In most of the Northern hemisphere, Spring is poking its fresh green head out of the dirt and looking around. Even if your neighborhood is still covered in snow, this is the time of year that we all start turning our thoughts to those of warmer, sunnier days. If you are planning to plant a garden this year, now is the time to start some seedlings indoors. Before you spend money on those fancy peat pots and little seed-starting containers, look around your house for some free alternatives.

Newspaper can be used as an inexpensive and biodegradable planting container. You can fold a piece of newspaper origami-style into a sort of box, or you can use a drinking glass as a form to roll a cylinder and secure it with masking tape. Fill the pots with potting soil (or better yet, your homemade compost) and plant a seed or two. When it is time to plant the seedlings outdoors, simply tear the bottom a bit to give the roots some room, then pop the entire newspaper pot into the ground. By avoiding the transplantation of the young seedlings, you give them a better chance of surviving. The paper will biodegrade with no ill effects to the plant or the soil.

You can use the same concept to plant seeds in cardboard tubes. Save the tubes from your toilet paper and paper towels and cut them to about 3″ high. Leave the bottom ends open and place a bunch of them in a plastic box. Then fill each with soil and plant seeds inside. There is no need to worry about adequate drainage or room for the roots for this type of pot since the bottom of the tube is not closed.

Even eggshells can be used as small seedling starters, and planting them in the ground with the seedlings inside will add valuable calcium for plants that need it, like tomatoes.

Almost any container that you would normally recycle or throw away can be used to start seeds: yogurt cups and cream cartons are probably the most-often used types.

Starting seeds indoors gives the young plants a chance to get established before having to deal with the elements in your outdoor garden. Using these and the other clever green thumb ideas that every gardener has, you can get a head start on your ideal garden for this year. Do you have any other great garden hacking ideas to share? Let us know in the comments below!