The use of special cups for seedlings makes it easy to sort young plants as they develop and not damage their delicate ones during transplantation. Every summer resident would like to reduce the cost of this first stage of growing vegetables as much as possible. The article will tell you how to make practically free individual containers for seedlings from materials such as film, laminate backing and even newspaper. And so that the process of creating cups with your own hands becomes absolutely clear, photos and videos are attached to the article.
The first home for seedlings - what should it be like?
The use of the seedling method is due to the climate in the temperate zone. When the February snowstorms are still howling through the city streets, the seedlings of future garden residents are already touchingly green on the window. They will have to survive a long journey to the dacha and transplantation into the ground without breaking their fragile stems and keeping the root system intact. This is exactly why seedling cups were invented.
Cups for seedlings can be purchased ready-made or made by yourself
The right glass must meet basic requirements:
- “excellently” protect the roots of seedlings during their growth and during transplantation;
- it is easy to release the earthen lump when it needs to be removed;
- do not fall apart in your hands when moving;
- ideally decompose, turning into humus;
- do not burden the vegetable grower’s budget, which is already spent on seed material, covering film and plant protection products.
It is this last property - the low cost of homemade cups - that makes them so attractive to lovers of greenhouses and garden beds. They can be made from any waste materials: film scraps, waste paper deposits, laminate backing.
Important! When working with transparent materials you need to think about how to block the roots from light so that the plants do not lag behind in growth.
What to prepare for work
To create cups for seedlings with your own hands, we will need very simple materials and tools:
- The shape around which we will wrap the cup. This could be a can of stewed meat, a wooden or metal block of suitable diameter, or a glass glass from a set of dishes. Very convenient to prepare plastic bottle: it needs to be cut to the height of the future cup, and two holes should be punched in the bottom through which a rope loop should be passed. By hooking this loop, you can effortlessly remove the mold from the finished product.
- Stapler or tape for securing seams and bottoms.
- Scissors.
A blank for a cup can be made from a plastic bottle
A glass of pieces of greenhouse film: two minutes and you’re done
Since special beauty and smooth contours are not required here, the film can be cut “by eye”. It can be folded in half to increase rigidity. Each piece should be of such a size as to wrap a block or jar with extra space and form the bottom.
The easiest option is to make cups for seedlings from greenhouse film
Having cut the required number of pieces, we wrap the blanks around the mold and use a stapler to make a strong seam in the overlap area.
We fold the film extending beyond the mold into an “envelope” and also secure it with brackets. Since the edges of the film do not meet tightly, there is no need to make additional holes to drain excess water.
Advice: containers for seedlings of increased strength are obtained if the film is not cleaved with a stapler, but sealed with an electric soldering iron. These cups can be used more than once.
Cups made from laminate backing: strong and stable
The backing for the laminate is the same polyethylene, only foamed. Therefore, the method of making cups from it is the same: wrap it around a mold, staple the seam, form a bottom and secure it. The laminate backing is also used for growing.
Seedling cups made from laminate backing - stable and strong
If the piece of backing is large enough, you can roll it all up into a cylinder and fasten it along its entire length. Cut the resulting tube into equal pieces and then work on the bottoms.
A cup from a newspaper: minimum costs, maximum environmental friendliness
Using free newspapers pulled from your mailbox is a way to make a battery of cups without spending a dime.
Option 1. We wrap a piece of newspaper folded in half around the mold so that there is extra paper on both sides. Fold the bottom and seal it with tape. We take out the mold and bend the top edge of the newspaper inward to strengthen the walls.
Cups for seedlings made from newspaper - an economical option
Option 2. You will need a special form, but the process itself will go much faster and the issue will be resolved at the same time quick filling paper cup with soil mixture.
- Preparing the form. To do this, take a block or cylinder and wrap a strip of tin around it, which can be cut, for example, from a large tin can. We seal it. The block should move easily, but with minimal clearance, inside the metal mold.
- We insert the block into the mold about 1 cm and fill the resulting container with pre-prepared soil. Press down with your fingers or a spoon.
- We wrap a piece of newspaper folded in half around the mold and fold the bottom. Holding it firmly with one hand, we compact the soil (you can also use it) into the mold using a block.
- We take out the block. We are left with a flat glass already filled with soil in our hands.
Important! Since the paper cup will quickly and completely decompose in the soil, the seedlings do not need to be removed from it when planting. Such care will be appreciated by cucumbers and eggplants, which react extremely painfully to injury to the root system.
The homeliness and thrift of a person working on his land has no boundaries. Cups for young and future tight heads of cabbage, so necessary in the early spring, can be made from literally anything, including even bushings from. This old peasant principle - everything to the house, everything to the business - works to this day, significantly saving money on the care of the household plot.
Do-it-yourself cups for seedlings - photo
DIY box for seedlings
Work with seedlings is in full swing, and it’s time to talk about containers for them. It’s amazing how many simple, easy, fast – and most importantly, effective – ways to make seedling containers are offered by readers. Read and choose, friends!
For more than 10 years I have been using plastic glasses from mineral water, drinks or beer to grow seedlings. I take a plastic bottle (for example, 1.5 l), cut off the upper and lower parts with a sharp knife (Fig. 1). The cut out part of the bottle should be smooth, without protrusions or ring-shaped recesses.
I place this workpiece on the table, squeeze it along the diameter, and along the edges with pressure I draw the knife handle several times along the entire length to get a clear line on both sides of the workpiece (Fig. 2). I align the clear lines of the workpiece against each other along the entire length and again draw the knife handle along the entire length of the workpiece several times (Fig. 3). The result is a square glass (Fig. 4) approximately 7x7 cm from the long, flat part of the bottle.
Then I place the glasses close together in a rectangular box with dimensions that are multiples of 7 cm (Fig. 5). Since square glasses have sufficient rigidity, the height of the sides of the box can be made half the length of the glass.
When growing tomato seedlings, I plant the sprout at the very bottom, and as it grows, I add soil on top, and the resulting seedlings have a powerful root system.
You can water both from above and to the bottom of a waterproof box lined with cellophane film. After use, I store the washed glasses flattened, inserting several of them into the same flattened blanks from 2-liter bottles. In this form they do not take up much space.
DIY universal tray for seedlings
I would like to suggest the following: take a tray of any size or make it yourself from glass, plastic or other material. We place a stencil on it measuring 4x4 cm or 5x5 cm and a height of 4-5 cm or 6 cm. The material is one that is convenient to saw.
I personally made it from plastic: length 42 cm, width 27 cm. I sawed it exactly in half - 5 cm. The longitudinal plates can be of any size, multiples of 5 cm, and at the ends + 1.5-2 cm for a bunch of cells. This tray holds 21 (7×3) cells measuring 5×5 cm. I fill the cells with soil that was prepared in the fall (a little more than half) and sow the seeds. As the seedlings grow, I add soil. When the time comes, I plant in greenhouses, and from there into open ground.
I remove the seedlings from the cells by removing one of the plates - for example, the transverse one. For this I made a device: an aluminum pipe 0 mm or 120 mm. The bottom part is like teeth crosscut saw, slightly bent inward to hold the ground, and on top - wooden handle. The cut in the upper part of the pipe was bent into an “G” shape. A handle is attached to them. Three or four turns - the earth is inside, take it out - and the hole is ready. We plant together - we are pensioners with experience.
Pour 1.5-2 liters of water into the hole, about 1/2 tsp. nitrogen fertilizer, ash. Mix the soil and plant the seedlings, slightly compacting the soil. After that we don’t look back for a long time. Next comes weeding, watering, etc. We always have a harvest, but we moved here from the Murmansk region.
From personal experience
I do planting with early age. Peppers and eggplants do not like transplanting. Therefore, I plant them in cups, sow them in mid-April, lightly soak them, and as soon as they hatch, I plant them in cups in a slightly deepened hole. I fill the soil up to halfway so that I can top it up later. I water the hole, and then I put the seed and cover it with soil.
And I sow tomatoes in any container. When the first leaves appear (not cotyledons!), I replant them into what I have. Tomato roots can be pinched, but peppers and eggplants cannot. And one more thing: raspberries are not a hindrance to an apple tree, I have raspberries growing under an apple tree, they are friends. But strawberries and raspberries are not neighbors. They have the same disease. Weevil loves both.
Sewing according to a pattern
“Quick” cups for seedlings
Then I take newspaper paper, fold it carefully in several layers and make a circle on it slightly larger than the bottom of the cup. I immediately cut out a batch of circles and notches (see figure). Holding the glass in my left hand, I insert two paper circles inside the glass, holding its half-cut bottom. Then I fill it with soil and put it in plastic boxes and water it. The soil does not spill out of the cup, because the bottom is made of newspaper in two layers.
I plant one seed at a time. When transplanting seedlings into open ground, I water the cup well. I move the bottom to the side (it is attached to the glass by 2 cm), using a wooden masher I gently push the half-rotted paper circle up - the seedlings easily come out of the glass with a lump of earth. Now I lower it into the previously prepared holes.
This is how I plant tomatoes without diving. Having planted tomato seedlings, I put the cups in a large box, and at the first opportunity I wash them with a brush in a solution of potassium permanganate. I dry it in the sun and put it away until next season. Individual seedlings are easier to transport and plant.
For cucumbers I take 500 ml cups. The technology for processing the bottom is the same as for tomatoes. But when transplanting cucumber seedlings into the ground, I bend the bottom to the side and place the seedlings in a glass in the hole, and press the bottom, pushed to the side, with earth. And I place the cups so that when watering the water does not touch the stem of the plant. Cucumbers do not like transplants. In the fall, I dig the cups out of the ground, wash them and store them until the next season.
Microchamber for seedlings
I tried many ways to grow tomato and pepper seedlings. IN Lately I use cake box lids. I take two lids: one is smaller, the other is larger. I make holes in one of them to drain excess water. I fill 1/2 of the volume with pre-prepared soil. I sow seeds in the furrows, and stick price tags on the walls with the name of the variety: each variety has its own color. I cover it with a larger lid on top - it turns out to be a microchamber with light walls.
I put these double lids in the third one, bigger size(so that water does not leak out). I install it on the battery, laying foam rubber to avoid overheating of the ground. As a result, you can always see how the seeds germinate, and if there is a threat of dampness due to condensation, then by tilting the cap I rid the seedlings of excess moisture. The temperature is always the same.
Top 7 cheap containers for seedlings
You can save on cups for seedlings if you use equally convenient containers at hand instead of store-bought ones...
As the new one approaches summer season gardeners are again beginning to think about what to use for seedling pots or how to make them with their own hands. There really are a lot of options for containers for temporarily growing a small plant, all you have to do is choose.
Options for containers for seedlings
It so happened that various containers that have already been used for food and other products are traditionally used as pots for seedlings. It is extremely rare that gardeners turn to the assortment of stores for these purposes simply due to the fact that the opening of the summer season already brings with it considerable expenses, so if you can save money, it is better to take advantage of this opportunity.
So, containers for seedlings can be:
- Tetra-pack boxes for dairy products, juices and other things.
Such a half-liter bag can be used as a pot for one plant, and if you put a two-liter box horizontally and cut it off side wall, then at least three plant roots will fit into it.
- Plastic cups for sour cream and ice cream.
They can be used without cutting. Small cups of fruit yoghurt and various curds are still too small for growing seedlings.
- Disposable cups, both small and “beer” ones.
Due to the different volume and low cost, plastic disposable tableware is chosen for seedlings, perhaps most often.
- Plastic bottles of any size.
Plastic bottles for carbonated drinks with a volume of up to two liters can be cut off by about a third of the height from the bottom. But the big ones plastic canisters It is more rational to cut containers of drinking water with a volume of 5 to 10 liters lengthwise and plant more seeds in them.
- Tin cans food products and beer.
When using such containers for growing seedlings, the most important thing is not to get hurt on the sharp ends of the wall.
- Shoe or similar boxes made of thick cardboard, lined with polyethylene on the inside.
You can not only plant the plants themselves in them, but also use them as a box or tray for several cups of seedlings.
Usually, from the wide variety of options, those containers that are on hand at the time of planting seeds for seedlings are selected.
How to make cups from scrap materials.
Of course, recycling food packaging brings more than just cost savings. The environmental component is no less important, when garbage is not just thrown away, but is put to excellent use.
But if a person does not eat, say, store-bought dairy products, the cups and boxes from which could become pots for seedlings, or he fails to save up over the winter required amount containers, that is, a simple way out is to make cups for seedlings with your own hands.
From paper (newspaper)
Paper cups are made according to the same principle: a cylinder or block is taken as a basis, which is wrapped with a strip of paper, preferably without traces of printing ink. Then the base is removed, and the resulting cup serves as a pot for seedlings.
This simple mechanism can be supplemented and improved with various small devices, for example, a loop at the bottom of a glass cut from a plastic bottle.
You need to fill the glass with soil for the future plant, and then wrap it with a strip of paper, and make a bag on top.
After this, turn the glass over onto your palm and pull it out by the loop. a plastic cup made of paper. The soil will remain in the paper cup and the plant seeds can be planted in it.
Thus, you can use a plastic or other base indefinitely and make as many cups as you need.
Paper cups are good because sometimes you can plant seedlings in the garden right in them without removing them. If this is not required, then they cannot be reused either, because while seedlings are growing in them from the soil and watering, they become unusable.
From film
The principle of making cups for seedlings from polyethylene film the same as those made from paper, if not simpler, and they can serve for more than one year.
For such a cup you will need a transparent film, which is used for greenhouses, as well as a stapler or paper clips. You need to make a cylinder from a strip of polyethylene, and from the bottom part - a bag, secure the walls with a stapler and use it as a container for seedlings.
Thus, if you were unable to accumulate the required number of boxes and cups for growing seedlings over the winter, you can always make them from paper or polyethylene using quite simple devices and without spending a lot of time.
DIY cups for seedlings (video)
In large quantities, quickly and with a minimum of effort? Which method is the most effective?
Do-it-yourself cups for seedlings: winter preparations
The easiest way is to collect half-liter and liter milk bags (kefir, curdled milk, yogurt, etc.). Thin will allow the seedlings to develop well for a long time (about two months). When transporting to the country house, the cups will not fall apart. They can be placed tightly on the windowsill; the container under them does not require a large height (unlike paper ones); frozen food containers are sufficient. Minimum effort: cut the top to the desired height, wash thoroughly detergent, dry. Before filling with soil, pierce several drainage holes with an awl or a hot nail (punch the nail through
You can make your own cups for seedlings by purchasing a package of plastic cups (sold at wholesale markets or packaging stores). 100 ml glasses are packed in 100 pieces. They cost a maximum of 100 rubles (you can buy cheaper). You need to make holes in them for drainage. If you use used cups, you must wash them. Otherwise, mold may appear.
Newspaper cups for seedlings: the most economical option
Our mailboxes are loaded with tons of free newspapers. They are easy to make cups from. You only need an empty one can and patience at first. The newspaper sheet should be folded in half, tucked on one side, then wrapped around the can.
Form the bottom by folding the sheet without edging and compact by pressing. Remove the jar.
The edging at the junction on one side needs to be unfolded, then the other side must be secured with it.
When making cups for seedlings from newspaper with your own hands, you need to remember the nuances:
- newspaper gets wet quite quickly, so watering should be moderate;
- containers in this case should be high enough (2/3 of the height of the cup) to keep their shape;
- You should try to place newspaper cups as tightly as possible; it is advisable to choose the optimal size container for them.
Seedlings in paper cups take root very easily: the roots are not damaged during transplantation, and the newspaper itself completely decomposes over the summer.
Cups from packaging bags
Packaging (from 700 to 1000 pieces) of packaging bags measuring 10 x 27 (maybe another usually costs no more than 100 rubles. By placing the bags filled with soil in cardboard box and placing them in a plastic container to collect moisture, suitable in size, you can get wonderful seedling cups. At the bottom of the bags you need to pierce (you can use an awl or a thick needle), taking several pieces at once. It is better to tuck the top edge of the bags - this way they are more stable.
Transplanting from such cups will require skill: they need to be carefully cut. In such bags it is advisable to grow seedlings with a large root system - tomatoes; you can germinate corms - begonias, lilies, daylilies.
Thin cardboard and thick covers
You can make your own cups for seedlings from old Whatman paper, pieces of unused wallpaper, or covers of glossy magazines. In this case, you will have to draw a drawing of the box in order to then fold the bottom, and secure one edge with either tape, glue, or a stapler. Then make holes for moisture to drain. The option is convenient in terms of choice optimal sizes(laying on containers), and then easy transportation. The roots of the plants make their way into the ground after planting, first into the holes in the bottom, then the cups soak and decompose without interfering with the plant.
You can use food waste, unnecessary plastic container and much more. This will not only save money, but also significantly reduce the amount of waste thrown away. Here are some options:
Orange peel
As a cup for seedlings, you can use the peel of an orange or lemon, grapefruit, or, in general, any citrus fruit. A hole should be made in the lower part of the peel half for drainage, and the peel itself should be filled with soil. The advantage of such a pot is that the plant can be planted in the soil with it.
Eggshell
Another environmentally friendly option that is well suited for growing small seedlings is eggshells. Just like citrus peels, they can be placed in the ground along with seedlings. For stability, pots made of eggshells place in a container.
Egg Tray
Another option for making seedling cups with your own hands is to use a plastic egg tray. It is necessary to make holes in its lower part for water drainage. Such a tray is thrown away after use rather than buried in the soil. It is not recommended to use cardboard trays, as they can get wet when watering.
Ice tray
An ice tray is used for small plants in the same way as an egg tray.
Plastic bottle
Let's consider several design options. The first is to simply cut half the bottle and fill it with soil. In the second case, the cap is not removed from the upper half of the cut bottle; a hole is made in it and a cord made of synthetic material is inserted.
Seedlings are planted in the half with a lid, and water is poured into the lower half, after which the upper part is inserted into the lower one. This way you get not just a cup for seedlings, but a whole automatic watering system.
Disposable plastic cup
A disposable plastic cup can easily be converted into a container for growing seedlings. To do this, you need to wash it thoroughly, if there was coffee or, for example, yogurt in it before, and then make a hole in the bottom for water drainage.
Coffee machine filter
A filter for a coffee machine, not surprisingly, can also become a nice glass for seedlings. By itself, it cannot boast of stability, so several of these filters need to be placed in a box or tray with high sides, so the filters with seedlings will support each other and will not fall.
Tea bags
Another option for planting plants with small root systems is to use tea bags. When planting seedlings in the ground, there is no need to remove the bag; it easily disintegrates in the soil.
Toilet paper or paper towel roll
The same scheme is used as with a cylinder made of newspaper or paper, the lower part is folded to form the bottom.
Newspaper or any old papers
Rolled newspaper or any old paper It will serve as a good glass for germinating seeds, but it decomposes in the soil in a couple of months at most.
Cardboard milk or juice cartons
Seedling cups can also be made from empty milk or juice cartons. Moreover, they can not only be used as is, but improved by first cutting the bag at all four corners and folding the sides of the bag half down. Then a regular “money” elastic band is put on the bag - it holds the wrapped walls well. And as the seedlings grow, the walls of the bag unfold to the height necessary for adding soil.
An easier way to use cardboard bags is to simply cut them in half, after which you can plant seedlings in them. The main thing is to wash them thoroughly before use.
If you don’t want to spend time making cups with your own hands, use traditional seedling cassettes or peat ones, which are convenient because each of their cells can be broken off and planted in the ground along with the seedlings grown in it.
Of course, you don’t have to use only the methods and materials described above; you can safely improvise and use any unnecessary containers and food waste if they are suitable for planting seedlings.
