Growing Vegetables Indoors
The Indoor Food Garden
It is snowing outside and you are craving a few cherry tomatoes to garnish the fresh green salad that you just made. You want it fresh not from the store where the tomatoes and green may have traveled hundreds and thousands of miles before they are offered for sale.
Instead you wander into the living room and pick them fresh just as you cut the greens a few minutes before.
I am not talking about growing hydroponically which is an option but using natural light to keep your family supplied in some fresh produce all year round.
I have grown cherry tomatoes, Camp Joy heritage, indoors and once had a plant that produced tomatoes for 11 months. Mind you in the last 3 months I was getting them one at a time, not really worth the effort but even one fresh ripe tomato on a snowy winter day can make you feel better.
I have grown beans, green peppers, salad greens and miniature eggplant in my living room using only natural light.
The salad green, the cut and come again plants did the best and I feel provide the best return for the effort.
The beans produced a few tasty pick and eat treats but I would need more space to make it worthwhile.
Seed Starting
Indoors
You need at least 6 hours of sunlight and 8 is better if you want to grow vegetables indoors under natural light.
Before you get started you will need to assess the space that you will devote to your indoor vegetable garden? Does this space get the sunlight necessary to produce the food (6-8 hours)?
You can use anything for containers as long as it is big enough to allow the plant roots space to grow and you provide sufficient drainage. If you are serious about indoor vegetable gardening, I suggest using containers that allow you to fill them from a hole near the bottom and have a reservoir that holds water. This way the plant roots will grow down towards the water and become stronger, thus enabling a healthy plant to rise up.
Pests, such as white fly and aphids can become problems, so be sure to regularly check your plants and look for signs that something different is taking place. This way you can intervene before the problem emerges and turns into an infestation.
A spray bottle with an organic soap and water is often all the equipment you need to defeat any attempts to take over your garden.
Misting with a hand mister, perhaps, once a week, can help your garden to grow and be sure to avoid crowding the plants to close together in an attempt to increase your yield, the plants need air and this will help control pests and diseases.
So if you can set yourself up a small cut and come again garden composed of your favourite salad greens so that you can something that you grew yourself and is guaranteed fresh when you want it.
You can grow a steady supply of greens in a fairly small space and will always have something tasty to add to your sandwiches and salads anytime you wish.