Easy Cardboard Plant Pots

Anyone into gardening is often in need of pots or seedling trays to get their plants started. Maybe it's too cold outside or maybe it's raining all the time and you need to start plants on a covered porch or indoors.

Some people buy trays or small plastic pots, but transplanting out of a container often comes with some issues. Sometimes you damage the plant trying to get it out, sometimes it gets so compact it is like the plant is bound to the container, and some plants do not like their roots exposed and experience transplant shock.

You can also buy mini plant pots made from recycled cardboard but they are often flimsy and disintegrate after you water them a few times (and if you plant a lot of seeds, these get expensive). However, the nice thing about the biodegradable plant pots is that you can just put the whole thing in the ground instead of trying to remove the plant from the container.

I'm going to show you how to make some very durable biodegradable planter containers that are not only environmentally friendly, they are very sturdy and completely free. They can be made as small or as large as you like and you just put the whole thing in the ground without uprooting the plant and subjecting it to any shock. You can grow your seedlings larger and longer if you want without worrying about the container falling apart when it is time to place the plant in your garden.

Best of all, this method uses no glue, no tape, and no staples. Glue and tape can be toxic for your soil and staples might injure you when you dig around in your soil.

All you need to make these containers is plain brown cardboard, a pen or marker, and something to cut it with. I use a cheap dollar store box cutter, but scissors work too.

• Do not use waxed cardboard or leave any tape on the cardboard. Waxed cardboard (like the kind used for TV boxes with a shiny full-color printed product image on them) take longer to biodegrade and may contain toxic dyes.
• Plain brown boxes with simple color printing on them, like Amazon or other typical shipping boxes, almost exclusively use plant based dyes that are non-toxic.

In the photo above I am using a piece of cardboard that is 20 inches by 20 inches.

This is the template. There is no need to print it out unless you want to. All the squares are the exact same size. The planter I am making is a 4x4x4 inch cube, but you can make yours any size you want.

As you can see, I used a marker to draw a grid on my cardboard matching the template. Every square is 4 inches by 4 inches. I then cut off the excess pieces of cardboard with my box cutter to match the outline of the template. Don't toss those extra pieces just yet, you need one of those squares at the end.

On the diagram you will have noticed some red dashed lines and some black dashed lines. Where the red dashed lines are you will cut all the way through the cardboard. Where the black dashed lines are you with score the cardboard (cut along the dash without cutting completely through the cardboard). Scoring the cardboard makes it easy to fold.

This is the easiest origami you will ever do. We are not making paper swans here. We are making a super simple box.

• Lift up the right sides you cut completely through and then fold up the first side.
• Repeat with the opposite side.
• Lastly, tuck in the four outer flaps.

Your planter box should look like the photo above.

You don't need to fill it with soil for it to keep it from unfolding, it stays together on its own. So you can make several in advance and have a bunch ready to go for filling and planting.

Remember that extra leftover square? You can stuff that into the bottom for extra support on the bottom if you like. Depending on how thick the cardboard is you may or may not need it (usually not).

Any other extra cardboard you have can go into your compost bin or used as weed barrier/mulch/whatever.

You don't need drain holes for this type of planter because the cardboard will naturally let water out and absorb some.

Once buried in the ground the cardboard gets very soft and roots grow through it pretty easy, but you can always take a pencil or screwdriver and poke a few holes in the sides and bottom if your cardboard is thick or you want to make sure your plants can outgrow the box with ease.

Now go save some money and grow your own healthy veggies and herbs!