Miniature gardens

With this mini garden, you can ring in the planting season on your windowsill and enjoy the process. This small pouch is equipped with the best garden soil and the finest seeds. Simply cut open the pouch, scatter the seeds in the soil, keep it moist, and place your mini garden in a warm, sunny spot. With a little love and patience, you will soon be able to proudly watch the first steps of your sprouts.

To ensure successful cultivation, you will find instructions and special planting tips for each variety inside the seed packet. If your sprouts outgrow their home and you have enough space, simply tear open the pouch and plant them outdoors.

What is a cultivation kit?

Cultivation is simply the act of growing young plants. They resemble children in many ways; both need plenty of care, love, and time, as well as favorable conditions to grow. Do you long for your own homegrown vegetables or fresh herbs, but are new to the cultivation business? Then you've come to the right place!

We call our kits mini gardens, but they shouldn't be confused with small miniature green spaces. They are there for anyone who wants to start their little protégés indoors without exposing them to the whims of nature too early. Because sometimes you just can't do it without cultivation. Some plant varieties, such as cucumbers and tomatoes, or even pumpkins, are not native to this area and therefore need different conditions to survive. They need the warmth and protection of your home or a greenhouse so that they are strong enough to withstand the demands of nature later on. Starting plants at home is very common and prevents seedlings from dying too soon because the weather happened to be unpredictable. This also applies to domestic vegetable and fruit varieties! While it is much more likely that they would germinate happily in a garden bed without help, prior cultivation speeds up the process and ultimately leads to a higher yield.

The right timing

Now you know what plant cultivation is all about. But at least as important as the why is the when, because the right timing for cultivation and sowing can make a big difference and often determines the success of your harvest. Since you're already here, we’ve put together a rough overview for you:

To find the right variety for you, you can also use the "Sowing in" filter at the top of this page

Cultivation – How does it work?

Once you know when to grow your little plants, it's time to place their seeds on moist seed compost and press them down lightly. Seed compost is ideal for developing plants as it is particularly low in salt and pathogens. This helps your protégés grow strong and less susceptible to disease. After gently pressing them down, cover the seeds with a little soil—ideally as deep as the size of the seed, and certainly no more than 1 to 2 cm. But be careful! The exception to this rule is light-germinating seeds; these should barely be covered, if at all, so they can soak up enough sun.

Light-germinating seeds in our cultivation kits include: Basil, dill, mint, oregano, coneflower, thyme, lavender, chamomile, carrot, wild garlic, lettuce, rosemary, lemon balm. But don't worry: the planting instructions included with each variety also describe exactly how to do it.

Let love germinate! And your plants, too

If you are still hesitant about placing the seeds directly onto the soil, you can of course pre-soak them to be on the safe side. There are special swelling tablets available to help you with this.

Our cultivation kits naturally contain high-quality seed compost, which creates the perfect growing conditions for your green friends. While there are mini greenhouses available for home use that offer plants an optimal climate, our sturdy cultivation kit pouch also creates good conditions for this. Furthermore, your plant needs to be able to breathe; you can simply poke a few holes in the cover for this purpose. If you haven't pre-germinated them in swelling tablets, you must keep the seeds moist. It is best to use rainwater or water that is low in lime for this. If you only have hard water at home, you can soften it with water filters. Dry seeds will not start to germinate, so double-check that the seed compost is as moist as it should be.

After that, it is important to keep the container in a place that is as warm and sunny as possible. In this case, warm means a pleasant room temperature of 22-25 degrees, although this can, of course, vary from variety to variety. Now, all you need is patience. Depending on the type of plant, it can take a few weeks before the first shoots see the light of day.

After germination

Since young plants, like small children, are very fragile, you should leave them alone for a while. If you see the first green stems sprouting, you must make sure to avoid waterlogging, as this could harm your young plant in the long run. Have you forgotten if you already watered them this morning? It happens! Simply touch the soil to see how moist it is. Once the first shoots are visible, it is also important to bring the ambient temperature down to approximately 18 degrees.

Pricking out plants

Pricking out simply means transplanting your young plants further apart or separating them. This must be done when they are getting in each other's way and the small stems are already sticking about 10 centimeters out of the soil. By then, they are strong enough to survive the move. Carefully dig up the plants and separate the roots from one another. This is best done with a small spoon or a pricking tool. Such a tool is particularly useful if you intend to start plants more often.

When transplanting, be careful not to damage as few fine roots as possible, as the plant uses these to absorb water. Once you have successfully moved them into their own pots, they can now develop good root balls. Incidentally, there is special pricking-out soil that contains some fertilizer, unlike seed compost, to encourage root growth.

The big repotting

If your pricked-out plants become too large for their pots, you can now either let them out into your garden or get a larger planter.

Of course, you don't just have to repot the plants you've grown yourself, but also your other houseplants from time to time. Take a look at their roots. If they are growing upwards or already coming out of the drainage holes at the bottom, your plant is trying to tell you that it desperately needs more room to spread out. You should always look out for this when buying plants to see if you need to repot them.