PotMakerr 1 PotMaker
No more trays and pots to buy, wash and store! This nifty mold turns strips of ordinary newspaper into biodegradable seed starting pots that you plant right into the garden. Hardwood form lasts for years. A real money saver.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Potmaker / B00062ZNXQ
This little potmaker makes wonderful little seedling starter pots for starting plants from seed. I bought this to start my herb garden, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. The potmaker is fairly large and extremely solid - solid wood all the way through, as far as I can tell. Take a sheet of newspaper, tear it in half or (at most) into thirds, wrap one end around the potmaker and roll the potmaker down the length of the newspaper strip. At the end, tuck the ends up slightly and jam the potmaker into the circular wooden base with a satisfying ‘thunk’. Fun and easy, and I’ll just bet that kids would LOVE this.
The resulting pot is about 4 inches tall (or more, depending on the width of the newspaper strip) and about 2 inches wide in diameter. Very sturdy, and you can even secure with a tiny strip of tape if you’re concerned. The pot holds quite a bit of soil and will easily nurture just about any seedling. I can’t rave enough about the efficiency of this product - it saves me money by not having to buy those little clay seedling pots (that break when my cats knock them over) and reuses the newspapers in my recycling bin in a safe and green way. The pot creation is easy and fun, and I had over 30 pots created in well under an hour.
5 Stars The Inventor of this deserves the Nobel
When I first heard of this product, I was skeptical at first that one could make a pot out of newspaper without any sort of adhesive to hold it together. I took some positive reviews from another website on faith, however, and was well rewarded. The pots hold their shape suprisingly well, especially once they get a little damp from the soil.
One word of advice: stick to the suggested dimensions for the strips of newsprint that you use. While one can always use more, the pots don’t form as well as if you stick to the dimensions on the instructions. Do so, and you will have an effectively unlimited supply of cheap, biodegradable pots for transplanting.
2 Stars Didn’t really work for me
Perhaps I’m a klutz or something, but I didn’t have much success with this gadget. Most of my pots didn’t turn out good enough to use and I found that even the ones that did were awkward to fill with soil and/or line up in the pan I was using for my water tray, since the bases weren’t completely flat on most. I certainly gave my project the old college try on multiple occasions, but in the end found the little peat pots much easier to use.
The form itself is sturdy, attractive and well made and seems like it would last for countless seasons. Apparently, others have had success, but folks should know that this device doesn’t work well for everyone. It seemed like a good idea and I worked hard to cut the needed newspaper strips to the correct size and all, but I wasn’t happy with my results and ended up giving the form away.
5 Stars Great
I used to help my mom make potmaker pots when I was a kid and this is the first product I asked for when I got a house of my own. I love this thing. Lately,I like to use fancy “scrapbooking” paper or stationery to make pots and then grow plants and flowers as gifts for people. They turn out really cute.
4 Stars Pot makers and kids
I first used this product in a class I was taking in propgation. We found it on a shelf, and took turns making pots to take home with us.
As a project for my work, we set up a table at a community event and decided we wnated to let the children who attended plant tree seeds to take home. (Ultimately we planted veggies and wildflowers, but I digress.) We ordered two pot makers as a less expensive and more envornmentally freindly option for plastic plant pots and safer for kids than the red ceramic pots.
They were a hit, easy to use. Though taking them off the potmaker without completely crushing the newly made pot takes a bit of proactice and can be difficult for young children. (Even if they do get crushed then can be popped back into place afterwards.)
Best of all, we have them for anytime we wnat to do something like this in the future.
I do have on critisism though: one of the pot makers came in terrific condition, the other had rough edges around where the brand name was stamped ino the wood. Nit-picky, but it wasn’t very attractive and could have scratched someone.
