{"id":10206,"date":"2015-04-02T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T01:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.theownerbuildernetwork.co\/2015\/04\/02\/paper-seedling-pots\/"},"modified":"2021-04-02T12:49:12","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T02:49:12","slug":"paper-seedling-pots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/2015\/04\/02\/paper-seedling-pots\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Make Biodegradable Newspaper Seedling Pots"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I dislike most\u00a0about growing plants – or rather what I find scary\u00a0– is transplanting seedlings. To me they are like newborn babies that you’d be afraid to carry for fear of breaking their soft bones or dropping them on the floor. Ooh!\u00a0If you feel the same way about these baby plants, you’re going to love this idea which offers a\u00a0better way of transplanting – making your own seedling cups with newspapers!<\/p>\n

So what’s the deal? Well, let me start by telling you a little something about newspapers. We know that a key ingredient to\u00a0growing healthy plants is by composting. Compost can include animal manure, sawdust, straw, food scraps and many more. Newspaper is also a good material.<\/p>\n

What’s great about newspapers is that many\u00a0of its printers now use soy ink. Yes, ink made from soybeans. Because of the rising prices of petroleum, the\u00a0Newspaper Association of America during the 1970’s decided to look for other materials to make ink with. \u00a0They discovered soybean oil to be a great alternative for a number of reasons.\u00a0They are more cost efficient and\u00a0printer-friendly than the petroleum-based ink. They produce brighter and more accurate colors as well.<\/p>\n

\"General
The general logo for vegetable oil ink and Soy Seal (Image Source: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a better material not only for the companies, but also for the environment. Soy ink has low levels of volatile organic compounds which means that air pollution is reduced because of its minimal toxic emissions. Papers with soy ink are also easier to recycle, more particularly during the de-inking process because they are easier to remove compared to regular ink.<\/p>\n

Though soy ink does not mean that it is edible nor 100% biodegradable (because they are still mixed with other ingredients required for producing ink), it is way better – safer – than\u00a0the petroleum-based. Which is why newspapers today make even better materials for planting.<\/p>\n

Making seedling pots out of them is a great idea! Aside from being a compost ingredient, it makes transplanting easier since you don’t have to dig up your plants anymore. No more fear of damaging their roots! Read on to know how. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"A
A sustainable and free seedling pot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What you need:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Newspaper (printed with soy ink)<\/li>\n
  • Ruler<\/li>\n
  • Pencil<\/li>\n
  • Cutter\/Scissors<\/li>\n
  • Stapler<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Steps:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    Cut four\u00a06-inch squares of newspaper.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    Fold the paper into thirds, both vertically and horizontally…<\/p>\n

    Continued page 2…<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    so that you have a\u00a0grid of nine squares.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    Flip the newspaper and fold all the corners.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    This will make it easier for you to do the next step.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    Fold the corners as shown in the picture.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    And staple them to one side of the box. Do the same to the opposite side.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    Press on the folds to make the box more definite in shape.<\/p>\n

    \"How<\/p>\n

    And you’re ready to put in your seeds or seedling!<\/p>\n

    NOTE:<\/strong> This is not exactly an arts and craft project, so don’t worry if the boxes are not perfect. As long as they can hold the soil for 3-4 weeks, then that should be fine.<\/p>\n

    Place your newspaper cups in a safe place where the seedlings can receive ample sunlight and air.<\/p>\n

    Once the\u00a0seedlings are ready for planting,\u00a0simply place\u00a0the entire\u00a0cup into the ground. This way, you get to transfer the seedling without disturbing its roots. Eventually, the newspaper will disintegrate without causing any harm to your plant. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What I dislike most\u00a0about growing plants – or rather what I find scary\u00a0– is transplanting seedlings. To me they are like newborn babies that you’d be afraid to carry for fear of breaking their soft bones or dropping them on the floor. Ooh!\u00a0If you feel the same way about these baby plants, you’re going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Learn how to make free, sustainable and safe planters for your seedlings!","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sma_last_campaign_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gardenening","category-recycled"],"modified_by":"Freddie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theownerbuildernetwork.co\/project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}