Indoor Vegetable Garden

     Growing fresh vegetables indoors can be a fun and rewarding experience. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers are just a few of the fresh vegetables that many people enjoy growing and consuming. By involving themselves in indoor vegetable gardening, many people have found that they can grow healthy and great tasting vegetables. A gardener can still successfully grow many differing vegetables indoors, although, it is a fact that indoor gardens have different needs than an outdoor garden.

     When considering indoor vegetable gardening, the initial thing to think about is the location. Someplace where six to eight hours of light is available each day is the best location.  An unused room with plenty of windows to let sunlight is great, or an insulated sun porch would be ideal for those that have one. Supplemental lighting can be used to ensure that the plants get the amount of light that they require for proper growth is also an exceptable solution.  Sadly, most garden design pictures exclude the indoor garden varieites that are available to you.

     So that they can grow into productive plants, another consideration is what to plant the seeds or seedlings in. Using containers is the most basic and obvious solution. The containers can be similar to those used for ordinary house plants, or they can be just about anything else that you choose to use for your indoor vegetable gardening project. The containers can be wood, metal, plastic, or even tin.

     So that excess water can drain out, the critical thing to keep in mind is that the containers that you use will need to have some sort of drainage holes in the bottom and sides. Be sure that you drill some drainage holes if the containers you choose don't already have them.

     Also critical is the type of soil that you use for your indoor vegetable gardening project. Because of the insects that may be present in the soil as well as any diseases that the soil may harbor, using regular soil from your outdoors garden is not advised. A lightweight mixture that will allow drainage is the ideal choice of soil for your indoor vegetable garden.  Four equal parts of vermiculite, potting soil, perlite, and peat is an average advised mixture.

     The watering and higher maintenance are really the only downsides that are typically found in indoor gardening. Plants grown outside require much less care and attention than plants grown in containers indoors. Outside you are better able to use timers and irrigate with drip systems. Because plants dry out faster in containers, indoor gardeners need to water by hand and more often. This is especially critical if you are patio gardening. Sometimes the newer, smaller plants have to be watered more than once a day.