Thinking Inside And Outside The Box Simultaneously
A mint tin is a “box” of sorts. It’s a small box; one only a half inch tall, around three inches wide, and around two long.
However, it’s still a box. Most people look at the hinges, branding, and paper of a mint tin and decide it’s just garbage. After the mints are eaten, what could it possibly be used for? Maybe as a case for buttons or thread, not much else.
However, there’s always something additionally imaginative which you can do with common household items. A mint tin can be a case, or, it can act as a miniature plot of land for a tiny garden. Seriously, this trend is picking up steam, and it makes plenty of sense why. Mint tin gardens are downright darling, easy to move, and easy to grow—relatively.
With any horticultural exploit, you’ll have to put the right soil in the right place, the right seeds in that soil, shine the right light on those seeds, and properly irrigate your burgeoning plants. However, these things aren’t terribly complicated once you figure out what you need to do, and how.
Following will closely look into DIY mint tin gardens, and how to make them.
First: Prepare Your Tin
While preparing a mint tin is straightforward, there are some best practices to consider. For example, you don’t just want to put soil in the tin, plant a seed, and start pouring water on things.
Here’s the thing: if you do that, you’re going to “flood” the tin, and you’ll more swiftly initiate rust. Likely you’ll have a little rust with time anyway, but there are better tactics—also, spraying the metal down with a little WD-40 beforehand can help you reduce rust.
First, take off the lid of the mint tin. Oftentimes you can just pop it off, you might have to unbend the metal, unscrew it, or clip it off. Then, you want to look at the bottom of the tin. Are there holes in it? Probably not! You’ll need to put some there. You can use a hole-punch tool if your hands are strong enough, or just a screwdriver and a blunt instrument. Drills work too.
Once you’ve got a half dozen small holes evenly distributed on the bottom of the tin, your next step will be to put the lid underneath the little metal box. Now you put in the soil and seeds. This allows the water to drain out the bottom safely, and to properly portion your irrigation.
Second: Put The Right Seeds In
Certainly, anyone with the will to succeed can have some level of success growing almost any plant in their mint tin garden. However, many plants grow to the size of the boundaries around their roots. Some plants won’t do as well as others in your mint tin garden. You’ll want to be strategic here.
Flowers, grass, actual “mint”, bamboo shoots, vines—these can be excellent choices for your mint tin garden. If you’re not sure where to start, you can visit the following site for some good seed collections. There are plenty of fine options, and you can sometimes grow more than one plant in each mint tin.
Third: Grow Your Garden
Once you’ve got one—or a couple—mint tins prepared as miniature garden plots, now you want to properly water the little plants you’re growing, and assure they’ve got proper light. If you can’t put them in a window, get a lamp for the purpose. It’s best to put mint tin gardens in a window near a regular, but not harsh, source of light.
Designing An Exquisitely Tiny Garden In A Mint Tin
Whether you have grown a garden or not, there are quite a few potential positive outcomes for going the mint tin route. It’s affordable, it’s straightforward, it’s simple, and you’ve even got some fine customization options. For example, you can put different plants in different mint tins, then shuffle them around into configurations where foliage overgrows planter boundaries.
Final
If you’ve never considered this alternative before, you might want to. It’s a stylish means of fostering an interior garden. Also, plants are well known to clean the atmosphere wherever they are. So plenty of benefits exist beyond the aesthetic ones. Mint tin gardens are worth your time, perhaps try one out!
