Egg Carton Gardening

 

The Supplies

For a basic egg carton garden you will need:

• 1 egg carton (paper works better than styrofoam)
• potting/starter soil
• seeds
• 1 plastic spoon
• 1 sharpie
• scissors

Before starting, decide how many plants you want to sprout.  I decided on 9: 3 sweet basil, 3 cilantro, 3 serrano chilies.  I've never tried growing any of these plants from seed, so I have no idea how successful I'll be.  I'm betting the cilantro will come out the best, since I've purchased Burpee seeds before.  The basil comes from a "Welcome to PNC Bank!" type goodie bag we found in front of our apartment one day.  The chilies.. well.. the chilies came from a restaurant in London called Wahaca.

Great marketing

It was one of my first trips to London, so I was still in my "everything is British and therefore awesome" phase, and thus collected matchbooks and business cards wherever I went.  I thought that this was a match book- it's most certainly not.  That was about 4 years ago.  I just found the seed book (like a match book, of seeds!) at the bottom of a box in the closet and thought... why not?

Anyway, back to the task at hand!  Cut the egg carton to the right size and label the top of each row with the sharpie.  Growing in a row guarantees that you don't mix up your plants if you're sprouting a few varieties (been there, done that).

Gently spoon the soil into each section of the carton.  Once each section is full, I like to add about a teaspoon of water to pre-moisten the soil.   Then, use the back of the spoon to dig a little spot for 1-2 seeds in each section about 1/4 inch deep.  Use the spoon to cover it back up and voila, you have a mini garden ready to sprout.

Plastic spoons are great for apartment gardening when you don't want to make a huge mess

Be sure to keep the tray in a warm place (sun unnecessary) and water enough to moisten the soil every other day as needed.  Once the seeds sprout, keep them in the sun as much as possible.  The best part about using a egg crate is that, when the seedlings grow too big for their spots in the carton, all you have to do to remove them is scoop the entire ball of soil out with a spoon (I heart spoons) and transplant into a larger pot.

The Final Product (for now)

 So that's how you plant an egg carton garden.  I only put one seed in each section, so we'll see how this turns out.  I'm thinking that all three cilantro will sprout, 2-3 basil, and maybe one sickly chili.  Time will tell!

Happy Apartment Farming!

Christine