Best source for pots?

I need at least 300 4" (or maybe bigger) transplant pots for all my sweet little seedlings, can anyone help me with ideas on where to go to get the best deals?
Caren

Check with a nursery or landscaper in your neighborhood, they usually have hundreds of them in the trash - and ask your friends to save them for you - I have never bought a pot!!!

do you have a dollar tree by you? i found pots i bought them out lol. 4" 6 for $1.00 and they came in reuseable mesh bags.

Maybe you could find a suitable sized paper or styrofoam cups? They aren't the best for seedlings but they're cheap and they'll work when you're in a pinch.

This may sound sorta of morbid but a great source for used nursery containers are the trash bins at your local cemetaries. If you hit them a couple of times around Memorial day weekend you'll be able to collect more than enough. There's all kinds of different sizes but geranium pots are thrown out by the dozens. Gosh ... I find lots of goodies that way. Some people even throw out perfectly good plants.

I can ask at the local garden center, I'm there all the time, I can't help myself! I do have a dollar tree nearby, I'll go check it out. Now you have me thinking...I don't see why the big size styro or plastic drink cups wouldn't work just as well as anything else.. and of course plastic pop bottles!
poppysue, why didn't I think of that? several years ago my sister used to have a BF who worked in a cemetary, we used to get tons of great potted plants after memorial day that they would have just thrown away!!
I may end up with a goofy looking assortment, but I'll find something to put all of them into, I'm worried that if I let them stay in the seed starting mix for too long, they won't get enough nourishment, and it's still about 6 weeks til last frost here...Thanks everyone for the ideas!!

I buy styrofoam cups by the case. I use a pencil to punch 3 or four holes on the sides at the bottom, that way the drain does not get stopped.

Carena, I learned from a professional grower that they start feeding a very weak solution of fertilizer to the seedlings as soon as they get first true leaves. I have been doing that and my plants look great. Dark green and husky. I am very careful to just put a few drops of organic type liquid fretilizer in each pitcher of water I use. Another tip that I think helpes is to brush the tops of the plants lightly whenever I am checking them. It is supposed to make the cells stronger or something. LOL anyway I try the tips and they are working for me. Good luck. Also, for pots, In the spring when they are putting their new flowers around the apartment complexes, I just stop and ask for the empty ones. The workers are always glad to give them to me. SEEYA, Margie Lou

And for next year.....save those yogurt tubs....

And you can cut creamer bottles in half.........heck any plastic container, and you can make your own pots with newspaper and soup cans.....I look at everything as potential garden tools and accessories.

"eyes"

thanks for all the good suggestions! I bought some styro cups at the dollar store. In the past I've always just started all my plants in potting soil, so I didn't wory about it. I have been giving them a weak fertilizer solution, they all look really good so I must be doing something right! eyes, you are right, I'm collecting anything I can get my hands on that will hold soil!everything is starting to look like potential growing containers now!

Carena, if you go up 99E to Hubbard,you will come to Jeff Viers Nursery Supply and you could hopefully get any size of pots that your heart desires. And very reasonably too.There is another nursery supply over by Hopmere on River Road just north of Salem where I have gotten some of my pots too. Joann

"Eyes"

I look at ALL containers as potentials too.

Mushroom tubs, sprouts containers, bleach, detergent, fabric softener bottles, soda bottles, Well washed styrofoam trays become drain trays for pots :)

A heated nail is great for poking drainage holes.

Joann, Every night I gaze longingly as I drive by J Viers on my way home from work but they are only 8-5 so I can't shop there. I wondered if they were wholesale only or if they would sell to the public. I'd have to play hookey to go there! I'll check out the Salem place, I'm usually there every weekend visiting my daughter, she will know where it is. Thanks!

I heat up a screwdriver on the stove to melt holes thru the bottom of plastic cups and pop bottles, it works great! I also bought a bunch of 20oz styro cups, they seem to be working fine and they are cheap. I hope I have enough flower beds ready by planting time! It's always a big struggle for me to decide what to put where, I'm seriously hopeless, I admit it!!

I usually get 4" pots at my local GH supply place for about $45 per case of about 600 i think