Clever die makes biodegradable seedling pots from newspaper

Energy & Sustainability Gardening

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

@seanragan

January 20th, 2010 16

The “PotMaker,” from Toronto herb gardening specialists Richter’s, is a two-part hardwood die that makes it easy to manufacture free biodegradable pots for starting seedlings. The pots are made from strips of newspaper and don’t have to be removed before planting. Anja Bartlett has posted a good phototutorial demonstrating its use; if you’re interested in buying one please consider getting it through her site!

16 thoughts on “Clever die makes biodegradable seedling pots from newspaper”

Beardy says:

January 21st, 2010 at 6:46 am

My Dad has been using paper pots for years but just uses a plastic pot as his mould.

His pot of choice is an old fish food container. It’s the same one he’s been using for donkey’s years because once he found the right size, he stuck with it.

For nine months of the year there’s an empty fish food container sat in his garage. Makes me smile when I see it.

[m]

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1. Matt says:
  
  January 21st, 2010 at 8:50 am
  
  Yeah, I have a piece of 2′ electrical conduit that I’ve hung on to for years because it’s the right size. It should be pretty easy to find something you already have around the house that will do the same thing for free.
  
  Reply
alandove says:

January 21st, 2010 at 11:42 am

I’ve done it by rolling the paper around a form like this, and have also made origami pots (see this video). Overall, I prefer the origami method. The pots seem to hold up a bit better, they can be made in multiple sizes, and it requires no equipment at all, just the paper.

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1. alandove says:
  
  January 21st, 2010 at 11:44 am
  
  Thanks for not trusting me to post an HTML link, Make. Here’s the video I meant to cite above:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBHYrv4-Gw
  
  Reply
mikeisbored says:

January 21st, 2010 at 4:55 pm

or bigger pots can be made with a wine bottle. pretty much the same process but no need for the base.

http://mike-is-bored.blogspot.com/2010/01/making-pot-from-newspaper-using-wine.html

I like these little ones better though. I wonder if you could use a pepper shaker or something like it to make little ones.

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Volkemon says:

January 21st, 2010 at 6:49 pm

@alandove – Dont feel alone. I have abandoned all hope of posting a link intact after getting the ‘message held for approval’ reply each time before it is never seen again.

I have also been trained to copy the body of my reply so when the ‘text was entered wrong’ message appears, and I go back to try again, I dont have to type it all again. (Heh. try #2 on this one…)

Blog security must be a harsh mistress ;)

Reply
1. mikeisbored says:
  
  January 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 am
  
  I wonder why that is. It is letting me post links and I only set up my account a couple days ago? I do know in general the comment form of blogs tends to get lots of spam.
  
  Reply
2. alandove says:
  
  January 22nd, 2010 at 8:50 am
  
  Oh, I can post links – I just can’t encode them properly so they link to text, i.e. no HTML tags. I certainly appreciate the need for vigilance against comment spammers, but the Make blog seems to take it much further than others. And yes, I also copy and paste the text before hitting “Submit,” for the same reason.
  
  Reply