Joanna's City Garden

Joanna is a guru of city gardening and the author of the widely read guidebook, “Just Plant It: How to Start Growing Your Own Vegetables.” She and her husband, Darek, are hosts of a podcast where they share their urban gardening expertise with novice and veteran soil-turners alike. This year she decided to mount an airy Elfa system in her small garden room to create space for all the plants she wished to start cultivating.

Joanna starts the cultivation by sowing the plants – this usually happens in the winter months when it’s cold outside. The seedlings remain indoors until the Spring when the weather gets warmer. After which there is additional space in the house that gets allocated to flowerpots and mini greenhouses.

Joanna has a dedicated room where her seedlings spend the Winter months. The room is small and needs to be kept well organized so that the work with the plans can run smoothly and cleanly.

Daylight is crucial for plants. Light enters the room through a glass door and a skylight that sits opposite the shelving unit. Joanna has acquired a clever storage solution that includes ventilated shelves and baskets in various sizes, and since the unit is hung on the wall it keeps the room from feeling overwhelmed.

With the click-in system, shelves can easily be adjusted to adapt the height of the plants as they grow.

Joanna installed a wall-hung Elfa storage solution in Platinum in her workspace. By using ventilated shelves and a special UV lamp, light can reach plants placed near the bottom of the unit - helping them grow faster. In addition to allowing light to pass through them, the ventilated shelves also allow air to flow freely through the room. Access to daylight is essential in the seedling room and the system that Joanna furnished the room with provides for a bright and airy environment that’s perfect for the young plants.

When it’s time to move the seedlings outdoors, the ventilated shelves, in their various sizes, can easily be rearranged for the next project.

When Joanna first asked us for help designing the room and to create a proposal for a solution, we never imagined what a pleasure it would be to watch the plants blossom. Slowly but surely the entire Elfa system is turning green!

Gliding mesh baskets were installed at the base of the unit so that Joanna had a place to store additional seeds and accessories. There’s now space for all of Joanna’s plants and gardening tools in the seedling room.

Joanna also mounted mesh baskets to the hang standards to store excess seeds – the airy design keeps them from being damaged by moisture.

Joanna used the following products:

Hang standard platinum

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Wire shelf platinum

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Gliding mesh drawer platinum

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A storing board with diverse accessories has been mounted on the wall by the door. Hooks and tool holders in various sizes are perfect for hanging gear and the transparent boxes give a full overview of the seed collection. The reversible shelf can be used as an added work surface.

Joanna used the following products:

Storing board platinum

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Shelf/tray reversible metal platinum

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Small wire shelf basket platinum

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Tall box for Storage track and board

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Basic double hook platinum

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Board hook long platinum

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Joanna is the author of the widely read guidebook, “Just Plant It: How to Start Growing Your Own Vegetables.” On Instagram she proves that you can easily grow your own greens even if you live in the middle of a big city and she has created a wonderful community of amateur gardeners.

Follow Joanna on Instagram at @poprostuposadź