leave a speck of paper above soil line when planting paper pots or TP rolls.

I like TP rolls and paper pots because they are easier to deal with at planting time ... just plant the pot and move on, no need to spend time separating individual seedlings or hunks of seedlings.

I cut newspaper or paper towel to fit the bottom of a larger container (coffee can, vinegar jug, milk jug, large detergent jug) and really squish the pots in. If spaces remain, I sprinkle in a little potting soil. The paper pots/TP rolls don't dry out any faster than other containers if you really crowd them and fill the spaces with wet soil.

I don't put bottoms in my paper pots ... works for me ... and you're never faced with the dilemma of not having enough containers ...

You guys have me wanting to try the toilet paper rolls again.

A LOT of great advice on this thread!!!

I don't mean to hijack this thread but I am curious if anyone has tried it with magazines?? I have quite a few of old out dated seed magazines that I would love to put to good use.

ccarolyn- from what I have read, it's best to use black and white, not paper with color on them.

I have experimented with both paper pots made from cups and origami made one. They are fun to make, I'm not sure how I feel about how fast they dry out, I found I was watering my indoor seedlings two to three times a day. For things like peppers that like to dry out between waterings, they're great.

This spring when my seedlings get big enough, I might just transfer them into paper pots when I am ready to give them away.

I have *very* old phone books, that I used to make the origami pots. I used the black and white listings. They are a little time consuming to make, but strong. And, I found I could clip a bunch together with the tops of them.

Here's a cool link describing how to make the origami pots.

Here is a link that might be useful: Origami plant pots

countrycarolyn, you can turn those old seed magazines into cute, colorful seed envelopes. Go to the Conversations board and click on the thread, "Endless Supply of Seed Envelopes." pitimpinai shows how to make them and her directions are very clear. Also, she illustrates the steps.

Oh girl I found that post, but you know before I ever even found that post I had received some great sasbe's. Well in with those seeds were those packets made like that. So I took those packets apart thinking that is just awesome!!

Even making all kinds of seed packets for my trades and swaps and what not, I still have a stack of magazines. There is just noooo way I will ever go through them all at the rate I am going.

countrycarolyn, make bigger envelopes!!! I read on another post that you have red hair. So do I. When I was young, it was like copper (but not auburn). It has softened with age but is still red. Oh, dear, I'm getting off topic. If Donn were still posting, he'd call me on that.

LOL, well the older I get the darker mine gets. Except for this huge skunk effect on the left side. It is white!! Luckily I part my hair on the opposite side so unless I lift and show no one knows!! LOL

I would love my hair to be more red than auburn a lot of people always ask me. "Do you dye your hair??" LOL Like the freckles aren't enough of a sign!!

i like the idea of sowing individual things in toilet paper tubes. while i was recycling center dumpster diving, i found several cake holders, and i thought i could put pots in the tray and cover them. wonder if i could use the tp rolls to fill the space, then lash them around the side like a primitive drum so they wouldn't tip all over the place. maybe that would help them hold moisture too?

carolyn, you could call your local schools/day care programs-- they might want the magazines for crafts. or scouts maybe?

WS in anything paper doesn't work at all for me. Zero success! For tomatoes and peppers, I use the large plastic beer cups, punch holes in the bottom and sides near the bottom. I cover them with plastic wrap and tape.

For the tomatoes, I just put 1" of soil in the bottom of each cup. Once they germinate and get their true leaves, I fill up to the top two. I do this until the soil gets to the top. That way, I have a terrific root system for the tomatoes.

I have never tried the paper cups but I did do styrofoam cups last year for tomatos and peppers and tender annuals and they worked well for me..was very easy to plant out..Tomva

carmen_grower, when do you sow your tomatoes? should i be doing them now? sometimes i get tomato volunteers, sometimes i don't, so i wan't sure how to treat them.

I used to use the bathroom cups and they fall apart really easily (usually before I'm ready for them too) but dry out really easily too.

I just buy styrofoam cups and always have great results when transplanting out of them. Even with things like milkweed.

jodie74, I'd recommend making newspaper pots or using paper towel tube pots instead...last year I used both and they worked great for my morning glory seeds. By the time they were ready to plant out, the roots were almost growing out the bottom, so I think the bathroom cups might just be a bit too small to allow for root growth, unless you plan to plant our fairly quickly, or transplant into a larger container.

Also, most brands of paper coffee cups and bathroom cups these days have a thin plastic coating over the paper made of a chemical called polyethylene. Polyethylene is not biodegradable, and takes centuries to break down in the soil, which is why most paper coffee cups and bathroom cups are not recyclable.

You can tell if your paper bathroom cup is coated in polyethylene or not if the inside walls of the cup feel smoother and look more shiny than the outside walls of the cup.

People are working now to develop corn-based coatings for paper cups instead of the plastic/polyethylene, but the newer polyethylene-free cups are kind of expensive.

If you use paper towels, the tube is free! You can also use toilet paper tubes. I'm pretty sure both are un-coated paper and will biodegrade/break down safely in your garden soil.

Your results with any paper container will probably vary with your weather.

I tried some paper pots and TP rolls once. They were packed into milk jugs or other covered containers. In the wet weather of early spring they got moldy and nasty. Once weather warmed they were impossible to keep moist. I don't think any of them survived to plant out, but milk plain old jugs worked great at the same time.

Keep in mind, what someone in Canada calls warm spring weather is one thing, what I call a warm spring can be far different. I might get temps in the 80s, trying to keep a paper pot moist is way too much babysitting.

Karen

This is all such great info! THANK YOU!!!

I would ONLY be using these for the short term. Just to germinate things that DON'T like to be transplanted! Once they have germinated & have 2nd set of leaves I'd plant out asap!
Poppies, larkspur, morning glories, sunflowers

Would you recommend I just direct sow these things vs. winter sow them?

Those things can all be transplanted from milk jugs. I've done the poppies, larkspur and sunflowers, no problem.

That said, they can all be direct sown too. Larkspur and poppies are best direct sown in late summer, early fall. They germinate in fall and winter over in the garden bed. The seedlings have no trouble with winter temps.

Morning glories and sunflowers could be done in very late winter, early spring.

Karen

My little neighbor that has the most beautiful garden and the most beautiful poppies. Direct sows her poppies January/ February. She is actually the neighbor that I got the pink extremely frilly double poppies from. I direct sowed some in December and I will sow a few more this month, if I wanted longer bloom I would sow them in February also.

Poppies are so easy to direct sow and if they are winter-sown they must be planted out very small. Last year I direct sowed them in early March, and they sprouted so abundantly, that I had to thin them out twice. The California poppies also reseed every year very thickly, so I don't bother sowing them at all, they sow themselves!