Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1   Report Post  
Old 20-02-2004, 04:32 AM
Salty Thumb
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

Snowed last week, but mostly melted now. With all the talk about spring
around the corner, I'm thinking about starting peppers in newspaper
pots. Any current advices? In particular, I've read that (corn?)
gluten is a inhibitor, so I use something like flour as glue, will that
be a problem? Or is there a good way to hold the pot together with just
the newspaper?

Here's an article that is pretty much representative of past advice:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=ne...lr=&ie=UTF-8&s
elm=2llnvi%24ftk%40hpbab.mentorg.com&rnum=1

-

A Guide to Making Newspaper seed pots!


If you want to make a few of them, then...
You Need:

A newspaper (perferably one that prints with soy ink)
A Pill Bottle (or something round about the diameter of a Silver
Dollar) A Roll of Masking Tape (optional)

Tear newspapers into strips about four inches wide
Roll newspaper strips around pill bottle, leaving about an inch
overhanging Fold overhanaging part down around the bottom of the pill
bottle. Tape toghether with a small piece of masking tape
Slide pill bottle out.
Repeat.


If you want to make a bazillion of them, then...

You Need:

A bunch of newspaper (perferably one that prints with soy ink)
A Pill Bottle (or something round about the diameter of a Silver
Dollar) A Couple of Rolls of Masking Tape (optional)
A Daytimer or other scheduler
A Group of Boy Scouts or other Youth Service Organization

October: Collect all the newspaper that you can from you neighbors and
friends.
Boy Scouts are particulary skilled at this.

November: Shred the paper in 4 inch strips starting November 1, and
working
right of through the Thanksgiving Holidays (for those in the U.S.A).

December: Start Making the seed pots at about a million per day through
Christmas (for those who celebrate it) intersperse your seed pot making
with doing other holiday decorations.

January: Fill the approximitly bazillion seed pots with seed potting mix
(see
another post for amounts and quantities) Order Seeds from Catalog or
if making for the following season, start watching the commodities
market)

NOTE: Here is where the Schedular comes in handy. For the month of
february there are several task that need to happen consecutively.

February: Plant seeds in seed potitng mix that is placed in the
bazillion
newspaper seed pots. Water well.
February 2nd: Clean up water that over flowed unto the floor from
watering
too many newspaper seed pots.
February 3rd: Seed pots dry out. Water again. (there is assumption that
you have some sort of handy method to water all bazillion seed pots
in a 24 our period.
March: Frist sign of seedlings, thin them out
March 17: St. Patricks Day, sit in seedling room around the green plants
(if
you celebrate)
April: Mold hits, seedlings die. Discard bazillion seed pots in
compost pile. May: Start cruising the K-Mart for seedlings
June: (Zone 8) Plant seedlings in garden, Cover using Plastic Milk Jugs
as
frost protectors. If you don't have plastic Milk Jugs, have Boy Scouts
collect them.

July: Mulch seedlings using the bazillion seed pot compost.
August: Harvest early fruting plants
September: Harvest everything else.
October: Collect all the newspaper that you can from your neighbors and
friends.
Make this an annual event.
November: Take newspaper to recycler get paid real money so you can buy
seedlings in the spring.



Here's to good gardening,

rick
  #2   Report Post  
Old 22-02-2004, 05:05 PM
Salty Thumb
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

Made some newspaper pots the other day. Decided to pass on cutting them in
strips worry about them falling apart, so i just made little origami pots
(yes 2nd grade art class does come in handy). They fall apart readily ...
until you stick soil in them. The soil pressure seals the folds together
so they seem to work pretty well. Just fold up the corners of a square of
newspaper to make walls and then fold the tops in. Mine are 2 ply.
They've been watered from the top and seem to be holding up fine, despite
the newspaper turning slightly yellow after being out 30 minutes. They
are in plastic try and are heavier from light watering ... wouldn't
surprise me if the bottom might fall out if I were to lift them out now.
  #3   Report Post  
Old 22-02-2004, 05:18 PM
Salty Thumb
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

Made some newspaper pots the other day. Decided to pass on cutting them in
strips worry about them falling apart, so i just made little origami pots
(yes 2nd grade art class does come in handy). They fall apart readily ...
until you stick soil in them. The soil pressure seals the folds together
so they seem to work pretty well. Just fold up the corners of a square of
newspaper to make walls and then fold the tops in. Mine are 2 ply.
They've been watered from the top and seem to be holding up fine, despite
the newspaper turning slightly yellow after being out 30 minutes. They
are in plastic try and are heavier from light watering ... wouldn't
surprise me if the bottom might fall out if I were to lift them out now.
  #4   Report Post  
Old 22-02-2004, 06:03 PM
Janice
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:45:51 GMT, Salty Thumb
wrote:

Made some newspaper pots the other day. Decided to pass on cutting them in
strips worry about them falling apart, so i just made little origami pots
(yes 2nd grade art class does come in handy). They fall apart readily ...
until you stick soil in them. The soil pressure seals the folds together
so they seem to work pretty well. Just fold up the corners of a square of
newspaper to make walls and then fold the tops in. Mine are 2 ply.
They've been watered from the top and seem to be holding up fine, despite
the newspaper turning slightly yellow after being out 30 minutes. They
are in plastic try and are heavier from light watering ... wouldn't
surprise me if the bottom might fall out if I were to lift them out now.


I did the strips and yup they'll fall apart if you try to move them
before they're to the stage when the roots have filled the ring of
paper, that's why you make them various sides from little finger or
ring finger diameter for something you want to move when it has a
leaf or two, and has a tiny seed to begin with, to say the toilet
paper roll size ring. You choose the container size to meet the size
of the ring.

The rings appear all too fragile, but when they're all filled, with
some soil between them, that single sheet of paper is *just* enough to
encourage those young roots to turn and grow within the ring. Once
they're full enough of roots, I just use a popsicle stick or old knife
of spoon to poke down the side of the plant's news paper ring and pop
it up and after one is out, I find that my index or index and middle
finger sufficient to gently slip under and lift the plants and yup the
rings do break open easily at that point but the roots hold the soil
together long enough to go into the next pot or ground. And we want
it to break at that point to disintegrate and not retard any further
growth of the plant.. the thicker paper will break down, but not as
readily.

When I first read about making those newspaper rings in the book.. I
think it was Grow Vegetables the Chinese Way, or Grow more vegetables
the Chines Way. It was a Sunset book or one like them, thin,
paperback book my dad bought, I was skeptical about something so
flimsy as a piece of wet newspaper being strong enough to start
seedlings in, but I tried it and it worked!

A friend of mine made the little pots too. I'm not that talented or
dexterous, and I don't have that much newspaper, so I just make rings
and fill 'em up with potting soil and wet 'em down and plant seeds in
'em and pluck 'em out as needed!

I imagine if you tear the origami types open on the side and bottoms,
when you plant, they'll work ok too!

Have fun! ;-)

Janice
  #5   Report Post  
Old 22-02-2004, 06:16 PM
Janice
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:45:51 GMT, Salty Thumb
wrote:

Made some newspaper pots the other day. Decided to pass on cutting them in
strips worry about them falling apart, so i just made little origami pots
(yes 2nd grade art class does come in handy). They fall apart readily ...
until you stick soil in them. The soil pressure seals the folds together
so they seem to work pretty well. Just fold up the corners of a square of
newspaper to make walls and then fold the tops in. Mine are 2 ply.
They've been watered from the top and seem to be holding up fine, despite
the newspaper turning slightly yellow after being out 30 minutes. They
are in plastic try and are heavier from light watering ... wouldn't
surprise me if the bottom might fall out if I were to lift them out now.


I did the strips and yup they'll fall apart if you try to move them
before they're to the stage when the roots have filled the ring of
paper, that's why you make them various sides from little finger or
ring finger diameter for something you want to move when it has a
leaf or two, and has a tiny seed to begin with, to say the toilet
paper roll size ring. You choose the container size to meet the size
of the ring.

The rings appear all too fragile, but when they're all filled, with
some soil between them, that single sheet of paper is *just* enough to
encourage those young roots to turn and grow within the ring. Once
they're full enough of roots, I just use a popsicle stick or old knife
of spoon to poke down the side of the plant's news paper ring and pop
it up and after one is out, I find that my index or index and middle
finger sufficient to gently slip under and lift the plants and yup the
rings do break open easily at that point but the roots hold the soil
together long enough to go into the next pot or ground. And we want
it to break at that point to disintegrate and not retard any further
growth of the plant.. the thicker paper will break down, but not as
readily.

When I first read about making those newspaper rings in the book.. I
think it was Grow Vegetables the Chinese Way, or Grow more vegetables
the Chines Way. It was a Sunset book or one like them, thin,
paperback book my dad bought, I was skeptical about something so
flimsy as a piece of wet newspaper being strong enough to start
seedlings in, but I tried it and it worked!

A friend of mine made the little pots too. I'm not that talented or
dexterous, and I don't have that much newspaper, so I just make rings
and fill 'em up with potting soil and wet 'em down and plant seeds in
'em and pluck 'em out as needed!

I imagine if you tear the origami types open on the side and bottoms,
when you plant, they'll work ok too!

Have fun! ;-)

Janice


  #6   Report Post  
Old 23-02-2004, 03:34 AM
Salty Thumb
 
Posts: n/a
Default recycling news - newspaper pots

Janice wrote in
:


I did the strips and yup they'll fall apart if you try to move them
before they're to the stage when the roots have filled the ring of
paper, that's why you make them various sides from little finger or
ring finger diameter for something you want to move when it has a
leaf or two, and has a tiny seed to begin with, to say the toilet
paper roll size ring. You choose the container size to meet the size
of the ring.

The rings appear all too fragile, but when they're all filled, with
some soil between them, that single sheet of paper is *just* enough to
encourage those young roots to turn and grow within the ring. Once
they're full enough of roots, I just use a popsicle stick or old knife
of spoon to poke down the side of the plant's news paper ring and pop
it up and after one is out, I find that my index or index and middle
finger sufficient to gently slip under and lift the plants and yup the
rings do break open easily at that point but the roots hold the soil
together long enough to go into the next pot or ground. And we want
it to break at that point to disintegrate and not retard any further
growth of the plant.. the thicker paper will break down, but not as
readily.

When I first read about making those newspaper rings in the book.. I
think it was Grow Vegetables the Chinese Way, or Grow more vegetables
the Chines Way. It was a Sunset book or one like them, thin,
paperback book my dad bought, I was skeptical about something so
flimsy as a piece of wet newspaper being strong enough to start
seedlings in, but I tried it and it worked!

A friend of mine made the little pots too. I'm not that talented or
dexterous, and I don't have that much newspaper, so I just make rings
and fill 'em up with potting soil and wet 'em down and plant seeds in
'em and pluck 'em out as needed!

I imagine if you tear the origami types open on the side and bottoms,
when you plant, they'll work ok too!

Have fun! ;-)

Janice


Hi Janice,

Thanks for the tips, I will have to try some your way. btw, you are
right about the newspaper strength. I picked up one of mine (wet since
yesterday) and it was no where near breaking. That's probably why rings
are good ... a built-in break where the roots can leak out after
planting.

Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules

Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Newspaper pots Rikki United Kingdom 10 16-05-2012 09:01 AM
newspaper starter pots faeychild Australia 1 14-10-2008 12:11 AM
newspaper pots agentelrond Gardening 4 02-06-2008 12:19 AM
compost and recycling gogo United Kingdom 28 09-06-2003 10:10 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 08:32 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 GardenBanter.co.uk.
The comments are property of their posters.
 

About Us

"It's about Gardening"

 

Copyright © 2017