Plastic tote

Dirt or potting soil if you don't have good dirt

Popsicle sticks

Vapor barrier

Packing tape or duct tape

Seeds

Step 1. Mix up some dirt. Pick out all the

rocks and sticks and shit. Mix in compost if ya

want. Put about 4" of good dirt in the tote.



Step 2. Cut some popsicle sticks in half and

write what you will be planting. It is easy

to forget what got planted where so I

always mark it out.



Step 3. Get some seeds

planted. Not much to it.

Either dig a small trench

1/2" deep or put the seeds

in one by one.

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Step 4. Cover the seeds and make sure you

mark them. Water the seeds now because

the tote needs to stay sealed for 5 days.



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Step 5. Drill a hole in the side of the tote and

put a plug in it. This will let you water the

plants.



Step 6. Cut a piece of vapor barrier for the top

of the tote. Make sure to cut it bigger than you

need.

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Step 7. Wrap the top of the tote in vapor barrier

and tape every seam so no air leaks. This is

important during germination. After the seeds

sprout you can make a removable cover. You

shouldn't need to water for the first few days

as long as the dirt was moist.







Done. Put the greenhouse outside or in a sunny window daily and bring it back in when it gets dark. Pretty simple to build. Don't open it up for at least 5 days. The seeds will germinate faster if you do not open it up. I put a reptile thermometer in the green house so I could monitor the temperature. Later on I read ambient temp isn't as important as soil temp so I moved the thermometer to the soil. It is important to check the temp because the greenhouse gets hot fast.

This was the ambient temp after about an hour in the sun with

an outside temp of 61 degrees f

I planted green bell peppers, jalapenos, serrano peppers, and red peppers. These are all plants that do best in heat so temp isn't a big concern until they sprout. If you have other plants growing in the greenhouse check the temps and moisture they need.

Alright now that the green house is built and you see the first sprouts growing it's time to build a removable cover for the tote. If you have the lid that fits the tote just cut the center out and glue or tape plexiglass or vapor barrier over the hole. You could also just keep taping the original vapor barrier cover back on but I lost my patience with this. The tote didn't have a cover so I built a removable one that will seal everything up well.

Materials

A few scraps of wood

Vapor barrier or plexiglass

Wood glue

Caulk

1 5/8" screws

Build the damn thing

Step 1. Measure your tote

Step 2. Rip down four pieces of lumber to 2"

Then cut them to the size of your tote. In my

case the tote was 16 1/4" x 22 1/2" So I cut two

pieces at 16 1/4" and two at 24" to account for the

thickness of the boards

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Step 3. Glue and screw it

Step 4. Set your tablesaw and rip 4 boards to 1 1/2" Then cut the to the length of the frame. I needed two at 24" and two at 14 3/4" if I remember right.

Step 5. Run a thick bead of caulk around the

whole top edge of the frame. Make sure the

edge gets evenly coated. Then cut a

piece of vapor barrier about a foot bigger

than the size of the tote.



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Step 6. Use a few clamps to position the top trim pieces where ya want them. Next screw the trim pieces on don't glue them. You want the trim to be removable in case the plastic needs to be replaced. ﻿﻿﻿﻿

Step 7. Trim the excess plastic to about 1/4"

over hang and smooth the excess squeeze out

from the caulk







Done. The cover you built should be a very tight fit.

A nice thing about this design is its free/cheap

and the plastic is replaceable.



Heres another easy mini greenhouse. Cut the top

off an egg carton. Set the bottom on the top. Mark

it. Fill it with soil. Put the seeds in. Wrap it in

plastic wrap. Done.





My results so far

Ok everything is built and now the plants are starting to grow. The whole setup should take care of itself for the most part and it won't need to be watered too much. Here' my finding after five days with a daytime high around 60 degrees f and bringing the greenhouse inside at night. Ambient temp inside the greenhouse was between 80 degrees f and 110 degrees f for most of this time

Day 1- Nothing

Day 2- Nothing

Day 3- Some of the weeds and grass from outside are sprouting. I watered today.

Day 4- One red bell pepper looks like it broke through

Day 5- Up to one red bell pepper 1 serrano, and 2 green bell peppers. These might be lookalikes though because I didn't use sterile soil.

Day 6. Bunch of little sprouts from outside plants. It looks like another bell pepper is sprouting

Day 7. Two more green bells broke through

One of the pepper sprouts at day 5...maybe





Heres Part 2 All the seeds I used were harvested by me from fresh vegetables. I used no special potting mix, fertilizer, or compost. Fortunately we have very good black dirt around here. The greenhouse is self contained, I've only watered it once in the last 5 days, and it uses no fans or electricity at all. I'll let ya know how its doin in a few weeks.

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If you like fresh vegetables this is for you. Every week when the wife and I go grocery shopping we spend quite a bit of money on vegetables. What we don't use gets blanched and frozen then if possible I harvest the seeds. My goal was to find a way to grow the seeds indoors and have access to fresh vegetables indoors. This way I don't have to dig up my yard, I can see and pick the vegetables as soon as they are ripe, I can plant earlier, and the bugs and critters don't bother the plants. After thinking on it for a bit I decided I would build a mini green house that is small enough to be moved but big enough for the plants to mature in with no need for electrical equipment. Don't forget to check out Part 2 for the store bought control and info on sprouting seeds easily.