Planning a Vegetable Garden

Indoor vegetable gardening appeals to many people.  Whether you are considering it because of your local weather or because you don’t have an outdoor area, it is possible to grow vegetables indoors.  They key is knowing which vegetables can grow indoors, and which can’t.

As a bonus, some vegetables can live more than one season, provided the proper varieties are selected and they are taken care of well.  Fresh tomatoes at Thanksgiving anyone?

Indoor Vegetable Gardening Tips

Some aspects of growing vegetables inside are a bit more complicated than growing them outside.  Instead of mother nature, you are the one responsible for light, temperature, watering and possibly even pollination.  Plus you have to make room for them indoors, in the proper-sized containers with a good growing medium.

Speaking of a growing medium, please don’t use ordinary outdoor gardening soil.  Personally, I like a mixture of equal parts potting soil and compost.  The potting soil is nice and lightweight, while the compost nourishes the plants.

Choosing Your Indoor Location

You’ll want to give careful consideration to your indoor vegetable gardening room.  Ideally, it should face south and stay warm year around — not too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. 

Lighting is a big consideration.  For some, a glassed-in sunroom can provide enough light the year through.  But most people have short winter days and not enough of the sun’s rays come through the clouds.  What’s an indoor gardener to do, when there’s not at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day?

The answer is indoor lighting.  You can supplement (or even mostly replace) natural sunshine with indoor grow lights.  Some people like the lights especially developed for plants.  Others like using one cool-white and one warm-white fluorescent bulbs together.  Either works fine, as long as you can keep the lights close enough to your plants — no more than 6 inches from the tops of the plants (and 3 inches is better). 

Watering Your Garden

Indoor vegetable gardening means watering on a regular basis.  Since the plants don’t get any rain, it’s up to you to provide them with moisture.  Get out your watering can!

In the beginning, the “finger test” works well — stick your finger about one to one-and-a-half inches into the container.  If it’s dry, the plant needs water.  Pretty soon you’ll get used to which plants are thirsty and which ones sip their water more slowly and won’t need the finger test so often.

Please make sure the water you use is just barely warm.  Hot or cold water can shock the roots.

How to Fertilize Indoors

Your best bet is to find a good liquid fertilizer and use it at 1/4 to 1/3 strength once a week.  You can also foliar feed with a sea kelp mixture.  Fish emulsion actually does make a pretty good indoor fertilizer; because it’s so diluted, the smell is non-existent (to most people at any rate).

Temperatures for Your Indoor Garden

Some like it hot…and some don’t.  Vegetables, that is!  Different veggies prefer different ambient temperatures.

For example, leafy and root vegetables need cooler indoor temperatures.  They are happiest with cooler temperature during the daytime (usually 60-65 degrees) and the nighttime temperature down into the 40’s.

On the other hand, plants like tomatoes, beans, and sweet and hot peppers need warm temperatures throughout the day and night in order to grow properly.  If you can manage it, ideal daytime temperature would be in the high 70s and nighttime temps shouldn’t be below 60 degrees.  (All these temperatures are Fahrenheit.) 

Vegetable Varieties

Think “mini” when it comes to indoor vegetable gardening, for two reasons.  One, you probably don’t have unlimited space.  Two, if you are using supplemental lights, you need plants at roughly the same height.  Or several sets of plant lights.

Assuming you don’t have a greenhouse to work with, vegetables that are hard to grow indoors include corn, cucumbers, melons, pole beans and squash.  These all are either too tall or require a lot of space (and therefore large containers).

Better veggies to grow indoors include bush tomatoes, short pepper plants (sweet or chile), bush beans, carrots, strawberries, onions, garlic, most herbs, short eggplants, lettuce, spinach, radishes.  Peas are also possible.

In general, you want plants that grow to a maximum height of 2 feet, but even better is 18 inches; the shorter the plant, the less light, water and fertilizer it will need.  And there are plenty of shorter plants that will still provide a great harvest — being short doesn’t mean that they can’t be prolific!

One Final Idea

If the idea of hydroponics is agreeable to you, you might want to consider something like the AeroGarden Deluxe.  Although I don’t have one, I’ve seen them up close and personal.  I must say that I am impressed with the idea, and if I was in a situation where I could no longer grow much outdoors, I would probably get one.