How do you make peat pots?

Peat pots provide an environmentally friendly container for your plants. Make your own peat pots with finely milled peat, a large tub or bucket, perlite, a ruler, scissors, a shallow tray, a soup can or a similar small can, sterile compost and tape.

1. Mix the compost

   Combine the finely milled peat with equal amounts of perlite and sterile compost in the large tub or bucket. Add water until the peat-perlite-compost mixture becomes moist but not soggy or waterlogged.

2. Prepare the newspaper

   Cut non-glossy black-and-white newspaper pages into 6-inch-wide strips.

3. Prepare the cans

   Wrap one newspaper strip around the can, arranging the strip so that it overhangs the bottom by 2 inches. Fold the overhanging edge over the can's bottom to create the bottom of the newspaper pot. Tape the bottom in place. Then slip the can out of the newspaper pot. Fold the edges inward around the pot's rim, creating a smooth and more sturdy rim. Continue this process to make as many pots as you need.

4. Fill the pots

   Set the finished pots in a shallow tray. Fill each pot to its top with the compost mixture. Sow the seeds directly in the pots, planting about two seeds per pot.