Hello and welcome to my mesocosm blog!

To all the people who made it here and are wondering what are the following updates about and what even is a mesocosm… Keep on reading!

Mesocosm– an enclosed environment that allow a small part of a natural environment to be observed under controlled conditions.

Terrarium– a small transparent container (e.g. glass or plastic) in which selected plants (or animals) are kept and observed.

Mesocosm blog– my biology class’ summer project where we are instructed to create an enclosed terrarium to observe our plants inside and hope they won’t die over the given period.

More from Bioninja HERE

In the first entry I will share a little recipe of my mesocosm (provided with a photo shoot of it, because it simply is (was) beautiful at the start of the wild mesocosm journey). Enjoy! ❤

Laura’s Ecosystem

Because I live in the capital city during summer, I sadly did not have an opportunity to pick my plants from my backyard or a forest near. The plants are from Hortes, my favourite gardening mall. That’s what I hoarded:

3L jar

Pebbles (stolen from a mall’s car parking lot to keep my budget on the low-low)

Houseplant soil

Water

Sea thrift (Armeria martima)

Lobelia (Lobelia erinus)

Rabbit’s Foot (Humata tyermanii)

Basil (Ocimum basilicum) 

The Basil I used was actually from our previous project in biology where we had to breed basil clones. For that project I experimented with GMO free, local bred basil and later tried to clone a GMO basil plant. I planted both versions in my current terrarium.

1. Fill the jar with pebbles

This will help to drain the water to the bottom.

2. Add the soil

Just do it……….

3. Trim your plants and plant them inside

I learned that it works best when smaller and shorter plants are chosen. The limited space with the pebbles and soil already added is quite surprising.

4. H2O, just add water

I did not know how much water should be added, so I could have possibly already doomed my whole study just by over-watering the whole thing.

5. Put the lid on

And leave it that way.

6. Put the mesocosm somewhere exposed to the sunlight

I put it on my window ledge so my neighbors who see part of my window would question whether my room is a lab of scary weird experiments.

I will keep you updated on my ecosystem. Until then, here are some pictures of the start of the project! 🙂