Eliminate Plastic from your Garden

I am no green thumb, alot of things that were once alive, failed to thrive and became spindly dry branches either on a windowsill or in my backyard container garden.

I blame it on the sun.  My townhouse is surrounded by huge cedar trees and I have no windows on the sides, just front and back, so the sun unfortunately rarely peaks through except in the height of summer when it shines straight down for about 3 hours a day.

This is not generally enough sunlight for most plants.  But I keep hoping...

Through my childhood, my Mother would begin to plant seeds in the cut off bottom of 1 quart milk cartons and place them along all the windowsills of the house.  Beefsteak tomato filled most of those spots but occassionally she would try out a few things.  One year she aquired from the local radio station a seed packet called Gloriosa Daisy.  They came up beautifully and since they were perennial were the bright feature all summer at the road end of our driveway.  Wild they are called Black-eyed Susan and became my Special flower...

So because of my Moms planning each spring we always had a beautiful HUGE garden that became a winter's worth of veggies processed and packed into the family freezer.

I was thinking about making seedling pots because I really would like to try to grow some BASIL (a sun loving herb) I will have to really study the sunny areas of my yard and Basil may require a container easy to move so the pot (s) can follow the sun daily.

Follows photos of my progress in making paper origami seedling pots.  I am not too sure how they will perform and being brown paper if they need to be removed if and when I have to remove the pot when the plant is transfered.

 Since this is my first attempt at this particular project, you will please excuse me if my explainations are not particularly clear, but if you want to "cut to the chase" there is an excellent video on You Tube that shows much more clearly how to fold these papers...

 So to make things visual. Mark the four corners of your piece of paper -- I actually cut brown paper -- I have access to practically unlimited sheets of this stuff .  Then fold it in half.  Oh yeah, you should use paper that is rectangle, so 8 x 10 , 6 x 8 etc.  not too small though -- I like the 6 x 8 size when it is finished... but for tomato or larger plants you probably should go with the 8 1/2 x 11 inch size of regular office paper (or use some of the advertising paper that comes in the mail everyday)

Then fold again so all the letters in the corners are all on one corner...

Now you unfold and sort of bring the middle up to create a triangle -- that makes no sense -- look at the picture or again, go to the You Tube Video...

Boy my hands are starting to get old looking!  I think it is the winter dryness...

Back to the task at hand.  Now your paper has a weird boat shape.

open the paper up and turn it so that you bring that center-fold upto make the same triangle except on the other side.

Now you are at the easy part -- those first couple of folds had me stymied for a while!

So take your folded paper triangle sorta shape and fold over one 'wing to the centre"  then fold it again like the photo below

 

Next you make those same two folds towards the centre crease so the B corner comes to the center

Turn over your project and do those same folds on C and D to the centre,  

now you are starting to make the thing look like an arrow.

 Then fold down the two flaps at the top of this project, these flaps really are necessary to hold the whole thing together.  This is why you use a rectangle and not a square.  A square would make the same shape but would not hold its shape when you open out this little container...

Now once you have the little flaps folded out, put your fingers inside the container and gently flatten the bottom...

There you have it seedling pots that cost you nothing -- everyone has some sort of scrap paper around the house -- though I would try not to use color printed magazine paper, who knows what is in those inks?  You could use newspaper but I don't think it would hold as well, and besides there are other tutorials for making newspaper seedling pots.

Here is the Link I kept promising, sometimes two versions of the same story, makes it easier to understand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gTyAmH1LAk&feature=related

A search of the internet produced a few options for paper pots...

another version - also on You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW4t_6dTAvA

I like the first origami version better -- the size is more adjustable and well, in the second the girls uses a GLASS to help form the shape -- being the safety freak I am, I can just picture that glass breaking and cutting through the hand that is holding -- Just for me, please replace that GLASS with a plastic one -- reducing the chance of injury...

Well, that was fun, hey?

Oh, PS.  I was thinking that if you actually try these out they will need some sort of tray to keep them in and so that the moisture doesn't rot your window sill.  You know those "clamshell" bakery containers that have muffins and donuts?  Try that out as the temporary tray to hold your plant pots -- just cut the top and bottom apart and you have two trays.  Oh Gee... Now I have to go out and get a dozen donuts!