Newspaper Pot Tutorial

Since today is earth day, I thought I'd post a tutorial on how to make newspaper pots. You can use these to start seeds in, or to transplant plants you've started from seeds, rather than buying plastic pots that need to be thrown out. These are biodegradable so you can just put the entire pot in the ground.

Cut newspaper into 7 inch squares. Use four sheets to make the pot durable.

Fold the square into thirds.



Open it and fold it into thirds in the other direction.



So now when you open it, you have nine creased squares.



Now fold it corner to corner, unfold it, and fold the other side corner to corner. Open it up.



Your creases should give you a bend in the paper that looks like this from the side.



Push that middle square in, and fold the corners over. Kind of like wrapping a gift. It sometimes takes a little finagling.




Staple it closed, do the other side and you have a pot for plants that is biodegradable. The Master Gardeners came over the other day and we made these. The third grade children in our town had an Earth Day festival yesterday and we planted 800 sedum plants with them.



I'm always trying to encourage everyone to just grow one edible item in their yard, or in a container. The difference in the way food tastes from your back yard, as opposed to traveling thousands of miles from some foreign country is amazing. Let's not get into all of the other benefits, so JUST DO IT.

OK - so being my anal self, I thought of an idea to make one of these pots out of material. To stiffen it, I just put clear contact paper on the back side of it. And to close it, instead of stapling it, I sewed buttons on it. Twere I more organized, I'd have used grommets, but who knows where they are right now. Certainly, not me. Anyway, if I were to do it again, I would have hemmed the square first, then made it out of material. But, you can use this for a plant pot too because it's got plastic contact paper inside it. Great for gift giving or Mother's Day. Or just use it to hold something on your desk. Go crazy, make a bunch of different sizes! They're cute!

But first, get outside, celebrate our beautiful earth!

Cindy