Indoor gardening anyone?

[LadySapphira]

So, I was wondering if anyone knows much about indoor gardening. I would love love love to try, but I don't know where to start really. For now I'm going to try to sprout but I'd really like to be able to grow herbs and tomatos, but I'm moving and won't have an outdoor garden anyways.

Any help is appreciated!

[Papa2X]

It's not hard at all as long as your plants have access to the sun's rays. I have a sun room with 3 sides of glass, and stuff grows just fine.... Just make sure to have the correct size container for your plants. I just moved a basil plant from a too small pot, to the right sized pot. It was nearly dead... Now, 2 days later it looks like it is in near perfect health! :)

[Juicing Juli]

Are you doing this with the purpose of just starting your plants indoors before planting outdoors? And, where do you live? Unless you do have a sun room or are in a mild climate, it might be difficult. I live in Chicago and start my seeds indoors in March for May planting outdoors....however I have not been that successful at keep plants alive during winter months, in general.


So, I was wondering if anyone knows much about indoor gardening. I would love love love to try, but I don't know where to start really. For now I'm going to try to sprout but I'd really like to be able to grow herbs and tomatos, but I'm moving and won't have an outdoor garden anyways.

Any help is appreciated!

[LadySapphira]

The where I live is part of the problem. I'm back and forth right now between Rochester, not very much sun here, but will be back a bit further southern NY soon. There's a bit more sun there, it's close to Albany (mid-NY state).

I don't have an outdoor garden, so I'm thinking of trying to garden completely indoors.

[Traceyraw]

I tried but my cats destroy everything. You can do hydroponics but it shoots your electric bill way up then they think your growing drugs. LOL. Wouldn't they be suprised with a raid of sprouts.

[dmb2002man]

Look into a hydroponic system. I run a 3 gallon 4 pot hydroponic system with 400 watt led light set on a timer. Its got a 20gph pump and two large air bubbles. My hydroponic barely added any electric $$$ on my bill and i run the light 8 hours a day and pump 24 hours 7 days a week. Been running my kit since october of last year.

http://grow-green.org/index.php?p=1_17_Hydroponics-System

[SunshineMN]

I'd love to start a garden with you, but I'm months away from starting it here. We need to refinish our livingroom early this summer before we have the room to grow. But we're definitely going to do it!

What kinds of things were you thinking of growing? I know you said herbs and tomatoes, grape tomatoes? I really want a chocolate mint and a pineapple mint plant. I'm still looking for a source for those. I'm going to grow a large container of cilantro maybe some basil or chives. And I have to grow a container of catnip! I wonder how hard it would be to grow a cucumber plant indoors. Definitely growing spinach, it's got the shortest grow time of almost any full sized green. I'm also going to look into getting an LED grow light to help save on electricity.

I love looking at Johnny's Seeds (http://www.johnnyseeds.com/) and figuring out what might work for growing indoors and in decent time frames to make it worthwhile to grow. :)

[dmb2002man]

I'd love to start a garden with you, but I'm months away from starting it here. We need to refinish our livingroom early this summer before we have the room to grow. But we're definitely going to do it!

What kinds of things were you thinking of growing? I know you said herbs and tomatoes, grape tomatoes? I really want a chocolate mint and a pineapple mint plant. I'm still looking for a source for those. I'm going to grow a large container of cilantro maybe some basil or chives. And I have to grow a container of catnip! I wonder how hard it would be to grow a cucumber plant indoors. Definitely growing spinach, it's got the shortest grow time of almost any full sized green. I'm also going to look into getting an LED grow light to help save on electricity.

I love looking at Johnny's Seeds (http://www.johnnyseeds.com/) and figuring out what might work for growing indoors and in decent time frames to make it worthwhile to grow. :)

here is my old post when i setup my hydroponic system. http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?66213-my-new-hydroponic-system So far i have gotten tomatoes, hot peppers and the spinach out of this system. Spinach is a very slow grower. My cucumber plant grew great under the led light but it took my hydro system over so i moved it to a drip pot. Cucumber, tomato each need there OWN space as they will grow and grow. I also relocated my tomato plant to a outdoor garden now as it got to big for the hydro system as it was 5 foot tall +. A hydro system is great for small plants, herbs, etc. I ended up painting my 3 gallon container in my old post to black so the roots were dark. The thing i didn't like about this system are the water changes. My system also submerged the roots in water 24/7 so you have a bigger chance of mold. I never had a issue with that though. The better hydro systems use a drip technique which is a better approach then soaking the roots in the nutrients/water 24/7. But i tell you what, my plants grew at a very very fast pace and the big plants will go out of control if you don't trim/cut them down or give them the space they need. The bigger the plants/roots got the harder it was for the changes. My brother has a garden outdoors and never much into it and couldn't believe how green my leaves were and how healthy they looked. But remember i ran my heat/air at 70 degrees daily and changed nutrients/water every 10 days using reverse osmosis. Also had a dual fan running so they plants thought they were outdoors. I gave the plants exactly what they wanted. I'm looking at building a hydro system with a drip tray setup in the next few months.

[SunshineMN]

I'm a little surprised about the spinach. I found a couple types of spinach that were 30-35 days maturity. The lettuces are all 40-60 days to maturity. I don't plan on using hydroponics, I'm going with good ole dirt and watering every thing by hand so to speak. Also, I'm very okay with them taking over my living space! I can't wait to be surrounded by living green.

I think it was your posts initially that got me interested in gardening indoors dmb. My grandpa had a huge garden when I was a kid. We always had fresh fruit and veggies (though the majority of veggies ended up cooked or canned) around in the summer. I didn't realize just how much I missed home grown food. There's just something special about fruits and veggies that are allowed to fully ripen before being harvested. The muskmelon I had this morning was hard... like a snappy apple. It wasn't very good.

[dmb2002man]

yeah dirt will do the job just fine but it will grow slower than a hydroponic system. Also watch out for bugs with using dirt indoors. My brother bought a apple tree from california and has it planted here in tx in his yard. I cant wait to see it produce!