I recently started following someone on Twitter who gardens in her bathroom. Vertically. All jokes about the availability of fertilizer aside, this is a good place to garden. After all, it’s warm and it’s damp, probably once a day at least. If you replace some of your bathroom lighting with a grow light, you’d have the perfect tropical conditions – that is, until you open your window!
Now, I don’t garden in my bathroom, although I’m now feeling somewhat inspired to do so. Between the towel racks and the toothbrushes, there just doesn’t seem to be that much space. However, I recently installed a vertical garden in my office. Now, my ultimate goal is to actually grow food indoors.
Why? Well, for one, even though I live in a temperate climate, the temperature still hits chilly, chilly levels outside in the winter time and into the spring. Gardening indoors shields plants from the vagaries of the weather, making them think that they’re in a tropical paradise.
How can you garden indoors? You can grow sprouts. A short bit of maintenance every day, and little seeds of alfalfa and other crops will yield a bit of green for your salads and sandwiches.
You can also grow mushrooms, as long as you have a cool indoor growing space away from your living areas. A garage is ideal, if you can keep the food away from the cars. Mushrooms do release spores, so it’s best to keep them out of living areas.
My focus for the spring is going to be indoor herb gardening.
My success growing herbs in windowsill pots has been limited. I suspect that this is because I’ve shocked the poor things by bringing them indoors after a warm summer. Now, my plan is to keep the herbs inside full time to maintain some consistency for them.
One challenge of indoor food-growing is the light issue. While my office gets ample light most seasons of the year, in winter it’s a bit dire. I’m going to give them the boost of an efficient grow light for a few months a year. Hopefully, that light will also make my citrus plant happy!
What will I grow?
Chives. Since onions and onion-like plants are something that I use daily in cooking and salads, and since these little guys don’t mind lower light levels, they’re on the list.
Mint. It grows anywhere. No – it takes over anywhere. And the mint that I grow outdoors is frequented by the local cats.
Parsley. This most stalwart of plants is an ace at surviving in lower light levels, although I’ll need to grow a lot of it if I want to harvest this slow-growing plant.
Coriander. Apparently it’s relatively easy to grow indoors, but since I am not fond of the taste, I’ll be skipping this one.
Have you grown food indoors? How was your success?
Image Credit: [csontoslea]