# Indoor Mini Lawns



## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

In an attempt to combat the boredom that comes with wintertime in the cool season turf region, I decided to grow some "mini lawns" indoors. I bought a few clear plastic shoe boxes and drilled holes in the bottoms of them to provide drainage. I filled them with potting soil and planted grass seed. I have these mini lawns on my seed starting shelf under standard fluorescent tube lights. They will soon be side-by-side with peppers, tomatoes, and a host of other plants that I start from seed indoors for the coming year's vegetable garden.

I planted the mini lawns in early November.

100% Mazama KBG



100% Perennial Ryegrass 


50/50 Mazama KBG /PRG


I'm using seedling heat mats to keep the temps in the root zone in the upper 60s. I'm "mowing them every day or two with household scissors. Waiting for KBG to mature is trying my patience with this as much as it did with my partial reno this past fall.


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

This is really interesting......and a great idea. This might be great for someone with a warm season lawn who is wanting to plug some bare spots.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

I wanted to have a big, permanent one, like 20x20 feet someday. Reason was, I thought at one point I was moving to a warm-season-grass-only area (FL), and couldn't stand the thought of leaving my grass behind and having to grow only warm-season weeds as grass. I was totally upset about it. Thankfully, that never happened.


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## MNLawnGuy1980 (May 10, 2019)

Mine aren't so much a mini lawn, just some seeds I threw in a couple extra mugs. I am pretty sure I saw someone on here do it and thought it would be fun. I started them a few months back and they are still going strong. PRG / *** mix of some seeds I had left over in the garage.


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## ThePowerTool (Dec 15, 2019)

This is pretty cool, I've thought about doing something similar to have grass on hand to repair bare patches in the spring. My neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks which makes snow removal easy, but also means that local dogs are constantly walking on the edges of my grass and using it as their restroom; therefore I'm always patching the edges.

Two questions for you:

You mention using florescent lights and it looks like those are in your basement: does that grass get any actual sunlight or do you just use the florescent lights?

Do you fertilize that grass? If so, what type of fert and how much?


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

Using no direct sunlight,I've grown indoor gardens before using metal halide lamps and it works well. You can also get cheap led arrays that will do great. I grew tomatoes and pepper starter plants, I'm sure grass would do the same.


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## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

ThePowerTool said:


> This is pretty cool, I've thought about doing something similar to have grass on hand to repair bare patches in the spring. My neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks which makes snow removal easy, but also means that local dogs are constantly walking on the edges of my grass and using it as their restroom; therefore I'm always patching the edges.
> 
> Two questions for you:
> 
> ...


I have a couple egress windows on the south side of the basement that provide some sunlight, but I would say it contributes very little.

I've applied a little MiracleGro 10-10-10 liquid houseplant fertilizer, but haven't applied any lawn fert yet. Each of my containers is maybe 1 square foot, so the amount of fert needed for an app would be very miniscule. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to dissolve urea or ammonium sulfate and use a small spray bottle to apply it. I suppose I could apply liquid humic that way also.


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## ThePowerTool (Dec 15, 2019)

SteveB said:


> ThePowerTool said:
> 
> 
> > This is pretty cool, I've thought about doing something similar to have grass on hand to repair bare patches in the spring. My neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks which makes snow removal easy, but also means that local dogs are constantly walking on the edges of my grass and using it as their restroom; therefore I'm always patching the edges.
> ...


Interesting. How long do you expect your mini-lawns to survive? You've sparked my curiosity so I was looking online and I'm seeing most places suggest that it won't be for very long.


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## MassHole (Jun 27, 2018)

Link to the heated seed mat?


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

MassHole said:


> Link to the heated seed mat?


Amazon search, "seedling heat mat".


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## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

ThePowerTool said:


> Interesting. How long do you expect your mini-lawns to survive? You've sparked my curiosity so I was looking online and I'm seeing most places suggest that it won't be for very long.


I'm not sure how long these will survive. I think the potting soil becomes devoid of nutrients pretty quickly. Maybe I can combat somewhat with fert. Potting soil also lacks the inorganic matter, i.e. clay, silt, and sand, typical of native soils. I also wonder how cool season grass can handle a constant temperature environment with no day/night variation or seasonality. I guess we will see.

I seeded the KBG mini lawn relatively sparingly, as I want to see if it will fill in via rhizomes. Ideally it will fill in nicely at the 1/2" to 3/4" HOC prior to calling it quits.


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## cfinden (Aug 7, 2018)

I got a mini lawn for Christmas. Guessing either annual or perennial rye because it came up in 4 days.


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## NoslracNevok (Jun 12, 2018)

Great side fun! I keep procrastinating doing my 4 different sample varieties. This weekend!


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## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

Quick update on the Mazama KBG mini lawn-

I continue to cut it daily at ~1/2". I decided to leave it somewhat sparse rather than re-seeding the bare spots. The mini lawn is about 3.5 months old, and I am now seeing quite a bit of spreading via rhizomes. It's pretty cool to see it fill in. I've fertilized once with ammonium sulfate and a few times with light doses of liquid 10-10-10. I'm due for another fert app, and might apply some humic as well. I haven't decided if I will move the mini lawns outside this spring or just leave them as "houseplants".


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