How to Build Your Own Seed Sprouting Shelves With PVC

Sprout more seeds in the same amount of floor space with a seed-sprouting high rise. Sprouting seeds indoors while the weather's still cold gives your garden a head start in the spring. Create a frame for standard commercial propagation trays from lightweight, inexpensive PVC pipe. When the sprouts are moved outdoors, clean the frame with a spray from a garden hose and disassemble it for storage until the next growing season.

24-inch-long, schedule 40 PVC pipes, 10
Schedule 40 90-degree side outlet elbows, 8
6-inch-long, schedule 40 PVC pipes, 10
15-inch-long schedule 40 PVC pipes, 16
Schedule 40 four-way, side outlet cross fittings, 12
Rubber mallet

Instructions

- 1
  Place two 24-inch pieces of schedule 40 PVC pipe on the ground with the pipes’ ends on the left and right. Place a 90-degree side outlet PVC fitting on each end of both pipes, so that one open end points up and one toward the other pipe. Place two 6-inch pieces of PVC pipe in the horizontal openings making a rectangle. This becomes the frame’s bottom.
- 2
  Insert four pieces of 15-inch pipe in the four vertical openings. These pipes stick straight up. Place a side outlet cross fitting on the top of each pipe so that one opening points straight up and the others are aligned with the angles of the fittings below them.
- 3
  Build the second layer of the frame by installing 6-inch pipe lengths in the openings that run parallel to the frame’s sides and 24-inch pipes in the openings running parallel to the front and back. Add pipes and fittings making two more tiers for the frame.
- 4
  Add four more 15-inch vertical pipes. Place a 90-degree angle side-outlet elbow fitting on each pipe’s top. Turn the fittings so that the orientations of the two remaining openings on each fitting match the orientations of the horizontal openings on the lower fittings. Install two 6-inch pipes on the sides and two 24-inch fittings on the front and back to build the top of the frame.
- 5
  Tapping the all the fittings with a rubber mallet presses them firmly onto the pipes.

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