Newspaper Seed Starters

Hey Hubsters, it’s the post you’ve all be waiting for from MHC’s celebrity volunteer, Holiday Mike.  Read on for laughs and to learn to make your own seed recycled seed starters.

Well golly be darned, you guys, it’s time to start your sweet little seeds! Smile, whisper something sweet to someone, and go here to find out what to start based on your geographic location: http://sproutrobot.com/.

Okay, so now that you know which seeds to start, go to your local Wal­Mart and senselessly spend money on seed starters you can easily make for free at home. May as well pick up some seeds for those super firm, brilliantly red, uniformly shaped, blemish­free, polygalacturonase lacking “Flavr Savr” tomatoes you will almost certainly over­fertilize this summer!

Well I’ll be golly gosh­darned if a wonderful person like you is going to do a silly little thing like that! So read this post instead: Seed Exchange, Farmers’ Market, and Other Cute Stuff (http://www.raginggardeners.com/seed­exchange­farmers­market/), then follow the below directions, which walk your cute little mind through the entire process of making your own sweet little newspaper seed starters.

Why to make your own Seed Starters out of newspaper:

1. Because you’re cute and wonderful, of course!

2. It’s free. Wonderful!

3. It’s easy, you little cutie!

4. You don’t need tape. Newspaper sticks together when it’s wet, and stays that way even when it dries.

5. Once your plants are established, you can plant them directly into the ground. The newspaper will encourage downward root growth in the initial stage of growing, then decompose, thereby providing your soil with much needed brown material.

Brown material is important for a spring garden. Here’s why: you’ve been composting all winter. When you add your compost to your spring garden, it’s wet, hot, full of nitrogen, and probably not completely done decomposing, since it was frozen for so long. Spring “compost” that isn’t quite yet compost and is actually still in the form of what’s left of that sensible whole wheat turkey wrap you had that night you drank a cup of tea and hit the hay early can burn the tender roots and stems of young plants, making them more susceptible to disease months later. The newspaper will protect them from those silly little cookies, while preventing nutrient loss during its slow decomposition phase. Those little net things you get from the local Wal­Mart don’t do any of that, so let’s just turn our backs on them like we do all of those rays of negativity we have stored deep down within ourselves that are just waiting for the day we unleash them on the world!!! Not today, you guys! Not today!

What you need:

Here’s my advice, and believe me when I tell you that you are just gorgeous: Get the stuff you need, then put on an awesome documentary. I recommend Food, Inc., but you’ve probably seen that one. Perhaps put on Fresh, or The Science of Sex Appeal,because they’re pretty great. Also, all three are evidence based, and not filled with a bunch of unverifiable, unfalsifiable silliness, silly!

This is all you need.

 1.     Newspaper

 2.     Scissors

 3.     A bowl of water

 4.     Some kind of tray that won’t leak. I’m using the plastic tray I bought from the local Wal­Mart a couple of years ago. If you don’t have one, you may have to buy this item, but at least you can use it for several years. I don’t know how to mold plastic, and I’m not creative enough right now to think about leak­proof alternatives to this plastic tray, because my simple brain is too busy thinking about ways to improve your day, my sweet garden friend!

 5.     Some kind of cylindrical object. This is your mold. I used a spice container. Use something without a lip at the bottom so it won’t destroy your fragile seed starters when you start sliding them off. Or use one with a lip at the bottom. I’ll think you’re wonderful either way!

How to make them:

1. Cut the newspaper into horizontal strips. Make a pile of 3­inch wide strips, and a pile of 1.5­inch wide strips. The 1.5­inch strips should be the width of the bottom of your cylindrical object. Mine was roughly 1.5 inches, yours might be different. It really doesn’t matter that much, but YOU certainly do!!!

2. Cut the 1.5­inch stips into lengths of about 4 inches. I pretty much cut the 1.5­inch strips vertically into thirds.

 

3. Put the newspaper strips in the bowl of water, but separate them first, because newspaper is hard to pull apart once it gets wet, and it’s pretty delicate. Sort of like a sweet little puppy, who just longs for your caressing touch to make it feel secure in your loving arms.

 

4. Start wrapping the cylindrical object with one 3­inch strip. Do it while thinking about clowns.

5. Drape one 1.5­inch strip over the bottom, and make it stick to the sides. Fold the corners down or whatever.

6. Put another 1.5­inch strip over the bottom again, but the other way to maximize coverage.

7. Wrap another 3­inch strip around the cylindrical object.

 

8. This is the only hard, and sometimes frustrating part, but remember to keep that hidden rage buried deep down in there! Grab the top of the cylindrical object with one hand (in my case it is the cap of the spice container) and the newspaper with the other hand. Start twisting and pulling the two in opposite directions. The newspaper will start sliding off of the cylindrical object. Sometimes you have an issue with the vacuum that is created between the bottom of the cylindrical object and the inside of the newspaper when you start pulling it apart. It’s so silly when that happens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sometimes, it ruins your seed starter. Other times, you can sort of gently put your fingers into the seed starter and mold it back into shape, cutie!

9. Make more, buds!

 

Tray of Seed Starters

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