Hanging Gardens NOT of Babylon

Who doesn’t love fresh grown herbs or lovely green plants?

Nobody! That’s who!

“Sure, JokerDAS, I do love me some lovely green plants, but I live in an apartment! Just how do you expect me to have a garden?” you ask.

Well, let me answer your question with a question of my own… do you have a window?

“Well, yes.”

Alright, then you can grow plants in your window.

“But it’s not the kind of windows that can have a window box.” You reply.

Have you considered a hanging garden?

“Like that AWESOME structure in Babylon?”

Well, no, not the mythical Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but a small scale garden that can hang in a window!

"But I have seen hanging planters before! They nice and all, but I can't add hooks to my ceiling!"

That is the beauty of this hanging garden! No hooks! No holes! Portable and customizable to any number of plants!

This is how I made a hanging garden for my window out of materials I already had!

Here is the stuff I used to make my hanging garden:

• Empty plastic soda bottles. I used 6
• A spring tension shower curtain rod
• String – Approximately 25 feet
• Soil
• Seedlings or seeds
• Paper clips – I used 12

Tools:

• Scissors
• Exacto knife
• Marker
• Wire cutter
• Pliers
• Hand held hole-puncher

1. Peel the labels from the bottles.
2. Wash them out.
3. With the marker, make a small mark at approximately the middle of the bottle.
4. At the opposite side of the bottle make another small mark at the same location.
5. Rotate the bottle a quarter turn.
6. Make a mark between the two previous marks, but this time, make it about 1 inch further up the bottle than the other two.
7. Make the final mark exactly opposite the third mark.
8. Again, with the marker, connect the lines with sweeping curves.
9. With the knife, CAREFULLY cut into the bottle at the line.
10. With the scissors, cut along the curving line.
11. This will separate the bottle into two seedling bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs.
12. The purpose of the sweeping edges is so there is something to attach the bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs to.
13. With the hole-punch, pop a hole in the center of the up-sweep edges of each bottle-pot-a-ma-jig.
14. Repeat for all the bottles.

Well, you have 12 bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs, now you have to make the hanger-thangers.

1. Start with a paper clip.
2. Straighten it out.
3. With the wire cutters, cut it in half.
4. With the needle nose pliers, make a very small ring at one end of each half of the wire.
5. Repeat until you have enough for each bottle-pot-a-ma-jig.

1. Measure out 48 inches of string.
2. Tie one hanger-thanger to each end of the string.
3. Lay out the stringy-thingy into a long “U” shape.
4. Make sure both sides are the same length.
5. Lay one bottle-pot-a-ma-jig at the end with the hanger-thangers.
6. Lay another bottle-pot-a-ma-jig about halfway up the length of the stringy-thingy.
7. Tie another set of hanger-thangers at this point along the stringy-thingy.
8. Repeat 3 more times.
9. Measure out 36 inches of string. These will be the offset stringy-thingies.
10. Tie one hanger-thanger to each end of the string.
11. Repeat 2 more times

You now have 7 stringy-thingies with a total of 11 hanger-thangers.

"But JokerDAS, why only 11 hanger-thangers, when we have 12 bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs?" You inquire.

Two reasons: One, the off-set style of my hanging garden only required 11 bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs. Two, the lonely remaining bottle-pot-a-ma-jig makes a super-duper scooper to add soil to the hanging bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs without making a mess!

1. Place the spring loaded curtain rod on the inside window area against the walls or window frame. Make sure it is tight enough to stay in place.
2. Take one of the long stringy-thingies, and fold it in half.
3. At the folded end, loop it over the rod-a-ma-whatsis. Leave enough space in the loop to pull the two ends of the stringy-thingy back through securing it to the rod-a-ma-whatsis. Try to make each side of the stringy-thingy the same length so the hanger-thangers are at the same points.
4. Next, take a shorter stringy-thingy and loop it around just like the first stringy-thingy.
5. Repeat this alternating between long stringy-thingies and short stringy-thingies, until all stringy-thingies are used.

This is where you hang the bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs on the hanger-thangers that are tied to the stringy-thingies looped over the rod-a-ma-whatsis.

Following so far? Good!

1. Feed one of the wire hanger-thanger through a punched hole on one of the bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs.
2. Bend the wire to hold the bottle-pot-a-ma-jig in place.
3. Repeat with the corresponding hanger-thanger on the other end of the stringy-thingy. Your bottle-pot-a-ma-jig is now hanging. (You may need to adjust your stringy-thingies to make the bottle-pot-a-ma-jig level.)
4. Repeat for the remaining 10 bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs.

Carefully add some of the potting soil to each of the bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs.

If you are planting herbs from seeds, then you can fill each bottle-pot-a-ma-jig to the top, otherwise, leave enough space to add your seedlings.

Water as needed and watch it grow!

There you have it!

A super-low cost, hanging herb, flower, (or for your wild ones, BOTH) garden for almost a dozen little plants. It takes up very little space and is easy to move around and easy to water. If by chance you over water some of the bottle-pot-a-ma-jigs, you can just unscrew the lid from the bottom and the excess water can drip into the bottle-pot-a-ma-jig beneath it!

Alternately, this makes a great project for young’uns! Particularly, classrooms teaching the plant life cycle!

I hope you enjoyed this.
And as always, thank you for checking out my Instructable!