I'm never using toilet roll again!!!

Okay...maybe that statement needs clarifying! What I mean is: I'm never using toilet roll for planting seeds again ! There are SO many YouTubers who promote this method as being great/eco-friendly, and very few who point out that (presumably, 'sometimes') the toilet rolls can go mouldy...not so good for the seedlings?! As soon as I noticed the mould, I spaced the rolls further apart to allow air in between, hoping that that would be enough (even though some people recommend putting an elastic band around a group of rolls to keep them together?). I don't think I overwatered...I watered from the bottom and just sprayed the top of the soil when it seemed overly dry. But today, I have 'up-potted' my tomato seedlings, and had to gently tease away the worst of the mouldy soil. Now it's that they survive. If anyone can shed light on what went wrong/what I did wrong, I might give this method another chance... (Sorry - iPhotos isn't playing ball, so I can't upload the photo

 

Even those peat pots that you can buy go mouldy, they will its just the cardboard being broken down by fungus.
If it wasn't happening I'd suggest you were keeping the roots too dry.

 

Did any of your seedlings die or lag behind in growth. If not then it is unlikely the mould was doing any harm. As Pete says it's just living on the cardboard.

 

@pete and @NigelJ....Oh, thank you both ! All my seedlings looked really healthy and 'growthful' - I just assumed that the mould would be damaging and some of it definitely appeared to have 'transferred' to the soil? Still...I'll try not to panic so much 'next time'?!

 

Living by myself I just don't produce enough cardboard tubes to meet my germination needs.
I switched to root trainers years ago and use these for anything that benefits from germinating and needing to produce deep roots. A bit of an investment in the first place, but with care they last for ages.

 

I've got to be honest I cant be bothered with trying to use cardboard tubes etc.

I've got a stack of plastic pots that fall around all over the place, I've collected them over the years.
I just think they should make them stronger, these days, and then reuse would be more likely and some of mine must date back 20 yrs.
Still got some bedding trays lying around from the 1970s

 

Worse case scenario, they would of only suffered from some, minor tissue damage.

 

The mould doesn't harm the seedling. I do pot them on sometimes with pots that I've collected over the years, I never throw a pot away.
I don't have enough so a friend of mine saves hers and her family for me.

 

I have to agree with Mitramonday. I tried loo rolls once - green mould all over the place - tubes started to disintegrate before the seeds had a chance to grow.

I'm going for plantable biodegradeable pots next year - so much easier - and you can get ones that are the same shape as the plastic seed cell trays. Just pop them in the ground, pot and all - no fuss.

 

I tried with little boxes made out of parcel paper and the same thing happened. So now I stick with soil blocks.

Nothing but soil pressed into a block.

 

@clanless Hmmm - I hope you have better luck in finding true 'biodegradable' pots than I did! Two years later and I'm still finding them scattered around my borders

 

I've rolled a sheet of newspaper around an aerosol can, that works well enough. Can choose a can of suitable diameter too, and height-of-pot (actually quite handy for things that dislike being transplanted by making a taller "pot" to keep them happy until planting).

I tear off the top bit of paper on planting as I figure if it is sticking out it will act as a drying-wick.

There are fancy wooden templates you can buy ... waste of money and just a can will do unless you have someone wanting to buy you a present for the "person who has everything ..."

... this is 3 bits of wood for £13-quid

No doubt loads of examples on YouTube, but I've got some pictures on my blog if they might help

How to Make Pots from Newspaper

 

Virtual tour? During lockdown I did have a look at some of the videos that NGS posted. Some were properly dreadful (in terms of camera-operator-ability!), but one of them had a really cool fly-by through the border using a drone - showing some angles that a visitor couldn't get. I've added to one to my "can't afford not to have" list

I know diddly-squat about streaming, but maybe a Zoom would be more suitable? following by a virtual-Indian