Indoor Plant Projects Workshop

This morning I was fortunate enough to catch Evergreen Brick Works' Indoor Plant Projects workshop. Waking up early on a Saturday morning is not one of my strong points, but I was motivated enough by the promise of learning new indoor growing ideas to will myself out of bed and brave the stinging cold trek up to the Brick Works.

The workshop focused on two ways to grow plants indoors in a small space: green walls and terrariums. Even though the plants demonstrated were of the tropical, carnivorous, fern and moss variety, the same tools and techniques can be applied to edibles. Think herbs and lettuces. Keep in mind that edibles need a fair amount of sun to grow.

Green walls can be constructed a variety of ways. You could build a series of shelves or webbing to hold the plant containers vertically, or affix the containers directly to a wall, bookshelf, etc. For those who aren't DIY-inclined, a couple of great alternatives are Woolly Pockets or a plastic, modular wall planter kit. Evergreen purchased a few of the latter for us to try out.

I must admit, the kit is quite simple but brilliant. It's a hard plastic tray with slanted plant slots. A water tray with tiny holes fits into the top, and the water drizzles through channels down the tray. Another water tray sits at the bottom to collect excess moisture.

We threw in a few handfuls of regular potting mix into the slots, and stuffed the plants in. A bit of coir can be added on top to hold back any soil that wants to fall out once the kit is mounted on the wall.













The Evergreen staff also showed us a few of their own impressive vertical grow projects, including a series of hanging window edibles in upcycled pop bottles, an industrial planter made from an old electrical box, and sprouts growing from custom-made plastic tubes.




Next, we learned to construct a terrarium, which is basically a small enclosed ecosystem. Drainage rocks, potting mix, and maybe a little coir or Spanish moss is layered into a glass jar. Plants are planted, and about 1/4 cup of water is poured in. A cork or plexiglas stopper is fitted to seal the jar airtight. You can even turn the terrarium into a lamp stand by topping it with a lamp head. The lamp add-on serves as an additional source of light for the plants, not to mention changing the whole set-up to a wicked cool light fixture.





















The terrarium project really got me excited... it reminded me of Holly Handmade's crafted mushroom terrariums. I left the workshop feeling inspired, with crafty terrarium ideas stewing in my nog.