Are you willing to start a diy indoor garden; greenhouse project but don’t know where to start? You’d be surprised to know how easily you can get this done once you learn the greenhouse project planning and procedure. This article can help you out in a simple and detailed manner to let you understand the necessary steps of a greenhouse project.
Table of Contents
Follow these steps to get your diy indoor greenhouse-
Step 1- Planning
While starting a greenhouse project, planning should be your priority for the sake of a healthy result. You have to decide the types of plants and vegetables you want to grow. Also, what you want to do with the plants and vegetables; is it for personal usage, or you are into the business of selling it.
You need to keep In mind how much space you need and work on it, and clearing the patch. You need not much space for a suitable diy indoor greenhouse that you can tend goodly. A spare room, a corner in your garage or basement will do fine to create an indoor place for a greenhouse project.
To craft an indoor oasis, there are several ways to work out the job. You need to keep in mind also that the diy indoor greenhouse should be easier for your family to tend to. You need a plan of quality while creating a diy indoor greenhouse, shelving the vegetables and plants, and lighting the place.
The artificial light that you are going to provide should be healthy, and in a way, do the job of sunlight goodly. You need planters and pots for shelving the plants. You need not place the diy indoor greenhouse near a window as you can provide artificial fluorescent light.
Make sure that you provide light of need daily as it will keep the greenhouse healthy. Also, you should research what type of plants and vegetables thrive better in a greenhouse environment.
Step 2- Installing Shelves and Lighting
You can purchase a simple household shelf unit with three or four tiers moving from here to there. While installing the diy indoor greenhouse, shelves, planters, and lights, you need to follow the instructions of experts and manufacturers. For lighting, you need to have a power source to provide a suitable amount of light daily.
Depending on lights, you will need a power strip or two; also, you need lights with hanging chains to fasten them to the shelves.
Make a chain of lights attached to the power strips so that it is easier for you to plug on and off easily.
In the case of lighting, you can hang two or three from the ceiling. And attach the remaining lights to the shelves at suitable distance and locations.
Connect all the lights into a bunch of groups so that you can put them into a single power strip. Try not to get entangled in the wiring of the light.
The usage of the light timer will be more profitable to turn on and off the lights on time. A suitable amount of light is healthy and needed for plants. The amount of light, much or less, can cause defects in plant growth. A light timer can also help you out conserving electricity, and check if all lights are working, daily.
Step 3- No Need to Buy Traditional Planters and Pots
You do not need to use planters and pots necessarily for a basic diy indoor greenhouse.. There are many traditional items of household use that can come in handy. An aquarium can be repurposed into a planter and plastic cups for small plants, etc.
This is an easy job; even your kids would love and enjoy the job of repurposing and making items to come in handy in the greenhouse. You can use soda bottles or bottles of other cold drinks and soft drinks. Also, this could be the best way of recycling plastic.
All that you have to do is to cut the bottles some six inches up from the bottom. And as a result, you will have a good bunch of plastic pots for your plants in the indoor greenhouse system.
You need to take the safety precaution during the job seriously.
For example, do not let your kids do the bottle cutting job. Do it yourself with a sharp utility knife; children may hurt themselves. Unless your boy or girl is a teenager and his/her age is suitable for doing jobs of the sort and are careful. Help them out and instruct them about safety precautions.
After cutting the bottles, their edges are usually sharp, so be careful. Be aware of electricity during light setting and sharp things like knife and edges while cutting bottles.
Try to use for every plant a pot or planter suitable for the average size of their roots. And be cautious about your preference of soil as it must give out healthy and fertile plants.
Step 4- Planting
In the case of planting in your diy indoor greenhouse, you have the choice of planting seeds or planting minor plants having roots. Follow the instructions by the company on the packets of seeds, and try not to plant the seeds very deep in the soil.
A certain instructed amount of soil should be on top of the seeds to quickly grow out of the ground. If the soil is much and hard on top of the seeds, they usually decay and die. Avoid over-watering the soil and try not to let it dry; the ground should have the instructed amount of water on a daily and weekly basis.
It is mostly healthy for plants to be misted, so keep the environment damp to a suitable level. While purchasing seeds, be alert about choosing the right variety. As the typical/common types of seeds cannot grow healthy in diy indoor greenhouse, you need to buy the compact varieties of seeds for the same purpose.
And in case of rooted plants, take them out of the pots you have bought them in, gently clear the root ball from the soil. Shake off the old potting soil and add fresh and fertile soil to the new suitable planter and plant it afterward. Also, try not to fill the planters with soil to the top; leave space for water.
While choosing potting soil for your diy indoor greenhouse, select a mix that identifies its combination. Avoid peat and compost; instead, look for healthy potting soil with specific ingredients of experts’ recommendation. ‘Sphagnum peat moss’ is the most well-liked potting soil, and experts recommend it due to its nutritional qualities.
After you are done putting plants in pots, organize the containers on shelves and provide it with the quality of light it needs.
For help and advice, you can go online or some local hardware store. Water your plants on a carefully, and try to soak the soil well. And let the plants drain the water; it will ensure their healthy growth. You can add fertilizer to the soil, but be careful as it can burn the plants.
Also, you can use liquid plant food like Miracle-Gro. Be careful as plant foods are.not friendly in all the conditions and specially to a diy indoor greenhouse; prefer to read the instructions provided by experts.
Step 5- Covering The Greenhouses
You need not cover your diy indoor greenhouse if it is somewhere inside a warm and humid part of your place. Mostly, a diy indoor greenhouse does not need to be covered as it is saved from winter and other hazards. In the case of an outdoor greenhouse, you should cover it with strong plastic sheeting to keep the plants warm and to provide a moisture environment.
Through trial and error, we humans learn so you do not need to be an expert in everything at the very start. Just be alert in case of providing what is best for your plants; soil, lighting, and a healthy environment.
With the help of plastic/duck tapes, sheeting can be held in place and it will goodly preserve the plants from the outside weather. That’s it, while going through all the steps that are explained to you, hopefully, you will have a healthy diy indoor greenhouse as a result.
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