This genius, eco-friendly hack for making your own plastic-free plant pots is so easy – your garden is going to love it

Peek inside any gardener’s greenhouse or potting shed, and you'll see it. Possibly lurking, topsy turvy in the corner, trying not to bring the aesthetics down too much. Yes, I’m talking about the enormous stack of plastic plant pots that accumulates inevitably – and sometimes endlessly – next to the tools and the compost.

When it comes to creating an eco-friendly garden, I’ve really been making an effort to find plastic alternatives, making several key non-toxic gardening swaps – including chemical-free pest control and plastic-free tools. Plastic pots can, of course, be re-used time and again for planting seeds and potting up young plants, but when they break or are no longer needed they are sent to landfill and take more than 400 years to biodegrade. According to an article on Floral Daily, the US Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that nearly 350 million pounds of plastic containers are discarded by gardeners, garden centers, and garden contractors in the United States and of that only 3.9% are recycled.

Well, what if I told you that you don’t ever need to use a plastic plant pot in your yard again? And that you also don’t need to spend any money on the alternative? This DIY cardboard plant pots hack is a win-win for eco-friendly living, and now I’ve started, I’m never going back.

How to make DIY cardboard plant pots

This DIY hack recycles all your old cardboard boxes (every household has a glut) and turns them into biodegradable plant pots that you can use for sowing all your seeds.

I got this idea for DIY cardboard plant pots from the brilliant gardener and gardening author Simon Akeroyd, who is known for his advice on propagating and growing your own veg, and for his sustainable gardening tips.

Here, I’m going to take you through the simplest step-by-step you’ll ever read. Once you start doing this, I promise you’ll be hooked.

What you need

• Some squares of recycled cardboard
• A large container or plastic storage box
• A clean, recycled glass jar
• Some natural jute twine, available from Amazon

Steps for making DIY cardboard plant pots

• Cut some squares of cardboard; you can use your old Amazon boxes, food delivery boxes, anything as long as it doesn’t have plastic tape still on it. You could even try this with cereal boxes, just be mindful that thicker cardboard will make stronger pots.
• Saturate your cardboard in water by dunking it in a plastic tub (such as this one from Amazon, that I use in the garden all the time when I’m weeding). Alternatively, you could use a large plastic storage container.
• Once it’s all wet and pliable, take a clean glass container – a pasta sauce jar or a tall jam jar is ideal – and roll the damp cardboard around the jar, folding the edges over at the bottom to create a base.
• To give it a little bit of support, I then take a short length of natural, jute twine, and tie this around the cardboard to hold it in place.
• Leave it to dry out.
• Lift out the jar from the cardboard when it is completely dry.
• Add your potting soil and you can use these planters for all your seedlings. Once your seeds have germinated, you can plant the whole thing into the soil, and the cardboard will naturally biodegrade. No need for transplanting or messing around trying not to damage roots; it can all go into the ground.

There are lots of other ways you can reuse cardboard in the garden, from lining raised beds or using as a mulch, and even adding to the compost bin; and all for free. We have so many more ideas on ways to re-use items in the garden, such as old yard hoses – did you know you can make them into tool protectors and grips for bucket handles?