Indoor gardening has become increasingly popular in recent years, as more people discover the many benefits of growing plants inside their homes. From improving air quality to providing fresh herbs and vegetables, indoor gardening offers numerous advantages. However, it also comes with its own set of challenges, such as limited space, lighting issues, and potential pest problems. In this post, we will explore the pros and cons of indoor gardening to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.
The Benefits Of Indoor Gardening
Improve Air Quality: One of the biggest benefits of indoor gardening is the improvement it can have on indoor air quality. Plants are natural air purifiers, removing toxins and pollutants from the air and releasing oxygen. Indoor plants can also increase humidity levels, which can be beneficial in dry environments or during the winter months when indoor heating can dry out the air.
Additionally, specific plants like aloe vera and spider plants have been shown to effectively absorb harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene commonly found in indoor environments. This can help reduce the risk of respiratory issues and promote overall health and well-being.
Improve Mental Health: In addition to improving air quality, indoor gardening can also have a positive impact on mental health. Studies have shown that spending time around plants can reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood, and promote relaxation. Caring for plants can also provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment, which can be especially beneficial for those dealing with depression or other mental health issues.
In fact, some researchers suggest that indoor gardening can even help alleviate symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that typically occurs during the winter months when there is less natural sunlight. Furthermore, the act of caring for plants has been found to increase levels of dopamine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters that are associated with feelings of happiness and well-being. So, incorporating indoor gardening into one’s routine can be a simple yet effective way to improve mental health.
Indoor gardening ranges from a potted plant hanging by the window to full-fledged hydroponic systems with grow lights, nutrient and water delivery systems and sensors. The ideal setup for you depends on what you want to raise and the value you place on the crops.
What Are the Benefits of Indoor Gardening with Grow Lights?
One of the top benefits of indoor gardening with artificial lighting is that you can grow plants out of season. It’s so cool because you can expose flowering plants to red light for example, and watch them bloom, just as if they were planted outside because you are providing the right conditions for growth. This benefit allows you to grow greens and blooms that usually grow in the spring or summer in the winter time.
Grow lights that let you put out specific wavelengths allow you to optimize for leaf growth or flowers. You end up with a higher yield for the part of the plant you want.
Another benefit of indoor gardening under grow lights is that you can grow plants that don’t normally grow in your area where you live at. This means that semi-tropical and tropical blooms could grow in your indoor garden even though they would never have a chance if raised outside.
Another awesome benefit and this was a benefit that really excited me when I first started indoor gardening and it’s that you can control conditions to optimize your plants for certain traits. This means that you can raise lettuce and other leafy vegetables indoors to maximize for maximum yield and you will not have to worry about bugs to eat up and kill those plants.
As we’ll discuss a bit later in the article in more detail, but another benefit depending on the lights you select, you could end up with local heat sources that keep semi-tropical and tropical plants warm even though they are sitting in an apartment that is constantly 70 degrees Fahrenheit inside.
Understanding Your Options with Grow Lights
The Benefits Of Using LED Grow Lights
LED grow lights such as the Hydrogalaxy 300w or 600w use a fraction of the power of other lighting technologies out there right now. For greenhouses, you could save up to half the energy you would need for HPS lights.
However, you need to be careful about the amount of light the LEDs release. Some of the LEDs offered as energy efficient are cheap and don’t put out as much light as other grow lights, with a number of them not even putting out enough light for the flowering phase. What I learned is that you can avoid this problem by selecting LED grow lights that put out at least 2.0 micromoles per Watt.
Durability of LED Grow Lights
One of the main benefits of using LED lights is that they last a lot longer than conventional or fluorescent lights. They don’t suddenly stop working, either, but dim slowly when their lifespan is being reached. Many LED Grow Lights today have auto shut off timers or programmable timers when you want the lights on, dimmed, or off.
Some nerd specs here, but it’s important to know and that is that LED lights put out light wavelengths ideal for photosynthesis; HPS lights, the traditional alternative, don’t put out light on the 400-500 and 600-700 nm range that is ideal for growing plants. You can also find LED lights that put out light in specific spectra like blue or deep red.
Daisy Chain Them Baby’s For Extra Coverage
There is the matter of simplified lighting system designs, since you can use them in vertical systems, inter-lighting designs or ceiling lights. And many LED systems such as the Hydrogalaxy 300 can be daisy-chained, simplifying connected via wires that never touch the ground.
Heat Control and Economical Designs
LED lights don’t put out much heat either which is a plus. These lights are economical, producing more light per watt than fluorescents or HIDs.
If you want to expose plants to 24 hour light to accelerate growth, LED lights are the best choice. And if environmental issues are a factor, the fact that these lights don’t contain toxic substances like mercury is a plus.
Incandescent Lighting
Incandescent lights can be utilized as indoor grow lights in a few cases. They’re too hot to be right next to delicate plants though. They naturally put out a lot of light on the red side of the light spectrum but not the blue, so it can fuel growth of leafy greens and an herb garden but won’t be as good for woody plants.
You want blue light if fueling growth in the vegetative stage. You can use these to supplement natural light for your window herb garden and seedlings if not too close. The downside for these bulbs is their relatively high energy consumption.
Fluorescent Lighting
Fluorescent lights have the benefits of energy efficiency and low heat generation. They also produce light across a broad spectrum. The downside is that they don’t put out a lot of light, so they work best as supplementary lights for plants that need more natural light than they’re getting.
Fluorescent lights are not good enough if you have sun loving plants that need high intensive lighting. Nor do they put out much in the red spectrum, something you want if maximizing leaf growth is what your looking for.
Fluorescent grow lights are manufactured and sell well due to their usefulness. In case your didn’t know fluorescent grow lights are measured by their diameter. A T5 is best for propagation of plants while they don’t work well for vegetative and flowering plants.
HID Lights (High Intensive Discharge)
A HID or high intensive discharge light uses large bulbs that ignite gas inside the bulb. HIDs may be high pressure sodium lights (HPS) or metal halides (MH). In either case, they use tungsten electrodes to ignite the gas within the bulb.
Metal halide lamps put out a lot of blue light which are ideal for the vegetative stage of plants. High pressure sodium lamps put out more light in the red spectrum, and these are ideal for flowering plants.
HID lamps create much more usable light than fluorescent bulbs. They’re often dimmable, though the same is true of LEDs. The downside of these lamps is the amount of heat they generate; they can’t be put a few inches above your plants without risking either burning them with heat or sun-burning them with the intensity of light.
What Is A Ballast?
Another consideration is the ballast; nearly any LED light can be plugged into ballasts designed for LED lights whereas some ballast only work with MH or HPS lights. If you want a mix of lights, you need several ballasts.
Reflectors
And then there is the need for extra hardware like reflectors. These bulbs do contain mercury, so you need to be careful not to break them while changing them out. If you’re using HPS lights, expect to need a ventilation system and AC system in your grow room. Conversely, LED lights get by with a fan that is often built into the ballast.
Light Emitting Ceramics
Light emitting ceramics are even more advanced. They use a ceramic arc like HPS bulbs but operate like halide lights. They last longer than metal halide and HPS lights. Their light spectrum is similar to natural light, ideal for both vegetable growth and flowering.
The downsides of these artificial grow lights are that you can only use magnetic ballasts and their cost. These are expensive and nowhere within my inventory of grow lights to tell you the truth. These are more for industrial purposes unless you just have the money, these are a good option.
Another negative aspect of these light emitting ceramics is the fact that they put out UV light. Other lights come with warnings that you shouldn’t look into them for risk of burning your retinas. These have that risk as well as the risk that they’ll cause sunburn. Wear long sleeves as well as UV-blocking sunglasses if you are considering using these lights.
Sulphur plasma grow lights resemble natural light, including putting out the bright light sun-loving plants will thrive under. The problem is that they can’t be put close to plants. These lights could be used at the top of high-ceiling grow rooms or greenhouses.
A good thing about these lights is that they are long-lasting. If you’re using them in a grow tent, they need to be high up because they could literally heat the tent if not burn it. On the downside, Plasma grow lights tend to be very expensive and because of this they are usually used for industrial purposes.
Now I know that “hydroponically” is not necessarily correct grammar, but it got your attention right? Anyways, I love gardening indoors just as I’m sure you do as well. It not only gives you a sense of privacy (depending on what your growing), but because it is an easy way to extend your outside garden inside if space is limited outside.
I’ve grown different types of vegetables, herbs, and some house plants and some have been very easy to work with, while others are just a straight pain in the behind because of so much testing and pampering that I had to do. Nevertheless, I learned alot and had a lot of fun at the same time which are the most important aspects of indoor gardening.
So whether you’re indoor gardening vegetables because you want fresh produce over the winter or you simply want to garden because you don’t have a plot outside, here are a few tips (with experience backing these up) for raising vegetables indoors.
Basics Of Growing Vegetables Indoors With Lights
The main issues for raising vegetables indoors are giving them the right level of light, having a good growing medium, the right humidity and temperature and air circulation. While you may find good potting soil outside and your apartment already has decent air temperature and humidity for growing plants, the reality is that your existing lights are not likely to be good enough.
The fluorescent lamps that keep ivy growing in the corner and supplement natural sunlight for your potted violets isn’t going to be strong enough to feed vegetables. This is why anyone raising vegetables indoors should plan on using grow lamps of some sort. Even an herb garden in the window may need supplemental light in the winter due to the shorter days.
Depending on the plants you select, you could raise them solely from sunlight coming in through the window. This is where plant racks that put the plants squarely in the middle of the window become essential if you don’t want to use grow lights. And in this case, you need to know how many hours of sunlight comes through the window and only put plants there that will thrive with that level of light.
Shelving lets you raise plants with a minimum of floor space, but you need to be careful to ensure that all plants get enough light. This could require a grow light for each shelf, but this means that you have to carefully place the lights far enough above your plants to not burn them.
Which Are The Easiest Vegetables To Grow Indoors Without Soil?
Fruiting vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes need a lot more light than salad greens like lettuce. This is one reason why lettuce and spinach are so popularly grown in indoor factory farms while tomatoes are raised in greenhouses with natural sunlight.
The other reason is that their shallow roots make them suitable for growing even in shallow window boxes, though they are sometimes raised in grey-water systems and don’t need soil at all.
You can raise tomatoes under grow lights, but it is going to be more energy intensive. Corn, squash and beans need a lot of light and are best raised outside. Then there’s the fact that corn and beans (barring heirloom varieties) are so cheap that there’s no point in raising it yourself.
Herbs and root vegetables need less light than cucumbers and peppers, but root vegetables tend to need a lot of depth for their roots as well as vertical height for the leaves. This is why someone who wants to grow potatoes should consider a potato barrel outside instead of trying to raise them indoors.
Carrots require relatively little light and are hardy, but you could plant them along the edge of your flowerbed or under your bushes instead of trying to raise them inside. Conversely, you can plant them in containers, as well.
Best Vegetables To Grow Indoors
Click Image To View 9 Vegetables That You Can Grow Indoors
Your probably asking by now, Alicia, so what are the best vegetables to grow indoors? In short, these will be vegetables or plants that don’t take up alot of space especially horizontal space.
Also, vegetables or plants that don’t require too much pampering and constant supervision are some of the best vegetables to grow indoors especially if you are a beginner indoor gardener.
Beets and onions can be raised indoors, but from experience onions, garlic and herbs are a better choice since you’ll enjoy strong flavor from even a small harvest. In the case of herbs, you may be able to raise herbs in your own herb garden for less money than it would cost to buy them at the store.
Garlic greens stand out as an excellent choice since you can create a steady supply of garlic tops; just put the garlic cloves an inch deep in four inch deep soil and water regularly. If you get a pot that is at least 10” deep, you could grow fresh mint without much issue for your enjoyment and health.
Mini-tomatoes can be raised indoors as well. Cherry tomatoes have the added benefit of being fun to pop in a salad to eat. Lettuces can be raised indoors, but the cost-effectiveness is questionable. Peas prefer cooler temperatures, so they could be raised under grow lights if they aren’t exposed to too much heat.
Growing Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Potatoes
Broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes can all theoretically be raised indoors if given enough space to grow. Again, now you have to decide whether you really want fresh broccoli or would rather dedicated the space to herbs.
If you do want to raise plants like potatoes, you can buy potato “towers” and bags to grow them vertically. This tactic is employed by gardeners with limited mobility, since you don’t have to dig down into the soil to harvest the potatoes. Potato bags and towers can be reused two or three times a year to grow a crop.
How About Them Peppers and Scallions…
If you want to try to grow peppers indoors, such as an unusual variety not available at the grocery store, you’ll need a container that’s at least ten inches tall and a grow light. Hot peppers need at least ten hours of light a day.
At the other end of the spectrum are scallions. Scallions don’t even require you to buy seeds; simply bundle the scallions you get from the store and put the bottom of the bundle in water. Once the scallions start growing roots move them to soil and let them continue to grow.
Believe it or not scallions are a renewable resource. In other words if you harvest the green tops while leaving at least an inch to regrow, they will regenerate. You could also take one scallion out of the container to use the white portion while leaving the rest to continue growing.
Let’s Talk About Microgreens
Hands down for me the simplest vegetables to grow indoors are microgreens. What are microgreens? Well, these are the first shoots of salad vegetables like Swiss chard, mustard, basil, kale, cilantro, beetroot and arugula.
These shoots are called micro-greens because they are smaller than “baby greens”. These shoots are ofte
n used as garnishes on dishes. The benefits of raising microgreens include the fact that they’re available in one to two weeks and don’t require a lot of space.
Microgreens need at least a fluorescent light or two to grow, although 10-12 hours under a grow light is ideal. You want to make sure that you harvest them once they are one to two inches tall. This could take anywhere from one to three weeks, although strong light will help accelerate this process.
Last But Not Least Let’s Talk About Sprouts
Another easy vegetable that i could easily put in the same category as microgreens and that is sprouts. These vegetables are cheaper to grow at home than buy them at the store and they’re fresher when you raise them yourself.
To grow sprouts, you only need the seeds, a mason jar and a sprouting lid. Bean sprouts are about the most popular and easiest sprouts to grow. The best two things about growing sprouts is that they don’t really need much light to grow yet are so healthy to eat.
Indoor gardening could mean anything from having a few plants hanging by the windowsill to a full-fledged indoor garden. It really all depends what your end goal is as an indoor gardener. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to concentrate on growing a variety of vegetables.
But, before I learned about how cilantro grows, or how carrots grow or even how mustard greens grow, I had to learn the top 4 basic principles of Indoor Gardening. Keep reading to find out what you need to know to become the best indoor gardener that you can possibly become.
Indoor Gardening 101
Basic #1 – Indoor Garden Lighting
There are plants you can raise indoors without supplemental light. These tend to be plants that naturally grow on the forest floor or the second tier of the forest – they’re used to shade. African violets, ivy and other common houseplants fall into this category.
There are vegetables and herbs that can grow indoors with natural light from a window provided it streams in for enough hours a day. However, you may need to supplement with grow lights.
For example, fruiting vegetables or herbs do best with 10 plus hours a day of light, and you may not be receiving that through your biggest window in the winter. If you’re trying to get long day plants to flower, those that are programmed to flower during the summer, they need 14 to 18 hours of light.
Another factor to consider is spacing of the plants. If you put all the plants in the window, they’ll be exposed to that maximum amount of natural sunlight, but they may be exposed to colder air leaking in through the window than if you placed them in the corner under a grow light. If the plants are on shelves, there is the possibility the shelves themselves shade lower plants from the natural light.
You could supplement with grow lights or simply put grow lights on all of the shelves. Just make sure the lights aren’t too close to the plants, since light too close could sunburn the plants or simply overheat them. You can read my post on the Top 5 LED Grow Lights of 2018 to get more info on the different brands of grow lights on the market right now.
Artificial lighting becomes critical when you’re trying to maximize certain aspects of a plant’s growth. Red light stimulates leaves, while blue light stimulates the stems. Broad spectrum grow lamps provide both. One such grow lamp that I currently use and highly recommend is the Galaxyhydro 300w LED Grow Light which you can find on Amazon.com right now for a great price.
If you’re trying to delay flowering in plants or maximize leaf production for certain vegetables, advanced grow lights become essential. If you’re growing garlic and mint in a pot, that’s overkill.
Basic #2 – Soil/Growing Medium
The growing medium is simply what your plants are growing in. A pot full of soil scraped up from outside has its growing medium. Or it could be cuttings sitting in water as they grow roots before you transplant them to soil, another growing medium. It is rare that someone actually needs a hydroponics or airponics system.
The ideal growing medium is loose and drain wells but holds moisture so that the roots can absorb it while nutrients don’t drain away. You can create your own or buy it. Note that the ideal growing medium for your plants depends on the plants themselves, since some plants need different soil pH or varying soil qualities.
Most potting “soils” actually don’t contain soil. They’re made from a mix of peat, sand, and perlite (to improve drainage). A few more expensive mixtures contain water-retaining crystals to slow the release of water into the soil so you don’t have to water as often.
You can find specialized potting mixes for hard to raise plants like orchids and cacti, but most plants you’d like to raise indoors can be raised in any sterile commercial mix intended for indoor plants. It’s the soil from the weedy lot outside that could bring in unwanted seeds, pests and fungus that’s more likely to be an issue.
Another issue is the container you put the plant in. Always research how much space the plant needs, since putting a plant that needs 8” of depth in a 4” tray means you’ll fail to raise a healthy crop no matter how well-lit and watered it is. They need adequate space for the roots to grow out and down. The amount of space they need vertically varies, too.
When selecting pots or planters (Link to Amazon.com), look for ones with weep holes so it can drain out extra water; this will happen even if you’re watering it perfectly. Yes, you’re going to want a tray or pad under the plants to absorb this extra water. If they don’t have weep holes, the water-logged soil could suffocate the plant roots.
If you’re doing well, you can tell the plant needs to be moved to a larger pot because the roots are growing out the drainage holes. A plant that has no new growth probably needs to be moved to a larger container as well.
Basic #3 – What About Watering
All plants need to be watered. Whether you need to mist them daily or drench them every other day depends on the species. If you’re growing a mix of plants indoors, learn what their watering schedule needs to be or set up automatic watering systems (Link to Amazon.com) to water them for you. This is where putting the same plant on the same row simplifies things dramatically.
Plants also need a certain level of humidity. And the modern home runs too dry, especially in the winter. Don’t assume that a high level of humidity from misters or dripping from other plants reduces your need to water the plants.
However, you know that the plants are suffering from low humidity if the plants are withered, puckered, turning brown or losing their leaves. Don’t put plants in a tray of water to try to offset humidity, since this may over-water the roots or foster fungal growth.
An indoor gardening 101 note for new gardeners – you can use tap water in some cases but distilled water is better. Don’t use water leftover from cooking or other applications to water the plants, since it probably contains salts and food residue that your plants shouldn’t be exposed to.
Basic #4 – Temperature
Most plants we regularly grow indoors need temperatures of 65 degrees to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. A good indicator that it is too cold for the plants is yellowing of the leaves. This is where grow lights can cause plants to overheat, so be careful as to the right distance of the bulbs from the plants. The right distance varies between species, but too far means they don’t get enough intensity while too close means they get too much and risk overheating.
Sometimes plants are brought indoors after sitting on the deck or windowsill. Even these plants that need to be brought inside need to be acclimated by potting them, letting them spend some time in a shady spot part of the day to get them to thin their cuticle, and then move them inside.
If you were moving plants from your indoor garden to the outdoors, they’d need some time spent in direct sunlight that increases by an hour or two a day. This forces the plant to grow a thicker cuticle and prevents excessive water loss.
They’ll need to spend the night indoors for at least a week regardless of which way they’re going. This ensures that the garden plant that’s adapting for cold fall weather doesn’t get sick when you put it in indoor garden and that the seedlings you started off indoors don’t die when you plant them outside.
Conclusion
Just like learning and mastering anything else, indoor gardening is no exception, but it’s very rewarding. You will be in a position where you are growing your own vegetables, flowers, house plants etc. and also have the enjoyment of seeing a seed that you planted and nurtured come to fruition. For more information about indoor gardening visit the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics or view the video below:
https://grownindoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/gardening_theme_flat_SPzG1.jpg8001200Oviver Augeismahttps://grownindoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/GrownIndoors-logo.pngOviver Augeisma2018-04-26 15:29:402018-05-16 15:49:59The Top 4 Indoor Gardening Basics That Every Beginner Should Know
Improve Air Quality: One of the biggest benefits of indoor gardening is the improvement it can have on indoor air quality. Plants are natural air purifiers, removing toxins and pollutants from the air and releasing oxygen. Indoor plants can also increase humidity levels, which can be beneficial in dry environments or during the winter months when indoor heating can dry out the air.
Indoor gardening could mean anything from having a few plants hanging by the windowsill to a full-fledged indoor garden. It really all depends what your end goal is as an indoor gardener. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to concentrate on growing a variety of vegetables.
