DIY Seed Starters

Here's the scoop: ice-cream cones make great seed starters

Hello and welcome to Joe Shows How! In this week’s video, I show how to make affordable, biodegradable seed starters out of ice-cream cones. And while that may seem sacrilegious to the Dairy Queen faithful, it’s an effective way to grow plants from seeds, and dramatically reduce the use of plastic planting cups and trays.

Here’s all you need to do: Buy some wafer ice cream cones, the type with the flat bottom. Fill each cone with potting soil, poke a hole in the soil with a pencil, and then drop in the seed. Cover the seed with soil and set the cones in an aluminum baking tray. Once you’ve planted all the seeds, lightly mist the cones with water, and set the tray in a sunny window. Wait for the seeds to sprout, then plant them—cone and all— in your garden. After about a week or so, the cones will decompose into the soil and the roots will be free to spread out and grow.

Thanks for your support and best wishes for a most bountiful gardening season!