DIY Seed-Starting Mini Greenhouse

Lately, the produce from the grocery store has been, well, to put it nicely, lacking in quality, and I'm getting tired of spending more money than I care to for inferior produce, so I've decided to grow some of my own. I've done this before in the past - sometimes successfully and other times not so much.

Last Monday, I planted some herb and vegetable seeds, and I'm happy to say some of the seeds have already sprouted.

First to come up was the arugula - after only 4 days!

Two thyme plants, one basil, and three tomato plants followed after.

Seeds and some peat trays were the only thing I purchased for this project, everything else I had on hand in my garage, which was great because I didn't want to spend a lot of money doing this.

This terra cotta-colored plastic tray was left over from a greenhouse kit I bought three or four years ago and has proven to come in handy for growing seeds. The kit came with a self-watering mat - the black piece the seedlings are sitting on. It lays on top of a stand that fits in the tray. When you fill the tray up with water, the ends of the mat hang down in the water, absorbing it and the entire mat stays wet. As long as there's water in the tray the mat will remain wet, which ensures the seedlings are kept moist.

I planted all of my seeds in round peat pots and peat trays using Miracle-Gro seed starting potting mix. I just filled up the peat pots and trays with the potting mix and stuck a seed in each one, then put a thin layer of mix on top of the seeds. I didn't have any plant markers so I improvised and cut strips of  watercolor paper and used those as plant markers, writing on each one the plant name and sticking them in each pot as I planted the seeds.

The last step was to make the "greenhouse" covering. I used clear plastic bags for this since I no longer have the top that came with the kit. The bag covering the long peat tray is left over packaging that was lying around. I propped it up with a couple of sticks to give the seedlings some room to grow. For the tomatoes, I just cut a couple of ziplock bags to fit over top of the pots.

And that is how I made my green house.

My method of gardening is to just wing it. I'm going to let my seedlings grow for a while and then transfer them into their larger, permanent pots. I know very little about gardening, but that's okay. I'll figure it out as I go along. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

 

Comments

[Leslie]

Good luck with the plants. I wonder if that self watering mat is available by itself?

[Jennifer]

Thank you. I don't know if you can buy it by itself or not, but I bet you could come up with an idea on how to make one.