GREEN & THRIFTY THURSDAY-Being Frugal AND Environmental TIP #2

Today is....
GREEN AND THRIFTY THURSDAY!

And that means it's time for another small tip on things you can do to save money AND help the environment. After all, being frugal is great but saving money & time is not so good, at the expense of our Planet!

This week's Tip is about newspaper.

We Couponer-istas love us some Sunday newspaper!

Heck, many of us love us 10 or 20 copies of the Sunday newspaper.

If you coupon, you KNOW what I mean.lolol

After we lovingly extract all those wonderful Coupon Inserts, & we read the actual comics/news/articles in the 1st copy of the paper, we are left with a big old pile of newspaper.
Hmmmm..
NOT very green to just dispose of it, even if we take it to the recycling bin.
Let's put the power of the newspaper to work for us.
But where & how, you say?

WHERE....In the garden!
Spring is here and many frugal folks turn to thoughts of gardening. What better way, if you have the outside space, to save money on food than to grow your own!

Sure you can buy plants in a few weeks and just transplant them into the ground, so why not start your own plants from seed Now?
Because it costs less for seeds than for seedlings ready to transplant, that's why.

Before you go off to the local Home Gardening Store and buy little plastic seedling pots(plastic=not green) to start your seeds in, use what you have at home to Make Seedling Pots for FREE!
That is where the leftover Newspaper comes in.

HOW.....Here's how I make them.

1. Get a muffin pan. If you don't have one, try using a styrofoam-y egg carton from the grocery store.
Get a large bowl. Put some water in it.

2. Get some newspaper & cut it into strips or small squares. I use squares about 5"x5".

3. Take your pieces of newspaper and wet them in the bowl of water.

4. Take wet newspape and line your muffin pan/egg carton with the paper, pressing it against the indentation. I use 3 thicknesses of newspaper per hole.
Do this for each muffin/egg hole.

5. After each indentation is filled, take the edges of the paper that extends over the top of the muffin hole and fold it down so that the newspaper edge is even with the muffin hole. If the newspaper edges have dried out and won't stick, wet your fingers to make the newspaper moist again and press these folded parts into the newspaper cup you have made. Doing this makes the pots look nicer but also make the edges sturdier when you start filling them with soil and wetting that soil.

6. Put muffin pan/egg carton in a sunny spot. If you don't have a sunny spot, put it in a warm spot in your house until thoroughly dry.

You now have 12 seedling pots!

Rinse & repeat until you have as many pots as you need.

These are so great because when your seedlings are ready for transplanting outside into your garden, you can plant them plant and pot. The newspaper pot will eventually decompose in the ground. No digging your seedlings out of their pots like those plastic ones they come in at the store. Less trauma to the plant when transplanting and less plastic in a landfill.
A win/win!

You can also use that pile of newspaper in your flower beds too. Instead of buying landscaping fabric for $8 a roll, use newspaper! Just lay it down to cover where you don't want weeds to grow, overlapping each sheet of paper. (I generally use 2 thickness of newspaper.) When done, soak the paper with a hose set of a gentle mist or spray. Cover the area with mulch. With any luck, you'll have no weeds to pull wherever you do this for the entire growing season!
If you still have leftover newspaper, try shredding it and using it in your compost pile. Newspaper qualifies as a 'brown' material for this purpose. To keep your compost in balance, make sure you have 'green' material to add to it too.

Any other ideas? Please leave them in the comments section below.

Sluggy