How to Make Seed Starting Pots from Toilet Paper Rolls

We have less than a week before we sow our first seeds of broccoli, kale, and cabbage. I am so excited to be getting started with this year's gardening tasks. While the year is young and nature is still hibernating, it's easy to be full of optimism and forget the failures of last year's growing season.

Hubby Dear and I are using mostly recycled materials as pots to start our seeds in. This is quite perplexing to my mother-in-law. She really doesn't get our homesteading activities - she grew up on a farm and is very happy to live in boring suburbia today - but when she heard about what we were going to do, she actually tried to drag Hubby Dear to a home improvement store so that she could buy us some "real" (plastic) pots! No thank you, mom.

I saw a picture of toilet paper roll pots on Facebook somewhere. I wish I remember where so I could cite the source, but it seems to be a pretty common idea. This exercise in frugality is also a great way to recycle toilet paper rolls, which are something that we have in abundance. Here's how to do it.  

Hubby Dear makes a great hand model, doesn't he? ;) 

Take a toilet paper roll.

Flatten it out in one direction.

And then flatten it in the opposite direction.

This will give your toilet paper roll four corners.

While the toilet paper roll is flat, cut it in half. You can make two tiny pots of the size suitable for seed starting from one toilet paper roll. We also used paper towel rolls and were able to get 5 pots from one of those rolls.

Now make small (1/2") cuts on the corners that you created by flattening the tube in two directions. There are four corners, so make four cuts.

Here the tube has been cut and is now ready to be folded.

Start folding the flaps in to create the bottom of the tube.

If you tuck the flaps under just so, they will stay in place perfectly. It is just like how you can secure the top flaps of a cardboard box under each other.

The finished product

That's it! The finished pot is about the same size as the pots made from Jiffy Peat Pellets.  Once you get the hang of it, they come together very quickly.

We have about 64 of these little guys already made.

Eventually, the seedlings started in pots like these will grow too big for the container and will have to be transplanted. That's why we've saved our milk jugs, 2 liter bottles, etc. for the last month. No need to buy pots here!

We will plant our first seeds in less than a week, so I'll be able show these pots in action soon.

Month Ten in Review and Month Eleven Prepping Plan

I feel so accomplished. Hubby Dear and I really got a lot done around the homestead this month.

1. I upgraded my EDC. BTW, thanks for all the great comments and ideas. The stuff some of you all carry around is quite impressive. 
2. Our Food Storage Blitz Month was quite successful. It's such a nice feeling to know that we wouldn't have to go hungry during an emergency or job loss.  
3. We did a ton of work in the yard. Literally, we moved a ton of materials into our garden, a few bags at a time. First, Hubby Dear finished filling all 19 of our garden boxes with Mel's Mix. This was a major undertaking, especially since we had to drive 50 miles each way to get the materials and could only fit a certain amount in the ol' mini-van. I think we exceeding the load limit a few times.
   
   

   

   The boxes - filled with Mel's Mix and grids in place

We're also nearly done putting down pea gravel to cover the pathways between the boxes.
   
 



The grids are optional, but handy. The larger areas are where we're planting
 pumpkins. Radishes, lettuce, and peas are in the smaller boxes.


We planted radishes, peas (sugar snap and shelling), lettuce (both a romaine and leaf lettuce mix), cabbage, strawberries, and onions.



The Thinker's radish seedlings.

We also added a few more raspberry canes, doubling our raspberry patch in size.  We're still waiting on the organic seed potatoes we ordered to arrive. The delay is irksome enough that I think next year we'll buy our seed potatoes closer to home, even though they may not be organic.                                 
4. You might be asking what happened to the cloth pad project? Well, I got sidetracked with all the gardening work. And I got a huge stack of uber interesting books at the library. Then the NCAA basketball tournament started. (We are giant college basketball fans.) The result? I still have only two (partially completed, at that) cloth pads. I will get back and finish the project, eventually.   

What's in store for Month 11 of my Prepping Plan?

1. I want to add more cash to our BOBs/at home emergency stash.
2. We're going to craft our own water filter using food safe buckets and ceramic filter elements.
3. Using some of the suggestions from my Ask the Readers post, I'm going to stock-up on some more can openers.
4. I'm going to buy some garden seeds for long term storage.
5. We're going to continue building our food and oh-so-important toilet paper supplies.
6. We'll be very busy in the garden. Hopefully we'll have some lettuce to harvest.  
7. I have some preps of a unique nature that I'll discuss with y'all in an upcoming post. I've got to pick your brain again!