I have been saying for a while now that I am going to be a better steward of plastic once I'm finished with it's contents. Only until now am I actually following through with my claim. It's harder than it seems. Is there anything not packaged and sold in plastic these days? In keeping with my promise, I decided to not plant in plastic. I figured I would use peat cups like a lot of good seed lovers. Then in flipping through some DIY's at one of my favorite places, "Instructables" I found seed cups made from paper. Ooooo... that's PERFECT! There are a few things I did differently than Instructables did in making paper seed cups because my way worked better for me, but the concept and the end result is the same.
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Here's What You Need:
Newspaper
Bottle with a concave bottom (Yes! This is a good excuse to get some good wine tonight!)
Cording (optional)
Tape (optional)
Here's How to Do It:
I had a lot of sale papers, so I used them up first. I noticed they were somewhat narrower than regular newsprint, but it doesn't matter. Also, I started with two sheets like in the pic below, and by the time I finished making 52 cups, I realized my smaller cups actually folded at the bottom better using only one sheet. But either way works
Then fold from the right hand side in to meet the left fold.
Lastly, fold from the right side again toward middle to the distance that you want your cup to stand once finished. I wanted about 3-4" tall cups so I folded all the way in to meet my first fold. That's just how it worked out for my cup height. OH! Also I noticed I could also fold a really short fold under instead of over on the "top side" and create a little cuff around the top of the cup. It takes some of the height off the cup, but I thought it was cute.
Keeping the folded paper in front of you vertically, lay the bottle on the paper and start tightly rolling it up the paper so the paper ends up wrapped around the bottle like a sleeve.
Turn paper wrapped bottle bottoms up where you can see the concaved bottom. Make sure you have about as much excess paper pushed off the end of the bottle as you have concave. Starting where the paper roll ends, push the paper into the concave. Work your way all the way around the bottle with the same motion until the entire roll is pushed into the concave of the bottle.
So, there ya go. A paper seed planting cup. You have just committed your "Love the Earth and her creator" deed for the day, and had fun doing it. Now, go have more fun as you practice the importance of sustainability in organic gardening.
~PJ
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Everyone should have a philosophy to live by. Ours is:
"LIVE SELF SUFFICIENTLY, LOVE OTHERS PURPOSEFULLY, CARE DEEPLY FOR MOTHER EARTH AND HER CREATOR." ~PJ