Recycled Newspaper Origami Seed Starter Pot

As you may have noticed by yesterday's post I have a lot of planting to do!  Year's in the past I have just used the jiffy seed starting trays and while they do work well, I just don't like to buy them and I wish they were a little larger to let the roots get larger.  This year I started looking for a DIY version and stumbled upon etsy seller lovebybean's version and remembered a tutorial on Netflix Origami for a box.  If you have never been to Netflix Origami its a neat site to make things out of a Netflix wrapper, and it is actually where I first started to learn origami.  I took yesterday's newspaper out of the recycle bin at work and brought it home to make some seed starter pots of my own.

So you will need:

1. Newspaper
2. Hot Chocolate with Peppermint Marshmallows :) (Optional)

So working at my normal station of the coffee table trunk in the living room, I started by taking one page of the newspaper.

Fold the short site to the top to create a triange and then cut off the excess, leaving a square of newspaper. 

Follow the instructions on Netflix Origami for just the box, not the lid too (unless you want lids).  

The end result:  

Too bad I still have way too many to fold!  Once the seedlings are ready to be planted outside, just put the whole newspaper box in the ground and it will break down and leave nutrients in the soil for your flowers!  

Enjoy!

"Earth laughs in flower." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson - When to start your flowers inside!

Along with all the other things I enjoy doing, I love to garden as well, both flowers and vegetables.  Last year I started about half of my plants, including zinnias, snapdragons and roma tomatoes.  All of it turned out great and I felt so accomplished.  I also canned at least 35 quarts of homemade spaghetti sauce from my tomatoes which we are still enjoying now!  I grew several large pumpkins as well.  

large and small zinnias, lilies and glads

This year my hope is to start all my own flowers as well as again start all my tomato plants.  For flowers,  I plan to start pansy, begonia, snapdragon, dahlia, black-eyed susan, zinnia, cosmos, sunflowers and morning glories.  This may seem rather ambitious but I think I can do it.  Years in the past I haven't done any research on when to start plants but this year I changed that and now I have a plan in order.  According to the almanac, the last frost date for Northern NY can fall between May 1st - May 31st, so I set my tentative planting day as May 22nd and then did some research about how many weeks plants should be started before they are put in the ground and came up with the below planting schedule.  

Plant	Weeks	Start Date
Pansy	12-14	2/26
Begonia	12-14	2/26
Snapdragon	8-10	3/13
Dahlia	8-10	3/13
Black Eyed Susan	8-10	3/13
Snapdragon	8-10	3/13
Tomato	8-10	3/13
Zinnia	4-6	4/10
Cosmo	4-6	4/10
Morning Glory	4-6	4/10
Sunflower	3-4	4/24

Check back tomorrow for a recycled seed starter pot!