Transplant Time

Transplanted 200 geranium seedlings today... whew!!! A good drink of water and I think they're off to a good start. The petunias are not growing quite as fast as I expected. They are germinated for the most part, but not setting their true leaves yet. Patience ... patience ... patience ...


geranium transplants in their recycled paper pots

Used Office Paper Makes Good Seed Starting Pot

We are in the process of making paper planting pots out of used office paper. So far, we've made about 300 pots. We experimented with several plans and came up with this one. Once you get the hang of it, the process goes pretty fast. We found several postings on youtube, but decided to do our own.

In case the video doesn't work, here are the directions:

Take 2 pieces of used office paper and fold them together length wise

On the open end, take two of the sheets and fold them up about 1". Turn over and repeat

Roll the folded paper on the edge of the table to make it easier to bend

Bring the ends together and tuck the 1 " folds into each other.

Staple the 1" fold on the outside - make sure you DO NOT CATCH the inside 1 " fold or it will be difficult to form the bottom.

Fold out the inside 1 " fold and place the cylinder over a plastic cup

Form the bottom of the pot by folding the 1" flap over the cup.

You can staple the top to help keep it together.

You now have a paper pot ready for use!!!

Fill the pot with your favorite seed starting medium and start growing.

We mix shredded cardboard with potting soil. Adding the cardboard reduces the amount of potting soil we need (reduce $$) and helps maintain critical soil moisture. We did performed several unscientific experiments to see if the cardboard had any ill effects on growing plants. No ill effects were noted. We decided to use about a 50-50 shredded cardboard to potting soil mixture.

Class Plant Project

For the past couple years my students grew wave petunias for sale as a money making project. This year they are also growing geraniums, double petunias, tomatoes and peppers.

Geraniums are just starting to peek through the soil.


Tiny petunia plant


Keeping the tiny plants watered and happy. A growlight on a track provides adequate light for the growing seedlings. Light is a germination requirement for petunias.


Started petunias and geranium seeds February 9th. They are just starting to germinate. The petunias need light for germination so the challenge is to keep the soil moist. A clear plastic cover does the trick and still allows light to get through. Right now, the seedlings look like tiny leaves perched on hairs. Amazing that in just another month they will actually look like plants and by mid summer, they will spread to a diameter of about 3-4 feet.