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Posts Tagged ‘indoor gardening’

Soil-Less Indoor Gardening – Provide the Easy Life For Your Plants
By Carm Paynter

There are a variety of benefits associated with soil less or hydroponic gardening. This is the easy life for your plants. The plants roots don’t have to search for food and water like they do in soil. The food and water is brought directly to them, all they have to do is grow and enjoy the easy life.

There are no insects to eat the leaves and roots, no diseases to leave large gaping holes in the leaves making it hard to manufacture the required food to keep them growing.

For providing all these plant comforts what are the rewards? There are actually several major benefits. The most noticeable is the rate of growth, that can be 30%-50% faster. There isn’t any reason to use pesticides so we don’t have to worry about the pesticides that were used just as a preventative measure to produce our food. The plants are usually quite a bit larger, the flavors are usually enhanced, the garden can be grown indoors, the produce can be grown year round. Hydroponics enables plants to be grown closer together which helps increase the overall yield of crops. Not only that, but also several crops can be grown in the same hydroponic growth tank.

We can get this same response from annual flowers, fruit, herbs, and vegetables in a hydroponics system.

Hydroponics has always been an ecologically sound gardening choice. It uses much less water than conventional gardening and does not erode the soil or add toxins to the environment. Soluble nutrient formulas are re-circulated and used by the plants’ roots, which helps eliminate this environmental waste that we have to deal with every day.

As many gardeners today are choosing to grow crops, especially food crops organically, organic crop cultivation in hydroponics has become very popular. Organic gardening is the cultivation of plants without the use of synthetic chemicals or pesticides. This ensures that no harmful pesticides or fungicides will be used in our food production. For this we are willing to invest in the extras that are required by organic gardening. There are many organic nutrients and additives designed specifically for use in hydroponic gardens.

In order to know what to expect when attempting your own hydroponic garden you have to know what a hydroponic garden is. Once you understand what this type of gardening entails, you will be more aware of what to expect when constructing a garden of this nature for yourself.

The big advantage for small-scale hydroponic gardeners is the opportunity to grow plants year-round. This can be accomplished by the use of indoor lighting. The correct type of lighting that you would need for growing plants indoors using the hydroponic method would be a High Intensity Discharge (H.I.D.) light. These types of lights are designed to give off the correct spectrum of light waves, which are perfect for growing plants indoors-and in water no less. There has been some research using LED’s. This will reduce the electrical costs of lighting your hydroponic garden.

This is a relatively new concept in indoor gardening but there is lots of good information available and you can access this Hydroponic Gardening information anytime you want.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carm_Paynter
http://EzineArticles.com/?Soil-Less-Indoor-Gardening—Provide-the-Easy-Life-For-Your-Plants&id=1720864

Growing Vegetables Indoors
By Eudora DeWynter

Do you already miss those fresh garden vegetables that you grew in your outdoor garden over the summer? Would you like to grow those same vegetables indoors? Of course the rules for indoor gardening are a bit different from growing outdoors, but it can be done and with a lot of success.

Gardening inside requires you to consider the temperature, light sources and pollination and the type of vegetables you plan to grow. There are some vegetables that can be easily grown indoors even on windowsills. A room that gets southern exposure sunlight, slightly used will make a good place for an indoor garden.

An enclosed heated porch is also a good alternative since some plants require daytime temperatures in the mid to upper 60′s and 70′s and nighttime lows of upper30′s to lower 60′s. An ideal room is one that you can provide with supplemental lighting which will provide the needed heat and warm up well from the daytime sunlight. Your plants will need at least 6 to 8 hours of lighting so using cool white or warm florescent lighting will help keep the plants warm during the cold windy days in winter if you keep them near the light source.

Grow lights can be used and help provide extra growing light because the days of the winter months are shorter. Soil used in indoor gardening is different also, indoor gardening soil should be lightweight so does not use soil that is for outdoor use, it will sometimes harbor diseases and insects and they are harder to control in a confined area. Instead use regular indoor potting soil mixed with 1 part vermiculite, 1 part peat, 1 part perlit and you will have an ideal soil mix.

Your indoor garden will need to be watered daily or every other day, due to the lack of humidity and fertilized at least every two weeks for the best results. You choice of what to grow is up to you but there are vegetables that do quite well indoors, but don’t expect the same size or yield that you got when growing outside.

Plants that do well in an indoor garden if you have enough space are: determinate vine cherry tomatoes, bush beans bunching onions, leaf lettuce, and basil. Hungarian sweet and hot peppers and small vine cucumbers. So go ahead and give indoor gardening a try, and enjoy the benefits of fresh vegetables again.

Eudora DeWynter offers tips on Growing Vegetables Indoors on her blog
at http://www.gardentoolguru.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eudora_DeWynter
http://EzineArticles.com/?Growing-Vegetables-Indoors&id=1730402

Indoor Gardening Easy, Clean, and Pesticide Free – Make Your Own
By Carm Paynter

When I think of gardening I think dirt, weeds,bugs and cold, dirty fingers. I also think of wonderful, flavorful, fresh and pesticide free food and that’s the reason I tolerate all that other “stuff”.

Would you be interested in getting rid of the dirt, weeds,bugs and the cold dirty fingers and still get great garden produce. What If you could grow all this indoors with almost no effort? Does this sound like something you want to do? Then you need to think Hydroponics.

A method of growing plants both for home and commercial use without using soil is hydroponics. The interest in home hydroponics is a recent phenomenon and is increasing in leaps and bounds and with very good reason. Hydroponic plants are usually more healthy, mature earlier, and use less space.They can be grown year round.

If you are serious about growing clean, flavorful, healthy food and herbs at home year round I would suggest you get one of the many portable hydroponics systems. Get one that promises to have all the instructions you need. If you don’t have a large window to supply enough light for growing plants, get a system with a proper light source

If you are interested in constructing your own system you will be able to find lots of information on the various types of system to build. Don’t let the idea of building your own scare you. It is really quite simple.

Try this to get a beautiful lettuce crop: Get yourself a cheap plastic tote from any hardware store. Be sure it is dark colored. (light colors allow excess green algae growth) You will need 2″ thick styrofoam slightly smaller than the tote. This needs to be carefully shaped, pay particular attention to the corners. It has to move up and down freely inside the tote. (It will float on the liquid underneath). Cut it so that you do not allow any more light than necessary under it. Cut 2″ holes in the styrofoam raft to accommodate your plants growth. they should be 7″-8″ apart.

Next you need an air pump, an air stone and a length of plastic tubing from the pet store. Put the air-stone in the bottom of the tote and carefully place the tubing down the corner so as not to interfere with your styrofoam raft. Use a bead of silicone and press the tubing into it and let dry for a few hours. The air stone infuses the solution with oxygen. Cut foam rubber discs the same size as the holes in your raft. Cut these about 2/3rds of the way across. These will hold your seedlings in the raft. That is essentially all there is to the construction.

You need seedlings for your Hydroponics garden. I like to use small plastic pots with vermiculite to start my seedlings. With very small seed you can start them on paper towels and transplant to your pots. Water your seedlings with 1/2 strength growing solution. When the seedlings have reached a height of about 3″, carefully wash the root system to get rid of all or almost all of the growing medium. put the stem into the foam rubber, put one foam rubber/seedling in each hole in your hydroponics system and watch the show until you are able to enjoy using your lettuce.
For more of Carm’s Hydroponic gardening information come visit us at http://www.hydroponicsgarden-howto.com Carm has been interested in agriculture and the effect of large commercial agriculture on the environment for some time.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carm_Paynter
http://EzineArticles.com/?Indoor-Gardening-Easy,-Clean,-and-Pesticide-Free—Make-Your-Own&id=1731108

Indoor Edibles
By Eudora DeWynter

Eating a fresh garden salad, made with vegetables grown indoor edibles from an indoor garden in January is a treat that one can only enjoy. Being able to pick and enjoy edible vegetables right from your window sill or right out of your indoor garden will be rewarding. There are many herbs and vegetables that can be grown indoors in winter such as basil, parsley, rosemary, cherry tomatoes and a variety of lettuces. Once you start growing your edibles indoors in winter you will love it, and will always want an indoor garden.

Many people don’t realize that some of the same edible vegetables grown outside can also be grown indoors under the right conditions. Herbs such as basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, oregano and dill can be grown in containers on a windowsill with good southern exposure for light or on a countertop with a grow light. Seeds for edibles to be grown indoors may be hard to find so buy a good supply in early spring, they become hard to find by late summer and early fall.

When starting your garden factor in the room temperature and light conditions as well as the pollination of your plants. The room temperature can be controlled and light can be added with the use of grow lights and warm white florescent light, but the pollinating will have to be done manually.

Many indoor gardeners use an artists brush to help with plant pollination and find that it works quite well when distributing pollen from one plant flower to another. Another point to remember is that vegetable plants grown indoors are just as susceptible to pest problems as those grown outside. If you have house plants, insects such as spider mites and white flies can be attracted to your vegetable plants also so the use of an insecticidal soap will be extremely useful inside with closed windows and doors.

Use lightweight soil mixes for your indoor growing, a good example is potting soil mixed with vermiculite and perlite and peat, and this will keep the soil from becoming compact. With the lack of humidity in many homes watering nearly every day or every other day will be essential, and fertilize every two weeks with a good organic fertilizer.

Don’t allow the night time temperature in your garden room drop below 60, remember it is winter and most garden plants don’t fair well in cold temperatures. Keep in mind also that being able to harvest your own fresh edible vegetables from an outdoor or an indoor garden is always rewarding.

Eudora DeWynter offers tips on Growing Indoor Edibles on her blog at http://www.gardentoolguru.com.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Indoor-Edibles&id=1757641