DIY Tutorial: How to Make an Indoor Herb Garden

We are kicking off the first DIY Wednesday with a step-by-step DIY indoor herb garden tutorial courtesy of my awesome husband! We saw this idea on Pinterest a while ago, and after finding some old wood in our back alley (seriously), Andy decided he was going to attempt to make one for us.

The project ended up coming out so awesome that I immediately asked [forced/nagged] him to make a tutorial that I could blog. Thanks again to Andy for putting this DIY tutorial together!

How to Make a DIY Indoor Herb Garden

Materials:

• Reclaimed wood plank (or any piece of wood you prefer to use)
• Sand paper
• Plumbing clamps (x 4) – Make sure you get something that will fit the diameter of your Mason jars.  I used a 3”-5” clamp, which was probably a little too big, so make sure you get the right size.
• Wood screws – I used ½ inch #8 wood screws, but your size should depend on the thickness of the wood you’re using.  You want something that will go as far into the wood as possible without coming out the back.
• Mason jars (4)
• Something to fasten the herb garden to your wall.  I used 1-1/2”-2” wood screws and drilled directly into the wall studs, but some hollow wall anchors would work too if you don’t have a stud finder.

Tools:

• Chalk
• Measuring tape
• Saw
• Level (or something to draw a straight line)
• Philips head screwdriver
• Flat head screwdriver
• Hammer
• Drill (if you have one, otherwise you can get by with a screwdriver)
• Scrap piece of wood

Step by Step Directions:

Step 1. Lightly sand your piece of wood to get rid of any loose debris and clean it up.

Step 2. Cut your piece of wood to the appropriate length.  For my project, a 29” piece worked perfectly, but it’s really personal preference.  Make sure you measure the wall where you plan to put the herb garden so you know how much space you have to work with.

Step 3. Use a piece of chalk to draw a horizontal line directly across the center of your piece of wood.  You’ll use this as a marker to center the holes for your clamps so they’re evenly placed on the piece of wood.  I recommend using chalk instead of a pencil as you can easily wipe away the chalk guideline with a damp paper towel when you’re done.

Step 4. Take the total length of your piece of wood and divide it by 5 (assuming you’re using 4 jars… if you’re using more, divide the total length by one more than that total number of jars you have).  For my length of 29”, that came to 5.8”.  With your chalk, draw an ‘X’ or some sort of marker every 5.8”.  This will used as a marker to evenly space out your clamps.

Click inside for the rest of our DIY Indoor Herb Garden Tutorial!

Step 5. This part is a little tricky.  My drill wasn’t quite strong enough to drill directly through the clamp, so… using a flat head screw driver, hammer, and scrap piece of wood, punch a hole into the clamp wherever you plan to screw in the clamp.  I recommend unscrewing the clamp entirely so you have one long strip to work with.  Put the clamp on your piece of scrap wood so you have a hard surface to hammer into.  If you have a strong enough drill, you can probably skip this step.

hammer the screwdriver into the clamp

the resulting “hole” in the clamp

Step 6. Using your wood screws, fasten the clamps into the wood using the predetermined chalk lines that you drew.  You’ll want the screws to go as far into the wood as possible so the clamps are as flush with the piece of wood as possible.

Step 7. Tighten your clamps around the mason jars.  You want to tighten to clamps as tight as you can to secure them in place, but be careful not to tighten them too much… you don’t want to break the glass.

Step 8. Before you plant anything, fasten the herb garden to your wall.  I drilled it directly into the studs in my wall, but hollow wall anchors would work well too if you don’t have a stud finder.

Step 9. Unscrew the mason jars and plant your herbs, fool!

Step 10. Enjoy the heck out of your DIY indoor herb garden!

Let us know if you used our tutorial to make your own DIY Indoor Herb Garden! As always, we would LOVE to share the pics!