February Herb Project of the Month: Windowsill Greenhouse

Asphodel · **Posted:** Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:07 pm

A windowsill Greenhouse is basically something that you can fit on a windowsill that will provide an environment for seeds to germinate and grow until such a time when you can pot them up or plant them out. You can purchase them, but for sure we've got 'something' kicking around that would provide the same thing for way less. Another benefit is that we're re-using! Totally 'green' and lovely. lol

What we'll use:

Anything you've got that will allow sunlight through the sides, enough room on the sides for you to fit your hand in, and tall enough to allow for at least 3 inches of growth + the height of your growing medium. For example: a 2 liter soda bottle, an old snap-top container, a cake container from your bakery, one of those nifty potato salad containers from the deli, etc..
Your substrate. I adore Jiffy Peat Pellets for this, but you could use an old yogurt container with holes in the bottom filled with seed starting mix or even make a little pot out of newspaper and fill it with the same.
Something to hold our substrate up out of the water. We don't want our substrate soggy, just moist. A coffee can lid, or even some gravel in the bottom of the receptacle should do the trick.
Seeds. lol Mid-March should be my area's last frost date so all of what I start now can be hardened off right around that time without putting too much stress on a fully grown plant. The idea for me here is to have some of those lovely young plants we get at the nursery around that time of year right from my own home rather than spending that extra money on a nursery grown plant. It's less expensive and more fulfilling (for me) to watch a bitty seed mature.

That's pretty much it for the supplies list.

w00t! lol

What we need to do is provide a small space for our chosen seeds that will give our seeds the optimal setting to germinate.

We need light; hence the clear to opaque sides.
We need to preserve the moisture of the substrate and a closed container will hold in the humidity and prevent too much evaporation. We don't want our substrate soggy, just moist.
We need warmth, but not too much heat or it will just bake our poor seeds. lol Again the closed container will provide this heat if in a sunny window. My choice is a north facing window as the southern facing windows may provide too much heat.
Once the seed germinates we need a way to make sure the air is circulating to prevent diseases like dampening off, etc.. A removable lid helps with this while still providing the things we already covered.
We need to be able to remove the seedling once it has it's first set of true leaves (or a root system that needs larger accommodations) without tipping the greenhouse and risking breakage of our wee plant.

So, now that we know what we need and why, lets get started!

What I've got is a bakery bought plastic cake container. It has a black bottom and a nice tall clear plastic lid. The bottom has grooves that are about 1/4 of an inch deep, so pretty perfect really. lol But still I added an old coffee lid to be sure I had what I needed there to keep the soil from getting too soggy.

I wanted to avoid having to pot up too soon, so I used an old yogurt container; carefully reamed a few holes in the bottom with the tip of a knife and filled it with sterile soil. Seed starting mix wasn't on hand at the time, but for sure I've got the sterile soil. lol

I did this three days ago so I could take a pic to show y'all. LOL The Basil seeds are already germinating!

See that li'l green guy in that last pic? That's one of my basil babies.

Once his feeder leaves develop (the first set of leaves that are meant to help feed the plant while it's root system develops) I'll take that yogurt cup out of my green house and put a small plastic bottle (without the lid) with the bottom cut off snugly over the top of the plant so that it still maintains moisture but has air circulation too. When it's about 3 inches tall and has a few sets of leaves, I can take the bottle off completely and just have the yogurt cup in the window until it's time to harden off (or pot up).

Take a look around and see what you've got that you can use as your greenhouse. If you have any questions, please post up! For sure there are oodles of things we could use, but not all of them are going to grant us easy access to the plant; but I'm willing to bet we can put our heads together and come up with a way to make just about any container work!