In order to supply yourself with the most necessary culinary herbs if you don't have your own garden, you can build a mini greenhouse yourself without having to buy tons of material first. And a small greenhouse like this just looks really good on the bare windowsill.
How can you build a mini greenhouse yourself?
A mini greenhouse can be easily built yourself using common household materials such as plastic cups, tetra packs or wooden boxes. For cultivation you need clean plastic containers, plastic film, potting soil, seeds and common garden tools.
There are hardly any limits to creativity when it comes to building your own mini greenhouse. There is even room on the smallest windowsill to grow a little parsley, chives or your own young plants for later planting outdoors. As material for a small greenhouse, you can use anything fromdisused margarine tubs to suitably cut tetra packs to a fruit ladder made of wood that is lying around somewhere in a normal household anyway.
Frost-free? Then go outside
If there is a little space in the backyard where the sun is good, old kitchen furniture, for example an old cupboard with one or two glass doors, has proven wonderful for growing plants. Even slightly larger plants, such as cucumbers, radishes or tomatoes, can be grown excellently in appropriately sized containers. However, the outdoor variants are only suitable if the home-grown seedlings are already a littlelarger, have stable roots and frost is no longer expected.
Small greenhouses made from recycled material
Many of the household packaging materials that would otherwise go into the yellow bin are perfect if you build your own mini greenhouse, such as the plastic cups in the family packs for ice cream. The rest can be done quickly if you take care of the following:
- Empty and thoroughly cleaned plastic containers;
- A roll of plastic wrap;
- Garden or plant soil;
- Seeds (bags or seed tapes);
- Scissors and hand shovel;
Preparing a small greenhouse for sowing
First, the containers should be filled with soil that is not too moist so that a small watering edge remains free at the top and the subsequent foil covering cannot prevent your plants from growing. Of course, if you build a mini greenhouse yourself, you don't have to pay as much attention to the soil you put into the containers as you would with a free-standing greenhouse. However, some characteristics that characterize good planting soil must still be taken into account, which you can read about in a very special article from us.
Sowing in the mini greenhouse
The same applies here: Less is more, so sow sparingly so that the soon-to-sprout plants have enough space and breeding ground. Especially at the beginningvery economical watering is particularly important and only when the soil is completely dry. After the first “order” you can now start covering it, i.e. put the flap or foil on it and observe. Depending on the germination time, one to three weeks will pass before the first green tips grow out of the soil. It works faster if the covers are lifted every day for a few hours and, if possible, in sunlight.
Tip
Even if warmth is good for the sprouts in the small greenhouse, temperatures should never be higher than 18 to 25 °C during the day or 15 to 18 °C at night. If necessary, shading must be used if the sun is too strong.
