Save money and waste in the garden this season with these nifty DIY cardboard pots

Gardening, while a sustainable practice, can quickly become expensive, especially during planting season. So finding ways to cut costs and reduce waste can help a lot.

Whether you're looking for different ways to keep costs down with your gardening or want to start trying out some sustainable garden ideas, DIYs are a great place to start. You can make your very own shade solutions and water propagation techniques; the garden is the perfect place to cut down on waste and get creative.

This particular DIY not only will stop you from needing to spend any more money, but it'll also stop unnecessary plastic waste in your garden. And it uses cardboard, which has more than one benefit for your plants.

You might not know, but using cardboard in your garden has several benefits, and it's a great way to keep clutter out of your home if you get a lot of packages. This particular DIY from gardening expert Ish Kamran, @gardening.with.ish on Instagram, shows how you can make your own plant pots out of the recyclable material.

"Forget plastic pots, I'm going to show you how to make your very own cardboard pot using an old delivery box," starts Ish.

"Making your very own cardboard pot is incredibly simple. First of all, get yourself some regular old cardboard. Now, I've got one from an old Amazon parcel here, and you want to make sure it's plain brown cardboard, not the printed stuff," he continues.

"The next thing you want to do is really soak those layers in a tonne of water. Leave it there for a couple of minutes, and you should end up with some nice and soggy cardboard," shows Ish.

Whilst you can use toilet paper tubes to make pots, this method allows for large seedlings and allows you to customise what size pot you'd like to make.

"Get yourself a little paint can or tin can, whatever works for you, and just roll it around. As you can see, it's all soaked up, and you can squeeze it quite hard, and it'll stick to itself. Leave about a couple of inches at the top here and just push it around, being quite harsh with it, and that will form the bottom of your pot," he demonstrates.

"You wanna place that somewhere where it's going to dry over the next day or so, and then you can eventually demould it from the can, and there you go," says Ish.

"The benefits of this are that, first of all, it's decomposable, so you can put this straight in the ground when putting your plants down so you don't have to take it out and disturb the roots. You can bury it; it'll break down and help retain moisture too," he adds.

It's also a great way to recycle and use household waste in your garden, which won't just help keep your home uncluttered, but it'll save you some pennies with your gardening too.

With so many vegetables to plant in September, now is a great time to try this DIY and start sowing seeds ready for a spring harvest next year.