The journey is the destination - and we are always happy when the green path of indoor gardening yields beautiful flowers, tasty leaves or fruits! With its eight planting spaces, the GreenBox gives us plenty of opportunity to combine diverse plant species and try out new things.
With the GreenBox we can fulfill many horticultural desires around the year: We can grow herbs that we need regularly to refine. Or varieties that are not available everywhere. Or leafy vegetables that are just about to conquer the European market, such as komatsuna, mizuna or wasabi mustard herb. Likewise, in the bleak half of the year, we can revive our spirits with summer flowers. The GreenBox is also suitable for growing miniature varieties of plants as tall as a man, such as tomatoes. Finally, it is a great incubator and nursery for plants that we later want to move to larger pots or outdoors.
An early summer - with our own flowering splendor
Good news for all impatient: With the GreenBox we are independent of the outside summer, masters and mistresses of a sea of flowers, just when the weather has lost all color. With the Summer Meadow Mix we bring the colors and lightness of summer directly into our living room! The flowers of calendula and cornflower are also culinary superstars.
PlantPlugs feed a variety of plants, including many species of flowers. If winter's gloomy weather outlook offers no hope of improvement, we reach for seeds and PlantPlugs! The imitation daylight of the GreenBox gives the seeds the carefree feeling of summer. So we can enjoy our personal sea of flowers 5 - 7 weeks after sowing.
If herbs and leafy greens are mostly for the cooking pot or salad bowl, most of us plant our flowers for purely visual enjoyment. With flowers like the Petunia we should do the same: While it is poisonous, its proud funnel flowers always evoke the feeling of a warm summer day when viewed. In addition, the again non-toxic Purslane floret with its many small delightful flowers small lights in several colors.
Many kinds of flowers can embellish not only our living room, but also the plate, tea or cake: so enchants us the all-round genius Marigold (also known as calendula) enchants us on the one hand with the bright yellow-orange of its blossoms. In addition, naturopathy makes use of the soothing effect of calendula on skin injuries, while the golden yellow of the petals also adds highlights to salads. The unmistakable blue of the Cornflower somehow always reminds us of a cornfield and thus brings a breeze of country life into our home. Whether fresh or dried, this royal blue accents dips or cheese plates.
Beyond the occupation of the summer meadow mix, we have also worked with decorative dwarf sunflowers experimented. After sowing, we have seen rapid growth success. Sunflowers need space for their roots, even the smallest representatives of their species - either in the garden or the flower pot: properly staged, the friendly faces of sunflowers give the balcony or living room a touch of Tuscany.
With the GreenBox to Southern America: Of treetops and fireballs
Come with us to the jungle! The branched tree crowns of our cherry tomatoes are reminiscent of a jungle. The dwarf tomato Cherry Hail grows about 20 am high and definitely catches the eye.
Many of us usually only know the tomato when it is ripe, as it is wrapped in plastic in the vegetable section waiting for us to pick it up. When we pick up the Cherry Tomato Cherry Hail as it grows, this picture expands: we can easily pollinate the small pale yellow flower with a paintbrush - as well as by hand, gently brushing through its blossoms as they display their pollen. After pollination, the flower initially produces a tiny fruiting body, pale green and the size of a pin. Day by day, the volume of these small spheres increases until they begin to glow red!
Together with the mini tomato has the Cherry Tomato and Chili Mix relatively mild Chili plants in stock. The hardworking Spicy Passion brings even more glamor to the forest with its smooth leaves and bright pods, and forms new fruit again after harvest.
GreenBox - whether practical, lush or otherwise.
Dill and calendula, pak choi and cornflower? We plant what we want! With the 24 PlantPlugs of the Experimental Set we are always flexible.
The PlantPlug sets like the Super Vitamin Mix or Asian Leafy Vegetables offer arranged and already proven planting programs to provide us with herbs or leafy vegetables for preparing healthy dishes or drinks such as smoothies. The Asian and the Italian Herb Blend provides us with the herbal essentials for the respective country's cuisines. The PlantPlugs of the Experimental Set come pure and are available to us for various planting experiments. So, on the one hand, we can grow herbs that are not available in every (super)market. On the other hand, we can simply plant in quantities what we simply can't get enough of.
The PlantPlugs of the Experimental Set are - as in our PlantPlug Sets - the perfect nutrient medium for our plants: The substrate cones contain all the vital nutrients for herbs, salads, flowers or fruits to germinate, grow and thrive. Of course, they are free of all biocides, genetically modified substances or otherwise harmful substances.
The GreenBox - for the best start in the life of larger plants
What gardener does not dream of zucchini in various forms?
A forest of man-sized tomato trees?
Cucumbers for salad or cocktail?
The GreenBox is the perfect cradle and nursery for many large plants!
Cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants & Co: they are all stately plants, they all have one thing in common: a love of warmth. Central and northern European gardeners, with their love of these vegetables, in turn face a major challenge: the plants need a majority of sunny months from sowing to harvesting. After all, they must first reach a certain size to produce their coveted fruits. Often, these then also need a few more weeks to reach their tasty ripeness.
However, the growing season for heat-loving plants in our latitudes is extremely limited, firstly in terms of sunshine hours, and secondly in terms of temperatures. Even if just March of this year (2022) with its abundant sunshine hours showed itself from the best side in many places, ambitious gardeners should not lull themselves into a sense of security too early and take advantage of the sunlight by planting their favorites outdoors. Because until about mid-May, temperatures can still drop so sharply, especially at night, that our tropical guests suffer cold death outside.
If you start only in mid-May (after the so-called Ice Saints, the last night frosts of the fading winter half-year) with the sowing, summer and early autumn can be already past, before the fruits are large enough to begin with the maturity like e.g. tomatoes, Chillies or peppers. Also, in a golden October, the number of daily hours of sunlight is simply much shorter than in July. Therefore, it makes sense to bring forward the crops - some of them very exotic - in the protected indoor space under ideal conditions. In due course, we can finally put them outdoors with a handsome growth advantage.
It all depends on the right time
In the GreenBox, heat-loving plants can spend an undisturbed childhood: With the cozy temperatures of our indoor rooms and the abundant imitation daylight of the LED technology, our smart indoor garden offers the best starting conditions for the large plants. Then, once we have the aforementioned icemen (mid-May) behind us, our green friends no longer need to freeze outdoors at night after being amply supplied with energy during the day by the sun, the unsurpassed archetype of light.
The adult plants of the seeds in our collection are all suitable to spend their entire plant life in the GreenBox, where they are well supplied with the nutrients of the PlantPlugs and GreenBox Booster. Nevertheless, our herbs, flowers and leafy vegetables can also be relocated to a large pot on the balcony, a raised bed, a flower border or the vegetable garden. There, their roots have more room to develop, which is not infrequently noticeable in the more stately size of the planted basil, dill, etc.
The end of March / beginning of April is a good time to start pre-growing tomatoes, basil and cucumbers. If you want to celebrate Halloween with your own pumpkin, you should put the corresponding seeds into the PlantPlug in mid-April. For sowing zucchini in the GreenBox is time until the end of April / beginning of May.
In our trial phase
Who does not know them, the sweet and sour Physalis or Cape gooseberry, whose protective fruit shell is reminiscent of a lantern that is dry and straw-like when ripe. Mostly, we are only familiar with the ensembles of fruit and lampion, as they either decorate a cocktail well draped or can be found crammed together with their peers in a small, cube-shaped basket or carton in the fruit department.
In our trial period, we experience the physalis plant is very grateful: Not only does it grow quite fast, so that in due time you have to move it to a pot on the windowsill or to the warm(!) outdoors. It also looks very beautiful in the process. Already after a few weeks the plant forms its first fruits, which again we can enjoy after a few weeks.
Also growing rapidly our subject Baby eggplant. For fruits, however, you need patience. The roots of the eggplant definitely need more space than in the GreenBox, at least if it is also to form fruit. Important for growing all eggplants: include ripening time, because eggplants harvested too early contain too much of the toxic solanine, which hits us in the stomach. The ripe eggplant still has a shiny skin, at the same time it gives a little when light pressure.
We are eager to see the results of the recently sown snack peppers and the round zucchini. Especially we are curious about the mini cucumberswhich with their long tendrils will certainly do very well in a hanging basket. Such an edible highlight certainly not everyone has on the balcony.