Nowadays many people are trying indoor gardening as it offers many benefits, like having your own fresh veggies, fruits, and herbs. While indoor gardening seems tricky when first starting, it doesn’t have to be with the best indoor gardening tips you’ll find in this blog. Besides offering the chance to grow fresh and healthy produce, it also adds vitality to your home, making it look and feel refreshed. If you’re thinking about starting your indoor garden, here are valuable indoor gardening tips to help your plants thrive!
What Is Indoor Gardening?
Indoor gardening refers to growing plants you’d normally grow outdoors inside your home. Those plants can be anything from vegetables to fruits to flowers to herbs.
If you have the right conditions inside your home, indoor gardening can even be less challenging than typical outdoor gardening. By following indoor gardening tips, you can easily control conditions to make sure your garden flourishes.
Choose a Location for Your Indoor Garden
Before choosing plants and pots for your indoor garden, pick that sweet spot where you’ll place them and take care of them – pick the right location for your indoor garden! If you have a patio door or large windows in the sun for most of the day, use that space for planting the seeds of life.
But don’t fret if you don’t have much natural light in your home – you can just use artificial lights. These will help you grow your plants even in the darkest corners of your home.
Consider the temperature too, as some plants prefer warmer soil while others thrive in cooler environments. Note that some plants need warmth to grow. If the indoor garden isn’t warm enough, they won’t be able to flourish. Luckily, you can prevent that by adding heat maps under the pots that will give your plants just enough warmth to grow.
If you’ve found the perfect spot without too much light and warmth, you can simply choose to grow plants that prefer cooler temperatures and shadows like lettuce and kale. However, areas with temperature fluctuations may negatively affect your plants, so better avoid those areas.
When choosing the location for your garden, you’ll also want to consider the size of an adult plant and how many of them can fit in the chosen spot.
Choose Your Plants
Some plants need a lot of room to grow, meaning not all veggies and fruits will fit into an indoor garden. For this reason, you may want to choose dwarf species of tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies, fruits, and herbs.
Consider the conditions of your indoor garden too, such as light, temperature, and available space. Think about the time your plants will need to fully grow. Here are several plant species that can thrive in almost any indoor garden as they don’t need too much sun and warmth and are quick to grow:
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Herbs
- Bok Choy
- Microgreens
Think Before Buying Seeds
Ensure to check the package of the seeds before buying them – you’ll want to purchase the seeds from the current season as they have the highest germination rate. While you can use the seeds from last year, their germination rate will be lower than fresh ones. Also, some seed varieties can’t be stored. That said, it’s best to plant the newest seeds you can find to ensure a smooth beginning.
On the package, you’ll also discover how to plant the seeds, how many are there, how much time they need to germinate, and when they will be ready for harvest. You’ll also see how big the adult plant will get.
Learn What Your Plants Like
There’s a wide variety of plants on our planet, and they all need specific conditions to thrive. While some plants enjoy a lot of sunlight, others prefer shadows. Also, some plants need a lot of water to grow, while others may die when soaked.
That said, you need to learn your plants’ likes and dislikes in order to give them what they need so they can flourish. It’s a good idea to follow the instructions found on the tags your plants come with. Also, you can get additional information and advice on how to care for certain plants all over the internet, so make use of technology.
Use Organic Fertilizers
Although plants produce their food with photosynthesis, they need various nutrients to develop and flourish. While most plant species absorb nutrients from the soil via roots, those nutrients can significantly reduce over time, especially indoors. For this reason, your plants can benefit if you fertilize them regularly.
However, you will want to use organic fertilizers like vermicompost as these won’t damage the soil and plants, but provide them with the nutrients they need to grow and stay healthy.
How often you should fertilize your plants will, again, depend on the plants and soil you have, so it’s best to ask your provider to share this information with you.
Vermicompost Makes an Excellent Addition to Your Indoor Garden
Among different types of organic fertilizers, vermicompost has proven to be one of the best and most effective composts for both indoor and outdoor gardening. Also known as worm composting, vermicomposting is the process of turning organic waste into worm castings.
This organic fertilizer is rich in various nutrients your plants need to grow, such as phosphorus and nitrogen. But that’s not all! Vermicompost is also abundant in beneficial microorganisms other compost types may lack. Here are some of the benefits it offers:
- Vermicompost provides essential nutrients to the soil.
- It improves the structure of the soil.
- It enhances both internal drainage and the aeration of heavy soil.
- It offers different beneficial bacteria to the soil.
- Vermicompost helps the soil to hold nutrients in bio-available form.
- It enhances the water-holding capacity of the soil.
And the best thing is – it’s easy to make in the comfort of your home. All you need to make this magical soil enhancer are food scrapes, the right worms for composting, a compost bin, and bedding. Here’s what you need to know to start your vermicomposting journey, but if you want to skip the process, you can just buy our ready-made vermicompost and give your indoor garden what it needs to thrive.
Match Your Plants with the Right Pots
The pots you choose for your garden need to be large enough to give the roots enough space to grow. Generally, greens like spinach, kale, and lettuce need around 5 inches of depth to develop their roots.
Cucumbers, beans, peppers, peas, and other small vine and bush plants need a depth of soil of around 7 inches. Then, root crops like carrots, beets, and potatoes need at least 12 inches of soil depth to develop. That said, make sure to match your plants with the right pots to ensure their development.
Ensure Quality Soil
You may think filling your pots with outdoor dirt is a cheap and easy way to nourish your plants. However, this way you could bring diseases and pests and harm your plants. Such dirt may also compact, making it hard for roots to grow.
That’s why you’ll want to choose a commercial potting mix as these are lightweight and sterile. Moreover, they won’t get compacted, ensuring enough room for roots to develop.
Try Vertical Gardening
Whether you have or don’t have enough space for your indoor garden, you can try vertical gardening. Your window may be completely filled with only a few pots, but by vertically organizing your pots, you’ll be able to grow more veggies, fruits, and herbs and expand your indoor garden.
You can do this by placing your pots on stands or boxes of different heights to elevate them so they get enough sunlight without having other plants block them. You can also buy vertical garden stands and arrange your plants on them. There are super cute models that can make any garden look like a fairytale, even the indoor one!
Use a Trellis
Vining plants like cucumbers tend to occupy a lot of room outdoors as they have enough space to spread. However, they don’t have to take up much of your indoor space if you grow them on a trellis.
If you decide to grow heavy veggies and fruits like cantaloupe and squash, coax their tendrils around the trellis during their growth. However, you may have to tie them in order to support them as they grow.
Provide Your Plants with Enough Water
How much you should water your plants will depend on the type of plants you grow. Typically, houseplants need to be watered once a week. If you’re growing delicate sorts, you may need to water them from the bottom – pour water on a plate and put the pot in the plate so that the plant can absorb water upwards. Note that if it’s fairly warm in your home, you may need to water them more frequently.
Veggies and fruits prefer damp soil over soggy. If the roots constantly get wet and then completely dry, they may not develop properly. This may cause blossoms to drop off before the fruit can develop. That’s why you should check the soil at least once a day to see whether it’s damp or dry and water it accordingly.
Alternatively, you can buy self-watering containers – these have reservoirs you’ll need to fill once a week and they will distribute so that the soil is always damp, keeping your plants perfectly watered.
Make the Light Work for Your Plants
Most veggies and fruits need seven hours or more of sunlight, so you may want to place them on a window that faces south. But if you don’t have enough natural light in your home, you’ll need to add artificial sources of grow light to make sure your plants can grow. There are also reflective tents that reflect light from grow lights to increase their effectiveness.
Set the Right Temperature
Many fruits and veggies prefer warmer temperatures around 75 degrees. Sunny windows usually emit the right heat amount. However, if you’re using an air conditioner and to decrease the temperature below 70 degrees, you will want to place a small heater in the area of your indoor garden to warm it up a bit.
Cooler rooms won’t affect plants like kale, spinach, and lettuce as they enjoy temperatures around 65 degrees. However, these don’t thrive in warmer environments, so you’ll want to keep the room temperature below 80 degrees.
Re-Pot Your Plants at the Right Time
Indoor plants like snake plant and tree of life need to be re-potted occasionally – once a year or two. You can do this by moving your plant to a larger pot with new, fresh soil to give it ample room and nutrients to grow and develop.
Protect Your Plants Against Pests
Insects and other pests can move from other areas of your house to your indoor garden and damage your plants even if you use sterile soil. For this reason, you will want to protect your plants by using pesticides. Still, you should avoid chemical ones as they can ruin the soil.
Opt for organic pesticides if you see pests attacking your plants, but avoid spraying developing vegetables and fruits as that can change their flavor. Instead, spray the leaves and soil.
Pay Attention to Indoor Humidity
The high humidity level can encourage the growth of fungi. If you notice that moisture condenses on your windows, the level of humidity is likely high, meaning your plants have a higher risk of catching a fungal disease. To avoid this, you can open windows to let the fresh air in or turn on the air conditioner. You can also buy a dehumidifier to dry the air and allow your plants to thrive.
Make Indoor Gardening Work for You
After reading our indoor gardening tips, you have a good idea of how to manage your own indoor garden and ensure your plants get what they need to thrive. Indoor gardening will not only provide you with fresh veggies, fruits, and herbs but also liven up your space. And the best thing is – it’s easy to start and maintain. Just make sure to follow our indoor gardening tips and you’ll be good to go!
If you need a quality indoor gardening supplies, check Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm and place your order today. We’ll make sure it arrives in no time so you can start your indoor gardening journey as soon as possible and enjoy your fresh produce!
One thought on “Indoor Gardening Tips to Make Your Indoor Garden Thrive”
Which ones do you recommend for gardens that have beat potatoes carrots cucumbers tomatoes etc. Will composting worms eat vegetables that grow underground? If so do you carry ones that will not keep those?