Paper pots

Suzy, I have four in total. 3 girls and 1 boy. We had a big wedding for my oldest last June. I am thinking gosh 2 more! At least I have one son.

I am wanting to try mostly flowers and a few veggies. I have a new job so it is going to cut into my gardening time this Spring. I stay mostly on the daylily forum. I am into them heavily!
OK addicted!

Welcome Bluegrassmom to WS. There are a lot of newbies to this style of gardening. Suzy is right on about seed trading and swaps. With the seeds I received from Trudi's site, 1 seed swap and 1 free seeds offer, I have over 75 new seeds to WS. Very different and exciting selections that will grow my gardens to new horizons. It's like being enriched with a ton of gold when you were expecting a penny! Have fun learning and growing with the rest of us newbies, who knows perhaps you will start a revolution in your neck of the woods. I have a few neighbors eyeballing my milk jugs and am sure they are waiting for visual outcomes!

This message was edited Dec 14, 2006 1:50 PM

Thanks for the welcome. I know I have lots to learn but with seeds your investment is so small. I am ready to give it a try.

I love the paper pots, but I found they dried out rather quickly, for me. I know I can't wait to get started next month [it's too busy to even think about it now]. Then I'm like a little kid, running out in the mornings to see what's sprouting. I enjoyed keeping a database on my results and posting them on my website http://www.lakehousecreations.com/winter_sowing.htm . I also liked the variety of what I could grow as compared to what they offer at the nurseries. The other factor was the cost------1/4 of what I would pay if I bought all the plants at a nursery.

I use paper pots, but square ones are much easier than the round. They nest nicely side by side in any area, no wasted spaces between (they support each other perfectly!), and the directions are a cinch! Any sized paper can be used, depending on the size of the pot you want to end up with. They work absolutely fab for WSing!

http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/

That's good to hear, sewobsessed. I have a couple bags full of 'em. Up the thread you'll see that not everyone shares our ease in making them, though...LOL
Where is everybody, anyway? I thought this forum would be hopping this week!

Uh, you thought those directions were a cinch? LOL! My husband and I must work on our collective IQ because we couldn't figure them out!

So I have round pots...I figure I can always squish them together when they get wet & full of soil and make them square if the looking at the blank spaces between the rounds annoys me.

Bluegrass mom, did you ever send a SASBE for your seeds from wintersown.org? You koiw I'm going to hound you until you do it! LOL!

Suzy

I thought it would be hopping, too, Claypa! Where is everybody? I'm playing "follow the leader" on this wintersowing and I can't find any leaders telling me what they're doing! Maybe I should say I'm playing Simon Says or Kopykat, sincle that's probably closer.

Suzy

I hit them up twice, only got a few duplicates that I managed to trade off. I'm setting my sister up with wintersowing for Christmas, I'm pretty sure she'll like it.... a bunch of dirt and plastic and newspaper, etc.... what's not to love? LOL!

I'm getting my sister a Bissell SpotBot carpet cleaner -- it was either that or a BroomVac. Do I need to tell you we are nothing alike? LOL! I'd love to see her face if I gave her seeds, soil and milk jugs! I don't think she even likes flowers unless they have a florist paper/plastic around them!

Suzy

Some of us are just lurking - first time I've had 10 minutes to get on here between moving and everything ramping up at work in the last two weeks!! Plus my kids are coming to see me in just over a week - and I have to get my wintersowing stuff done too...LOL! Eeeek.

Thanks for staring the link on the paper pots Suzy. My neighbor gave me some bulb crates as a going away present when I moved (where was he with those things months ago when I was BUYING containers, the rat!) He's a landscaper so he gets them free with the bulbs. We're having him over for dinner and I'm gonna beg some more from him... :D

Anyway, good to see everyone's busy - I'm off for the next 6 days so I'm crafting and planting, planting and crafting - oh yeah, and unpacking and moving furniture too.

~Sunny

Suzy, this is my last day at work until after Christmas. It is on my to do list.

Trying to get ready for Christmas here. Just got home from work and checking in while I have a pop. Running out of time. WS will have to wait until after the holidays.

Besides, no matter what the calendar says, it hasn't seemed like winter yet. We've only had a few cold days. I had things start germinating in January last year and I'd prefer to avoid that.

Karen

Sorry to get here so late, but waaaaaaay up there, illoquin, you said you were going to plant 72 paperpots with 2 - 3 poppy seeds each? That's a heck of a lot of poppies. And I thought poppies were perennials (that hate me), you don't pull them up, you disguise their dying foliage with something else.

xxx, Carrie

Sunny, I LOVE those bulb crates! They have a million and one uses!

Karen, A few years ago -- 1999 or 2000? We had an El Nino winter -- we didn't have winter. ALL the cold weather was in Dec and in April. We had 3 days and nights in April that were killers -- down to 17 degrees, maybe 15. (I remember this because of the daffodils, just the years are blurring together.) I expect the exact same thing to happen this year according to the NOAA forecast which calls for a warmer than usual Jan-Feb and a normal March and then a normal April, possibly colder in some areas. This is for INDIANA, but I believe Cinty was in the same circle on the map and the words I read referred to "the Ohio Valley". What I'm trying to say is that I think I am going to be hit with a hard freeze in April. Keep in mind I am a nobody. I am not a weather forecaster. I am just trying to think ahead. *IF* what I am prediciting happens, how do we deal with the WS babies? Is it okay to put them on the garden way cart and roll them into the garage? If, so, I just ned to make sure I don't have too many and can make that happen.

Carrie, Yes, that's true on the perennial oriental poppies, but I was talking about annual poppies. The corn poppies and Flanders poppies and California poppies and the Shirley poppies. Oriental poppies hate me, too. Too much rain here for one thing.

Suzy

Illoquin: Yes, putting the babies into the garage is OK. Trudi says any unheated space is OK. I also threw a blanket over some when we got down to single digits. But I only did that with the germinated, more tender seedlings. If a container hasn't germinated the temp won't matter.

At the suggestion of a kind member on another forum I bought some sterilite containers and put the sprouts in there. I had lost some lupine sunrise to the freeze (sown too early.). It worked great and I think I'll do that this year. The attached photo was taken on the first day of spring, March 21. I think the temp got to single digits. I put the sprouted containers into the sterilites. The ones in the open half of a dog carrier had not sprouted yet. All were fine.

Karen

Time has absolutely gotten away, I was all excited about the paper pot construction instructions, but then I missed watching a few days and now it seems I will have to start all over. But I know this is the BEST thread for me right now.

Several people asked where everyone was - well "t'is the season" to be occupied with other things. I am so envious of all of you who have already started sowing. I will get serious as soon as the worst of the "season" is over, sometime next week. At least, I have been collecting coffee grounds for my lasagna bed and will need at least the same amount again, something like 30 gallons at least.

I finished baking cookies today, some spicy European ones, and DH made gingerbread men, so we are set for giving away and eating ourselves.

I wish you all a very, very nice Christmas and happy sowing after that!!!!!!

Clementine

I hear you, Clementine. I'm trying to get ready for Santa. The closest I've come to gardening is checking the forum for a few minutes, usually during morning coffee or inhaling a quick lunch at the 'puter. My son is due to arrive home from Seattle late tonight, air traffic dependent! I have lots of cooking to do, presents to wrap. Hopefully the next week it will settle down.

It has been too warm here, anyway. It has been in the 50's and 60's during the day. This week's prediction is highs in the 40's and lows in the 30's, closer to winter weather.

Karen

Karen, my tree is up and decorated!!! Today and tomorrow it will still be warm, right now it is 68 and we have the house open. Next week, however, it will get cooler here to, so I will get serious and make pots, decide what to sow, get horse manure if it dries out and read DG, which I love and gives me so much gardening inspiration (at least in my head).

All the best, have a nive visit with your son, I hope he makes it on time, C.

I'm sure I'm just writing to myself since DG is so quiet today but how about using yogurt containers for the seeds or else quart sized milk containers, cut in half? We use both as well as the typical plastic cells of 4, 6 and 8 units. Sterilize everything by dipping into bleach water and let dry. I love the idea of the paper cups since they'd be so easy for planting.

To retrieve the paper cups from your plastic barrel - can you use some quart sized berry baskets under them?

I have about 100 sing;e-serving yogurt containers for my WS. Also the single-serving pudding and applesauce containers. Just remember to poke a hole in the bottom for drainage.

Yes, we use a steel skewer and do a few at once (a few containers and a few holes).

I will be working on that all day tomorrow. The 3' of snow we had this week pretty much interrupted everything else.

I don't know if I'm missing something here... but what happens when you plant your seeds? They seem to sprout so fast...then they get leggy. Does anyone have any ideas on how to slow this down? In my area, planting seems to get going around Mothers Day..Where do you store them? What kind of light?
Thanks, Annette

in zone 5, 6500' altitude that is not a problem.

I'm a little confused about the paper pots...

I've briefly read through a couple of threads mentioning the pots, but I am not understanding if these are the what some people are using for original winter sowing containers, or for transplanting into later on?

My guess would be these are for transplanting after the plants are bigger, but the way I'm reading some of the posts I'm not sure.

Thanks!

I'm winter sowing for the first time. I'm using paper pots for plants I know are harder to separate/transplant, like poppies and columbines. Partly because I don't drink much milk, spring water, or soda, and I do get two newspapers. I have gotten addicted to diet cola though...

AnnetteG, those problems you mention sound more like what happens sowing seeds in ways other than winter sowing. Not sure though, but most of the pictures of winter sown seedlings I've seen look stout, not leggy, and being outdoors all winter slows their germination. These are just my impressions from what I've read at www.wintersown.org

Annette, They typically don't sprout until they're ready. If it's cold (as Greenjay said, but didn't spell out) they don't grow, they don't get leggy. Since they are outside, they get sun, assuming you put them in the sun. Legginess is not a problem, but I can't help but think I don't understand your question.

Jas, we use them as wintersowing containers for special plants that don't like (will not tolerate) root disturbance. The only ones I know about that I am personally sowing this year are poppies and sweet peas. There are many, many more plants that don't like root disturbance -- the kind you get in transplanting -- and they are listed in the very first message in this thread (above).

Some people handle it by setting out teeny tiny baby plants into the ground. Others may direct sow. I wanted to actually PLACE my poppies where I want them, so I wanted to so in a container that I can pop in the ground. My idea, though, may not work, so you might want to wait until the verdict is in on these! There is every possibility that I cannot get them out of their corral container or that the paper totally breaks apart and I am left with MORE root disturbance than less! So far, I am not loving them. I think they are going to fall apart and would only be good for Zinnias, but that is only an initital observation.

In a different forum, Geminii_sage told me to stuff paper into a 4" pot for sweet peas instead of the paper pots, so I tried that. I used 1 single sheet (a 1/2 a newspaper rip along the fold) ripped lengthwise in half and folded over. He said to be sure to poke some holes in the bottom because the paper wasn't draining as well as he had hoped. I have maybe 20-24 finished and filed with soil -- took a long time -- and I am going to put the Sweet Pea seeds in the tomorrow.

Suzy

Thanks!

Suzy, one of the reasons I'm using the 16 oz soda/water bottles is for the zinnias and poppies. I figure I can cut the bottom out with my hot knife and then just apply a little pressure from the top to pop them into their planting holes. If they are well rooted, they should hold together fairly good. I'm afraid you're going to have problems with the paper pots. Of course, my plan may not work either.

Beaker, I just figured it out today -- there is no way they'll hold up the way I've made them. I put barely damp potting soil in them and they are so limp I'm afraid to even use them. I'm afraid there is also no way I can extricate them from the bulb crates I wanted to use, either. As soon as I put the slightest amount of pressure on them, they are going to disintegrate.

The only thing I can figure out is zinnias and sunflowers -- plants that would be in them a short period of time. And a different thing to hold them than what I've planned -- maybe just a cardboard box cut down. The sides fallaway when they get wet one toomany times and that might be ideal for my purposes.

We don't drink water, sports drinks, or soda out of those bottles, so it's not as if I can easily collect those bottles at this late date.

I will use my paper pots somehow, I'm sure; just not how I planned to. For one thing, they are pretty sanitary -- not sterile, but good enough. Beats the heck out of washing pots (which is waaay too much like housework for this kid!)

I sowed all my penstemon & primulas today. In 1/2 gallon milk jugs. The seeds were so little, it's hard to believe I'll have blooming plants in 2 years.

I'd better edit my initial post to make sure people read it all the way to the end!

Suzy

Has anyone used the bottom half of paper qt. milk containers to plant directly in to the ground? I have 2 eggnog containers from Christmas.

In the "Lessons Learned for next year" sticky at the top of the forum someone mentioned using milk cartons. You could use plastic on top (with holes) and poke holes in the bottom, then tear it open in spring to plant the seedlings. I think the waxy coating would keep it from decaying. Maybe you could tear the bottom off first.

beaker ch, you may be right about having trouble with the paper pots. But I'm gonna have them in trays and baskets inside the plastic bags that blankets come in, and unzip or cut holes as necessary... and couch the whole shebang in mowed up leaves/almost compost. I'll make sure to put my 'most wanted' plants in 2 liters. Probably wind up with too many plants anyway... : )

Illoquin, you have point about washing all the jugs and bottles, but if you need some, any recycling place would have tons of 'em. The water jugs shouldn't be too sticky

bluegrassmom - the longer you keep the plants in the milk containers (non-plastic) the more they'll be on the verge of collapsing. Rinse them out well and use 5% or 10% bleach solution for a five minute soak before you start.

Suzy, how would duct tape do for holding the paper pots together?

Geeeez~ now I come over here and read about the paper pots! LOL! I planted some poppies and zinnias in the newspaper pots which are in gallon size ice cream containers. Oh well... if the pots disintegrate at least they'll still be in the container.

What about paper tissue rolls, wrapping paper rolls and paper towel rolls cut to desired size and a paper coffee filter wedged into place on the bottom, then load them all together in a plactic container for ease of handling and transport. Then when we transplant the poppies, etc. it would be easy to handle without disintegration issues. Coffee filters would hold up for months in the containers... just a thought. ;0)

I use coffee filters at the bottom of houseplants and all potted plants outside.

Toilet paper rolls do unroll (given the moisture) but maybe the coffee filter will help.

Well~ I'll experimented with them this morning. I folded the filter in half then rounded the half fold, then folded the cone's bottom up an inch. Fitted nicely into the tissue rolls. I'll see how it holds up for W/S and either report yeah or nay for the results.

I did not attempt to sterilize my containers last year. I just rinsed out the milk and didn't even use soap. A few which I got from other people were stinky and I gave them a quick rinse with bleach but that was all. Great results, no disease. I plan the same this year.

When plants self-sow they fall on the ground and survive. Think in terms of how mother nature does it. This doesn't have to be rocket science.

Karen

Correct but it can improve the odds in our favor. Professional nurseries always disinfect anything they use and even have a pan of bleach water, outside, to dip the soles of your shoes in before you enter.

"When plants self-sow they fall on the ground and survive. "

True enough. But the vast majority of viable seeds that are produced by self-sowing plants each year do NOT germinate and result in mature plants. If that were true, the surface of the earth would be covered several times over by snapdragons alone!

Things happen to seeds that fall on the ground in nature. Some are eaten by rodents or birds, some rot, some provide food for various fungi and bacteria. In order to tilt the odds in favor of germinating and growing out a large percentage of the seeds you sow you need to create conditions that do not exist in nature. Limiting the effect of fungi and bacteria is a good start.