If you live in a city apartment or have a house with very limited gardening areas, this is an instructable to show you how to grow your own vegetables and herbs easily, inexpensively and with little maintenance and watering.

I made this Mini Biogarden when I was living in an apartment that had a large terrace but no place to plant anything other than flowers. I also knew I would move in a few months so I wanted my mini garden to be portable.

Since I lived in a very dry and sunny area I was worried about efficient water usage, so I decided to search for a UV resistant plastic film. I bought a piece of 1.5m in length and 1m wide for less than $2! It was double sided like a tube, so you only need to close it on one side first (using a stapler for instance, or glue) to make a kind of a huge plastic bag.

Step 1: Build a Wooden Frame (optional)

For aesthetic purposes mainly I decided to first build a wooden frame where the plastic base for the biogarden would sit on. This is an optional step, although it provides a bit of a structure for the plastic container, the frame is not really so necessary, but would help if you added a wooden base to the frame like a box and then you can also easily transport the biogarden by lifting the wooden box.

The size of the frame is very flexible and it will depend on the size of the garden you want to make and also the size of the plastic you can get.

Step 2: Place Your Plastic Roll Inside the Frame and Fill It Up With Dirt

If you made a frame just place the plastic roll inside and then fill it up as much as you can with dirt. I used dirt from my family's garden but in my case I would have used about 4 large bags of dirt from a gardening supply store.

You can also plant seeds directly and wait for them to grow, however I found that it was easier and more effective to buy tiny lettuce, carrots, onions and cilantro seedlings. You save about 3-4 weeks if you do this.

Step 3: Plant Your Seeds or Seedlings Directly

Once you have your plastic container full of dirt you will make holes along the upper plastic cover so that there is enough space for the seedlings to be planted and to grow.

Plant your chosen seeds or buy some seedlings and plant them directly into the container. Here I planted 5 different vegetables and herbs, you can try with many different vegetables and plants that don't need deeper soil to grow, like potatoes, although you could also make this container higher and even grow potatoes.

Finally, don't forget to water your mini garden. Since it's made from plastic, in the area where I lived I didn't need to make wholes in the lower part of the plastic for the water to drain. The warm and dry air in the deserted area where I tried this was strong enough to evaporate the humidity after 3 to 4 couple of days, without the plastic, the humidity wouldn't have lasted more than 2 days.