Growing a garden can be fulfilling, therapeutic and functional – especially if you’re growing your own produce. While having an expansive plot of greenery sounds fine in theory, for city dwellers and young families, outdoor space is often a luxury.
The good news is that there’s a perfectly viable alternative: you can grow an indoor garden and experience all the benefits of a full-scale outdoor garden. While you won’t experience the joy of fresh air under these circumstances, you will have the chance to nurture a living ecosystem from the comfort of your own home.
Keep reading this blog to discover our 6 simple steps on how to grow an indoor garden!
1. Decide What You’re Going to Grow
The first task to tick off your to-do list is to decide what you’re going to grow. As with any project, planning and preparation are vital to achieving the best results possible. Despite being indoors, changing seasons, weather conditions and the time of the year are all factors you’ll need to consider when planning your garden.
To decide what you’re going to grow and when you’re going to grow it, we recommend:
- Creating a calendar to map out seasonal produce and plants
- Only buying the bulbs or seeds you need to prevent unnecessary waste
2. Choose Somewhere to Build Your Garden
Once you’ve decided what you’re going to grow in your garden, you can start thinking about where you’d like to build it. Whether you’re planning on creating a complete indoor garden room or adding on to a pre-existing space, there are a few factors to consider.
Light, warmth and humidity aren’t too much of an issue – you can tackle these variables in the next step. For now, try to think about:
- Flooring – avoid wood or carpet in case of water or soil spillages. Opt for somewhere with tiling or linoleum flooring instead.
- Airflow – good ventilation is essential for most plants to survive, so make sure to choose somewhere with a large window or space for a floor fan to keep the air flowing.
A large surface is essential for growing your garden since you’ll need a great spot to lay out your grows. An old dining table or sideboard is the perfect solution, or even some smaller shelving if you’re short on space.
3. Purchase the Right Equipment
While creating an indoor garden is pretty easy, you’ll need to ensure you’ve got all of the right equipment before getting started. As mentioned above, light, heat and humidity are all factors you’ll need to consider, depending on what you decide to grow.
To make sure you’re fully prepared, you should source:
- Fluorescent or broad-spectrum lights at varying heights in the space
- A humidifier with timing capabilities so you can control air moisture
- A small heater if radiators and central heating isn’t an option
4. Buy Low Maintenance Plants
Low maintenance plants are a great way to add diversity and excitement to your indoor garden without creating too much extra work. NASA recently released a list of plants with air-purifying abilities, perfect for making your home healthier and safer to live in. In fact, they also found that certain houseplants can remove up to 87% of air toxins in just 48 hours.
Some of the most low maintenance options on the list include:
- Spider Plant
- Boston Fern
- Peace Lily
- Snake Plant
If you’re going for more of a spread-across-the-home style garden instead of creating one dedicated space, these low maintenance plants are the perfect option. You can use them to adorn your bookshelves, fill a window ledge or create a sideboard display – whatever feels right for your space.
Water occasionally and enjoy an array of aesthetic AND health-based benefits!
If one of your goals is to purify your air, check out our list of NASA-recommended, air-purifying plants!
5. Grow Your Own Produce
If you’re hoping to grow your own produce, it’s important to consider options that are easy to grow, maintain and harvest. Some crops can prove more difficult than others, especially in an indoor environment away from their usual field-based setup.
Whether you’ve got room for a harvest bonanza or you’d prefer to stick with the essential kitchen herbs, we’ve got you covered.
Here’s a list of some easy-grow crops to add to your grow portfolio:
- Beets – harvest after 6 weeks for baby beet greens or 30 days for fully grown baby beets for your favourite lunchtime salad.
- Carrots – ready to harvest from 6 weeks onwards, great for roasting or chopped up with a side of hummus.
- Mushrooms – believe it or not, you can grow a delicious load of mushrooms to eat in as little as 2 weeks!
- Herbs – cilantro, basil, parsley and thyme are all super easy to grow, as long as you’ve got plenty of light to offer.
While growing your own produce can be fun, it’s also a great way to have a positive impact on the planet. Many of the fruits or vegetables we buy at the store come pre-packaged in harmful, non-recyclable plastics. Farmers also rely on a carbon-heavy transport process to get your greens from A to B, so eating straight from your own garden can end the cycle.
By growing your own selection, you can avoid contributing to this demand and live a greener lifestyle in the process!
6. Create Your Own Fertilizer
The final step on the list for creating your indoor garden is to make your very own fertilizer. The food waste crisis is becoming increasingly harmful to the planet, so why not do your bit to make a difference?
With a FoodCycler, you can recycle all of your food scraps into soil amendment, perfect for nourishing your indoor garden. Simply fill the device with your leftovers, set the machine in motion and use the final result to make your garden bloom brighter than ever.
Visit our website now to find out more about this innovative household device and start building an indoor garden worth celebrating!
A Note on Terminology
The FoodCycler® is a countertop electric food waste recycler that breaks down food scraps through a mechanical process into a dry, lightweight by-product that can be used in gardening applications as a fertilizer. The FoodCycler® and other electric food waste recyclers are not composters, nor do they produce compost or soil as they do not require additional microbes to break down food waste with bacteria. However, the term "electric composter" has been used to describe electric food waste recyclers.