The use of special cups for seedlings makes it easy to sort young plants as they develop and not damage their tender tissue 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 show you how to make almost free individual seedling containers from materials such as film, laminate substrate, 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 dwelling for seedlings - what should it be?
The use of the seedling method is due to the peculiarities of the climate in the temperate zone. When the February blizzards are still howling through the streets of the city, shoots of future garden residents are already touchingly green on the window. They will have to survive a long journey to the country house and transplant into the ground without breaking their fragile stems and keeping the root system intact. That's what seedling cups are for.
Seedling cups can be purchased ready-made or do-it-yourself
The correct glass must meet the basic requirements:
- "excellent" to protect the roots of seedlings in the process of their growth and during transplantation;
- it is easy to release the earthen ball when it needs to be removed;
- do not fall apart in the hands when moving;
- ideally decompose, turning into humus;
- not to burden the vegetable grower's budget, already thrown on seed, covering film and plant protection products.
It is this last property - the cheapness of home-made 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 substrates.
Important! When working with transparent materials you need to think about how to close the roots from the light so that the plants do not lag behind in growth.
What to prepare for work
To create cups for seedlings with our own hands, we will need absolutely simple materials and tools:
- The shape around which we will wrap the cup. This can be a can of stew, a wooden or metal bar of a suitable diameter, a glass cup from a set of dishes. Very convenient to prepare plastic bottle: it must be cut to the height of the future cup, and two holes should be punched in the bottom through which to pass the rope loop. By catching this loop, you can effortlessly remove the mold from the finished product.
- Stapler or tape to secure the 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 even contours are not required here, the film can be cut "by eye". To increase rigidity, it can be folded in half. Each piece should be of such a size as to wrap a bar or jar with a margin and form a bottom.
The easiest option is to make seedling cups from greenhouse film
Having cut the required number of pieces, we wrap the workpieces around the form and, using a stapler, make a strong seam in the place of overlap.
We fold the film that goes beyond the form with an “envelope” and also fix it with brackets. Since the edges of the film do not converge tightly, additional holes for draining excess water do not need to be made.
Tip: a container for seedlings of increased strength is obtained if the film is not chopped off with a stapler, but sealed with an electric soldering iron. These cups can be used more than once.
Laminate lined cups: strong and stable
The substrate for the laminate is the same polyethylene, only foamed. Therefore, the method of making cups from it is the same: wrap around the mold, chop off the seam with a stapler, form the bottom and fix it. The substrate for the laminate is also used for growing.
Seedling cups made of laminate substrate - 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 identical pieces and then work on the bottoms.
Newspaper cup: minimum costs, maximum environmental friendliness
Using free newspapers pulled out of the mailbox is a way to wind up a battery of cups without spending a dime.
Option 1. We wrap a piece of newspaper folded in half around the form so that the paper is left with a margin on both sides. We fold the bottom and seal it with tape. We take out the form and bend the top edge of the newspaper inward to strengthen the walls.
Newspaper seedling cups - an economical option
Option 2. You will need a special form, but the process itself will go much faster and at the same time the issue will be resolved fast filling paper cup with potting mix.
- Preparing the form. To do this, we take a bar or cylinder and wrap a strip of tin around it, which can be cut, for example, from a large tin can. We solder. The bar should move easily, but with a minimum gap, inside the metal mold.
- We insert the bar into the mold by about 1 cm and fill the resulting container with pre-prepared soil. Press down with fingers or a spoon.
- We wrap a piece of newspaper folded in half around the form and fold the bottom. Holding it firmly with one hand, we tamp the soil (you can also use it) in the form with a bar.
- We take out the bar. We have in our hands an even cup already filled with soil.
Important! Since the paper cup quickly and without residue decomposes in the ground, seedlings can not 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 housekeeping and frugality of a person working on his land has no boundaries. Cups for young and future tight heads of cabbage that are so necessary in the early spring period can be made from literally anything, including even bushings from. This old peasant principle - everything in the house, everything in business - still works to this day, significantly saving money on caring for the household plot.
Do-it-yourself seedling cups - photo
Do-it-yourself box constructor for seedlings
Work with seedlings is in full swing, and it's time to talk about containers for her. 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 and annular recesses.
I put this workpiece on the table, squeeze it in diameter, and along the edges with pressure I draw several times with the knife handle along the entire length to get a clear line on both sides of the workpiece (Fig. 2). I combine the clear lines of the workpiece against each other along the entire length and again with the handle of the knife I draw several times along the workpiece along the entire length (Fig. 3). The result is a square glass (Fig. 4) approximately 7 cm x 7 cm from the long, flat part of the bottle.
Then I put the glasses close to each other 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 seedlings of tomatoes, I plant the sprout at the very bottom, as it grows, I pour the earth on top, while the seedlings are obtained with 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 in a flattened form, inserting several of them into the same flattened blanks from 2-liter bottles. In this form, they do not take up much space.
Do-it-yourself universal pallet for seedlings
I want to suggest the following: take a tray of any size or make your own from glass, plastic or other material. We put a stencil on it with dimensions of 4 × 4 cm or 5 × 5 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 half - 5 cm. Longitudinal plates can be of any size, multiples of 5 cm, and at the ends + 1.5-2 cm for a bunch of cells. On this tray, 21 (7 × 3) cells with dimensions of 5 × 5 cm are placed. I fill the cells with the ground prepared in the fall (a little more than half), and sow the seeds. As the seedlings grow, I pour the earth. I plant, when the time comes, in greenhouses, and from there - to open ground.
I take out the seedlings from the cells by removing one of the plates - for example, the transverse one. To do this, I made a fixture: an aluminum pipe 0 mm or 120 mm LLP. The lower part is like teeth cross saw, slightly bent inward to hold the ground, and on top - wooden handle. The cut in the upper part of the pipe was bent with the letter "G". A handle is attached to them. Three or four turns - the earth is inside, we 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. We mix the earth and plant seedlings, slightly compacting the earth. We don't look back for a long time after that. Then weeding, watering, etc. We always have a harvest, but we moved here from the Murmansk region.
From personal experience
I do landings with early age. Peppers and eggplants do not like transplanting. Therefore, I plant them in cups, sow them in mid-April, soak them slightly, as soon as they peck, plant them in cups in a slightly deepened hole. I fill the earth up to half, so that later it can be poured. I water the hole, and then I put the seed and cover it with earth.
And I sow tomatoes in any container. When the first leaves appear (not cotyledons!), I transplant into what I have. In tomatoes, you can pinch the tips of the roots, but not in peppers and eggplants. 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 on a pattern
"Quick" cups for seedlings
Then I take newsprint, fold it neatly in several layers and make a circle on it a little more than the bottom of the cup. I immediately cut out a batch of circles and notches (see fig.). Holding the glass in my left hand, I insert two paper circles inside the glass, holding its half-cut bottom. Then I pour the earth and put it in plastic boxes, water it. The earth does not spill out of the glass, because the bottom is made of newspaper in two layers.
I plant one seed. When transplanting seedlings into open ground, I water the glass well. I move the bottom to the side (it is attached to the glass by 2 cm), with a wooden pusher I gently push up the half-ripe paper circle - the seedlings easily come out of the glass with a clod of earth. Now I lower it into pre-prepared holes.
This is how I plant tomatoes without diving. Having planted seedlings of tomatoes, 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. Dry in the sun and clean until the next season. Piece seedlings are easier to transport and plant.
For cucumbers I take cups with a capacity of 500 ml. The bottom processing technology is the same as for tomatoes. But when transplanting seedlings of cucumbers into the ground, I bend the bottom to the side and put the seedlings in a glass in the hole, and press the bottom, pushed aside, with the ground. And I put the cups so that when watering, the water does not touch the stem of the plant. Cucumbers do not like transplants. In the autumn I dig cups out of the ground, wash them and store them until the next season.
Micro-chamber for seedlings
Experienced many ways to grow seedlings of tomatoes and peppers. IN Lately I use cake box lids. I take two covers: one is smaller, the other is larger. In one of them I make holes for draining excess water. I fall asleep with pre-prepared earth for 1/2 volume. I sow seeds in the grooves, and on the walls I stick price tags with the name of the variety: each variety has its own color. I cover it with a larger lid on top - it turns out a micro-chamber with light walls.
I put these double covers in the third, more bigger size(to keep water out). I install it on the battery, laying foam rubber to avoid overheating of the earth. As a result, you can always see how the seeds germinate, and if there is a threat of dampness due to condensate, then by tilting the cap, I save the seedlings from excess moisture. The temperature is always the same.
Top 7 cheap seedling containers
You can save on seedling cups if you use no less convenient improvised containers instead of purchased ones ...
With the approach of the new holiday season gardeners are again starting to think about what to use for seedling pots or how to make them with their own hands. There are really a lot of container options for the temporary cultivation of a small plant, you just have to choose.
Seed container options
It so happened that various containers that were already in use for food and other products are traditionally used as pots for seedlings. It is extremely rare for gardeners to turn to an assortment of stores for these purposes simply because the opening of the summer season already carries a lot of expenses, so if you can save money, then it is better to take advantage of this opportunity.
So, containers for seedlings can serve:
- Tetra-pack boxes for dairy products, juices and more.
Such a package with a volume of half a liter can be used as a pot for one plant, and if a two-liter box is placed horizontally and cut off side wall, then it will fit at least three roots of plants.
- Plastic glasses from sour cream, ice cream.
They can be used without cutting. Glasses from under fruit yogurt and various curds of a small volume are still too small for growing seedlings.
- Disposable cups, both small and "beer".
Due to the different volume and cheapness, plastic disposable tableware is chosen for seedlings, perhaps most often.
- Plastic bottles of any size.
Plastic bottles from carbonated drinks up to two liters can be cut off, stepping back about a third of the height from the bottom. And here are the big ones plastic cans from under drinking water with a volume of 5 to 10 liters, it is more rational to cut along and plant more seeds in them.
- Tin cans from under food products and beer.
Using such a container 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, sheathed on the inside with polyethylene.
In them, you can not only plant the plants themselves, but also use them as a box or tray for several cups with seedlings.
Usually, from the whole variety of options, those containers are selected that are at hand at the time of planting the seeds for seedlings.
How to make cups from improvised materials.
Of course, recycling food packaging brings more than just cost savings. No less important is the environmental component, when the garbage is not just thrown away, but it has an excellent use.
But if a person does not eat, say, store-bought dairy products, cups and boxes from under which could become pots for seedlings, or he fails to accumulate 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 bar is taken as the 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 earth for the future plant, and then wrap it with a strip of paper, and make a bag on top.
After that, turn the cup on the palm of your hand and pull the plastic cup out of the paper one by the loop. The earth will remain in the paper cup and it will be possible to plant the seeds of the plant 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 taking them out. If this is not required, then they cannot be reused either, because during the time that seedlings grow in them from the ground and watering, they become unusable.
Film
The principle of making cups for seedlings from polyethylene film the same as from paper, if not even simpler, and they can serve for more than one year.
For such a cup, you will need a transparent film that is used for greenhouses, as well as a stapler or paper clips. From a strip of polyethylene, you need to make a cylinder, and from the bottom - a bag, fix the walls with a stapler and use it as a container for seedlings.
Thus, if it was not possible to accumulate the required number of boxes and cups for growing seedlings during the winter, you can always make them out of paper or polyethylene using quite simple fixtures and without spending a lot of time.
Do-it-yourself seedling cups (video)
In large quantities, quickly and with a minimum of effort? What is the most efficient way?
Do-it-yourself seedling cups: blanks in winter
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, 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), there are enough containers from frozen foods. Minimum effort: cut the top to the desired height, wash thoroughly detergent, dry. Before filling with earth, pierce several holes for draining with an awl or a hot nail (pierce the nail through
DIY seedling cups can be made by buying a package of plastic cups (sold in wholesale markets or packaging stores). Glasses of 100 ml are packed in 100 pieces. They cost a maximum of 100 rubles (you can buy cheaper). You need to make holes in them for draining. If used cups are used, they must be washed. Otherwise, mold may appear.
Newspaper cups for seedlings: the most economical option
A huge number of free newspapers are loaded into our mailboxes. It's easy to make cups out of them. Need only empty can and patience at first. The newspaper sheet must be folded in half, folded on one side with a piping, then wrapped around the can.
Form the bottom by bending the sheet without edging, compact by pressing. Take out the bank.
The piping at the junction on one side must be unfolded, then the second side must be fixed with it.
When making cups for seedlings from a newspaper with your own hands, you need to remember the nuances:
- the newspaper gets wet quickly enough, so watering should be moderate;
- containers in this case should be high enough (2/3 of the height of the cup) to keep the shape;
- cups from the newspaper should be tried to be placed as densely 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, the newspaper itself completely decomposes over the summer.
Cups from packing bags
Packing (from 700 to 1000 pieces) of packaging bags measuring 10 x 27 (maybe another one usually costs no more than 100 rubles. By installing bags filled with soil in cardboard box and putting them in a plastic container to collect moisture, suitable in size, you can get wonderful seedling cups. At the bottom of the packages 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 packages - so they are more stable.
Transplanting from such cups will require skill: they must be carefully cut. In such packages, it is desirable to grow seedlings with a large root system - tomatoes, you can germinate corms - begonias, lilies, daylilies.
Thin cardboard and heavy covers
Do-it-yourself seedling cups can be made from old paper, pieces of unused wallpaper, covers of glossy magazines. In this case, you will have to draw a drawing of the box, then to fold the bottom, and fix one edge with either tape, or glue, or a stapler. Then make holes for drainage. The option is convenient in terms of choice optimal sizes(packing on containers) and then easy transportation. The roots of 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.
As seedling cups, you can use food waste, unnecessary plastic container and much more. This will not only save money, but also significantly reduce the amount of garbage thrown out. Here are some options:
The peel of an orange
As a cup for seedlings, you can use the peel from an orange or lemon, grapefruit, in general, any citrus. In the lower part of the half of the peel, a hole should be made 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 eco-friendly option that works well for growing small seedlings is eggshells. Just like citrus peel, it can be placed in the ground along with seedlings. For stability, pots made of eggshell put in a container.
egg tray
Another option for making cups for seedlings with your own hands is to use a plastic egg tray. In its lower part, it is necessary to make holes for the drainage of water. Such a tray is thrown away after use, and not buried in the soil. The use of cardboard trays is not recommended, as they can get wet when watering.
ice tray
The ice tray is used for small plants in the same way as the egg tray.
Plastic bottle
Consider several design options. The first is to simply cut off half of 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 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. Thus, you get not just a cup for seedlings, but a whole automatic watering system.
Disposable plastic cup
A disposable plastic cup can easily be turned into a container for growing seedlings. To do this, it must be thoroughly washed if before that it contained coffee or, for example, yogurt, and then make a hole in the lower part to drain the water.
Filter for coffee machine
A filter for a coffee machine, not surprisingly, can also become a good glass under seedlings. By itself, it cannot boast of stability, so several of these filters should be placed in a box or pallet with high sides, so the filters with seedlings will support each other and not fall.
tea bags
Another option for planting plants with a small root system is to use tea bags. When planting seedlings in the ground, the bag does not need to be removed, it easily disintegrates in the soil.
Toilet paper or paper towel roll
The same scheme is used as with a newspaper or paper cylinder, the lower part is bent so that the bottom is obtained.
Newspaper or any old papers
Rolled up newspaper or any old paper will serve as a good glass for germinating seeds, but in the soil this decomposes in a maximum of a couple of months.
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 pre-cutting the package at all four corners and wrapping the sides of the package halfway down. Then the usual "money" elastic band is put on the bag - it holds the wrapped walls well. And as the seedlings grow, the walls of the package 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 do not want to spend time making cups with your own hands, use traditional seedling or peat cassettes, 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 do not 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.
