DIY: Build a mini greenhouse yourself

A mini greenhouse has its place in the cultivation of indoor plants. For all indoor gardeners who plan more than cultivating indoor plants with a “limited shelf life” (quickly grown seasonal goods) with equally limited prospects of success. So for all indoor gardeners who are passionate about it, who want to cultivate interesting plants over a long period of time and often want to grow/breed them themselves. You can use a mini greenhouse for the following purposes:

Ongoing plant care

The world of the indoor gardener is colorful and mostly populated with plants from all over the world. However, most parts of the world are warmer than ours, and in many parts wetter. Above all, the rainforest plants that are so popular in indoor culture usually need a level of humidity that is not necessarily to the liking of the German living space and the people in it… All epiphytes and other plants that do not grow at the bottom of the ground in the rainforest have a permanently high level in their natural environment used to humidity. Which the experienced room gardener tries to offer you with all sorts of tricks, from the water bowl under the plant pot to the spray mist, but the heating in winter quickly ensures that the air is dry.

If such plants then begin to weaken, a cure in a nicely damp mini greenhouse is often good for them. In order to give them such a thing, the indoor gardener needs models of mini greenhouses that can be set up quickly.

The indoor gardener who grows plants himself definitely needs a mini greenhouse, often even several. Because every seedling, including the seedlings of native plants, needs consistent moisture for optimal development. The more difficult a seed is to germinate and the more sensitive the developing seedling is, the more a small indoor greenhouse will help with the rearing. Perhaps you wish to safely grow rare seeds of almost forgotten native plants to help preserve the species, perhaps you are experimenting with a homegrown orchid with a unique flower color whose offspring are to become a new cultivar… a mini greenhouse should be on hand , the more sensitive, moisture and heat-requiring the plants are,

Why build yourself?

If you want to germinate five plants in a protective atmosphere, you could buy a mini greenhouse. Such small greenhouses are available from around €3.50 to around €8. However, if you want to grow 100 plants, you need 20 mini greenhouses. Firstly, this is a bit expensive, secondly, the finished mini greenhouses do not always fill the designated spaces well. However, these are usually not available indefinitely – if all the pupils are to receive enough light, they all have to stand by the window. In addition, the mini greenhouses that are offered at these prices are made of plastic and usually only available in an unpleasantly bright green, which is something not everyone wants to have in their home.

If you want it to look pretty, you would have to buy small “antique cold frames” with iron frames or similar, which then cost around €30 each, but very few gardeners want to spend a small fortune just for the cultivation . It doesn’t have to be, with a little creativity you can get pretty mini greenhouses much cheaper:

The basic plan

The logic of a mini greenhouse is always the same:

• You need containers in which the growing medium can be filled.
• These containers are easy to find in every household.
• You need to get water drainage holes to prevent waterlogging.
• And a waterproof bottom.
• At the top you need a transparent hood.
• In which ventilation can be introduced if desired.
• Through small holes/flaps in the hood.
• Or a frame that you can cover with foil.

Material selection to build yourself

All the components for building many different mini greenhouses can be found in the household:

The planters

• Quark, yoghurt, cream, margarine packs are the right size for normal sprouts.
• Cream cheese, cream quark, butter, cream herring, delicatessen salads, etc. contribute flat containers for the flat roots.
• In buttermilk cups and milk cartons, none of the plants developing deep taproots.
• If you use wooden boxes that are precisely tailored to the windowsill, square planters are ideal:
• Milk cartons (compared to Tetra-Paks of long-life drinks) are only made of cardboard/PE.
• So without an aluminum layer in between, which could dissolve over time.
• Even frozen packs of spinach, buttered vegetables, etc. are only made of cardboard and plastic.
• The coffee-to-go cup no longer gives you a bad conscience when it is put to good long-term use as a mini greenhouse.

drainage holes

You can make drainage holes yourself, but you should always prick plastic containers from the inside out so that the water drains off well. The tool for this can also be found in every household:

• A normal can piker or other pointed metal parts such as e.g. B. Pointed tweezers
• Big, long, pointed nail, heat over a candle to burn through the plastic
• Pointed craft knife, scalpel (available as disposable items for little money in pharmacies)
• Hand drill, also called nail drill, or pointed chisel
• Be careful with scissors and cutters, they make long cuts

planter

Your perforated growing pots need “some kind of planter” that absorbs excess water:

• You need a closed surface with a more or less high edge.
• This can be anything that is waterproof or can be made waterproof.
• If you use yoghurt pots etc. as seed pots, you can use them twice.
• One with drainage holes, a second one in which to put it, with a crumpled piece of paper or something similar in between as a spacer (water reservoir).
• This double entity is “inherently waterproof” and can be assembled in any ornate vessel with its companions.
• You can make wooden boxes that fit perfectly on the windowsill.
• This can be done very quickly if you staple thin strips of wood in the desired width to precisely cut Styrofoam insulation boards.
• Keeps too much heat away from the potting soil, even over powerfully roaring heaters.
• A pretty collection container is a flat basket for the windowsill, e.g. B. a chip basket in which you once bought fruit at the market.
• With an old plastic tablecloth, scissors, and stapler, you can quickly line this collection container to be waterproof.
• Old balcony boxes fit exactly on the windowsill.
• They may have drainage holes themselves, if you don’t drown the nursery pots, a layer of newspaper is enough to absorb the excess water.

cover

The cover for the mini greenhouse must be translucent, again you have several options:

• You can make a frame and cover it with translucent material.
• Imagination is required when procuring materials.
• You can e.g. B. Cut plastic strips from old staplers.
• But you can also cut out a “U” from a shampoo bottle of the right width/height.
• Plastic strips become arches, “U” is already formed in this way.
• Both are placed in the pot with the ends on the outside.
• Perhaps crossed at the top, connected with a staple.
• You can also shape a strip of rabbit wire into a cylinder.
• Or shape flexible wire mesh into a bonnet figure.
• This frame is covered with transparent foil.
• It is simply laid over it, then you can ventilate it by lifting it.
• Perhaps the transparent pasta bag will also fit.
• Or the foil tube, open on one side, from the last book purchase.
• You can also put a perforated, transparent cup over it.

location

These mini greenhouses come on the windowsill, maybe stacked on a shelf or hung. You can also equip most of these self-built mini greenhouses with side handles, made from a drawn-in cord, e.g. B., then you can quickly put the plants outside when the weather is nice. You can also simply use a deep tray with waterproof equipment as a substructure.

As you can see, your household is full of “jars and pots” that you can use as a mini greenhouse. It’s certainly not bad for the environment if all this plastic is only recycled after a lengthy period of useful interim use (using energy) – apart from the fact that it doesn’t seem very smart to throw away one plastic the size of a nursery pot and then use it for the to spend money on the next plastic in seed pot size (complete mini greenhouse).

The mini greenhouse for healthy nutrition

There’s a mini greenhouse that you keep buying ready-made, although you’d rather cut up small cocktail tomatoes into the salad than “bigger red balls” that taste like nothing. These cocktail tomatoes are commercially sold in triangular trays, small mini greenhouses prefabricated with a taller tray with two drainage holes at the bottom and a hinged lid with ventilation holes. These mini greenhouses make a square in pairs which is placed in a larger container filled with potting soil the perfect home for developing plantlets.

You could use these practical small containers all year round to ensure the family’s vitamin supply: You could cut suitable triangles out of natural material mats and let all kinds of sprouts germinate on these mats. Cotton, felt and rock wool mats, a thick layer of cotton wool, loosely woven straw are suitable as materials… you can actually use the entire range of natural insulation materials, they usually have the structure that fine little roots need.

Edible sprouts (sprouts) develop from seeds of alfalfa, broccoli, peas, oats, chickpeas, watercress, lentils, mung beans, radishes, soybeans, wheat and more. You can obtain the seeds either as special sprout seeds or from organic gardeners (organic farmers); “Normal” (just not normal) seeds from the trade are often chemically treated to deter pests or to promote germination and growth.

Mini greenhouses for the garden?

Of course, you can also use all of these mini greenhouse structures to grow plants for the garden. A large box to put out is quickly found, it only stands in the garden for a while and with a glass/plexiglass pane on it becomes a cold frame, neither a permanent greenhouse nor a permanently installed cold frame spoil the garden.

What is also convenient about the small-in-small solution is that you can afford the luxury of sowing the little plants individually in these really inexpensive propagation pots. This saves you the annoying pricking out, which is a real benefit for many gardeners.

This method is perfect for growing perennial plants that are allowed to develop strong roots without restriction from the start. After all, the roots are the basis of the plant, with which it secures its supply, it certainly does not harm a plant if it is given some time to develop a magnificent foliage with many flowers/fruits.

Only southerners who are supposed to wear the first year and for whom the season is actually too short with us anyway, have to grow above all from the beginning. If you plant these individually they would focus on root growth for too long to “get done” in one season, they need to be seeded closely and pricked out. Unless you didn’t pay dearly for the seeds, but e.g. B. from a physalis fruit or a melon, you can sow three seeds per pot, let two of them grow for a while as “root-limiting competitors” and then kill them very meanly.