I know that some of you use toilet rolls to germinate seeds in. When I started out I did too. I found them a bit stiff ant thickish so I began rolling up strips of newspaper to make little tubes. You can imagine that that was quite a bit of work. One day I discovered that Thompson and Morgan sold a little thing that made my paper rolling a lot quicker. I am going to do a little show-n-tell for you now. To begin with, the wooden device separated showing the two ends, a sort of male-female situation. The significance of the surfaces you will see later. You cut a strip of newspaper and roll it around the bit with a screw in the top. The extra bit of the paper extending over the bottom, you just fold in on itself like so: Then you press the long piece into the shallow part and turn it back and forth as you press the two pieces firmly against one another. Then when you remove the smaller piece you can see that the bottom of the tube is well sealed, as it were. The screw on top of the longer piece is to help you extract the wooden bit from the snug tube. It is more handy if you are making a deeper tube than what I am showing. We put that screw in there ourselves. Et voilà! —the finished product: Of course time has gone by and I became infatuated with root trainers and I only use them now. I just thought that some folks here might be interested to see yet another alternative choice in the world of germination. Rolling these tubes is indeed more fun than rolling yards, and much more useful.
I was very happy to see this post Sjoerd. My dear friend who used to run a market garden in the neighbouring property had one of these. Her husband made it for her, and I was fortuneate enough to be able to borrow it a couple of times. She moved about ten years ago, and still uses her paper pots at their new home in the city. She loves that roots grow through them and she can plant directly into the soil where they break down. I had just assumed that because her husband had made it for her, that it was one of a kind. Lovely to see that they can be purchased. I will have to do some hunting. Thank you
What a marvellous story, Mel. What a thrill that I decided to write about this alternative tube maker., and that it struck a note with you. It is also exciting that you already knew this bit of kit and have used one like it…and that you plan to look for one. How cool is that ! Good luck with finding one. Please post some pics if you have success. you are more than welcome for the posting. Mart—it truly is a handy thing.
Funny story Sjoerd....I tried finding one of these on line today. Hubby and I had a laugh after some brief confusion - I would not recommend searching for 'paper pot roller" on Amazon. Much better to search for "Paper Pot Maker" in Home and Garden. What I found can only be imported so I've asked my kids to keep an eye open in their part of the world. And my friend who has her homemade "Paper Pot Maker" will keep an ear to the ground as well.
Those are handy indeed! I think I saw them for sale in this country recently, but since I don't need one I didn't pay attention. @Melody Mc., sorry, but I chuckled at you Amazon search.
Chuckle. You know, Mel. If you look at the pic of that maker, I can see that if you had the measurements, and an acquaintance who had access to a lathe it would be a simple thing to make.
@Sjoerd, thanks for posting that. It looks very handy! One advantage I can think of, is paper pots would be sterile, no transfer of disease or insects to new plants. I've been using plastic six-packs but would really welcome something renewable & biodegradable. And, once the device is purchased, the rest is free! Ah, but seed starting season is a long time from now (thank goodness - I'm about ready to move on for this year). @Melody Mc. OK, I bit! Oh my! Well, it's legal here but not something I will grow or use. I'm not judging, it's just not for me. But LOL anyway
Daniel, I m glad that you found that plant pot maker a handy possibility. It is wat first attracted me. I had tried toilet rolls, but found them too thick for my purposes.
I have to peel the tp rolls off and get a "plug" - that's why I put a wee bit of tape on the "peel around" part. It would be very nice to be able to direct plant the pot It's not something that I would do with TP rolls. As it is I have to watch for mold.
Doesn’t that little bean look good. Do you ever plant your seedlings, roll and all? BTW— Those are fancy-looking gloves there. Great posting.
Thank you. I'm happy with my little beans, and so far there is enough green in the world that the fur fighters haven't feasted yet. Garden gloves are a standing christmas gift The bamboo ones are my favourite I think. I did try "roll and all" for part of a row once, and then peeled off for the rest of the row. The ones that I peeled off did much better - they developed faster and seemed bushier. With such a short growing season, anything to help them along even a week or two faster, or the opposite of a week or two slow down is significant. If the roots were coming out the sides and not just the bottom of the roll I would consider it. It's a little too heavy of paper for all in planting, for my use I think. And I tend to have a heavier soil. I experimented with coir pots, lined "red solo cups" and my take apart OJ cartons for corn this year. We will see how they fair. I'm taking notes. I buried the coir pots, and removed and planted everyone else. The roots were coming through the sides of the one thin coir pots, which was a good sign. The others coir pots were heavier and roots were only coming through the bottom, but they were working through the sides. The best root and easiest removal for me were the bagged red solo cups. I wouldn't normally buy coir pots, but they were a gift so I gave it a bash. The ability to plant the whole thing is what really appealed to me with the newspaper pots. You mentioned you folded your own prior to finding the wooden shaper?
Mel—Speaking of roots and seedlings: Do you know root-trainers? Take a look: https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/phase-two-of-the-broad-bean-planting.18759/#post-168811 https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/the-runners-are-in.14679/#post-135322 You really do employ lots of seeding containers to get your plantlets going. I have used some of them as well. There really are different ways to skin a cat. I admire your trials and investigations. Top work, meid.
