Indoor Herb Garden

So herb gardens who wants one? Now which of you that do will actually remember to water it every day? the solution is to get a self watering garden. Great that's sorted. Well actually I haven't been able to find one, okay not true I just haven't found one that is appealing to me, its too big, its hard to tell when you need to top up the water or it just doesn't look that attractive. I want one indoors so i can grow my herbs all year round, I want it to suit my kitchen and I want it small enough to fit somewhere out of the way.

So I've made my own, there are plenty of ways to make one, the principle is simple the plant just needs a nearby water source that it can drink up when it needs it. There are some amazing DIY ones floating around the internet using old glass bottles. I wanted to make those but ran into some difficulty cutting the glass, I tried to use plastic bottles instead but there were none around the house and i couldn't be bothered driving to the store. What I did have lying around the house though was different sized plastic cups. they worked really well and I recently made some more.

Here is what you are going to need: 

plastic cups in two different sizes, string, scissors, seeds, dirt and water. 

You can also add paint, markers and any thing you wish to label what is in each cup.

So the first thing you want to do is sit a big cup into a little one, that space between the two bottoms of the cups is where your water supply is going to sit. If you want a bigger water supply change the size of the cups. 

So use your scissors to poke a hole into the bottom of the bigger cup, a small hole. Now thread a decent size string through the hole, the string will make the water travel up into the dirt, thus watering your plant

. 

Fill your cup, the big one with dirt. I used dirt from my out door garden and some pot mix only because I didn't have enough pot mix to fill all three cups. 

Plant your seeds or if you've kicked up some herbs from your out door garden plant them.  Read the back of the seed packed to know how deep to plant your seeds. give them a little bit of a water, best to do this at least for the next few days until the seeds take off. You could also add plant growth if you want right about now.

You can now fill up your small cup with water but only enough to reach where the bottom of the other cup sits. I drew a line at that level so I knew where to stop. Once filled you can place the large cup in, make sure the string goes into the small cup and into the actual water or this whole thing will not work.

Place your new garden pot somewhere where with light, like the window sill.

Enjoy your fresh herbs. Just remember to top up the water ever week or so. This is one of the ones i made about a month or so ago.

Things you can do to make it your own:

Paint the cups before turning them into a garden, its going to be hard to do that after they are filled with dirt.

Add a label, a stick like I did, a small black board, write it on the cup or what ever you want.

Any other ideas to improve or customizations the little herb garden further please tell me. I'm interested to hear all your ideas.

-Pkarpicz