Indoor Gardening - Hydroponics

Indoor gardening is a popular pastime done by hundreds of thousands of people. Using hydroponics equipment, you can grow flowers, houseplants, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. In fact, many people are so fond of this type of growing that fresh foods on the dinner table are those grown within the home. Who enjoys indoor gardening? The answer is anyone, although people with limited yard space or those living in apartments generally enjoy the most benefit. This type of growing is not just fun but also very rewarding, allowing you to harvest foods and specialty plants all year round.

If you want to get started with indoor Hydroponics gardening, you first need to choose the location where your garden will grow, an important consideration. Since hydroponics produce heat, it is important you have good airflow so the plants themselves remain cool. In addition, fresh air helps provide more of the carbon dioxide that plants need for photosynthesis. If possible, we recommend you use a room with a window. Although you could use a cool basement, a common problem is poor ventilation, which can actually counteract the heat from the electric lights.

Next for your indoor gardening project, you want to consider the number and size of the plants you will use. In most cases, plants growing indoors need just as much space to grow as they would outside. Keep in mind that specific demands vary from plant to plant so try to choose plants that will work best together while still meeting your personal needs. Additionally, plants may need a little more space indoors since electric light cannot penetrate through leaves the same way as sunlight would. Another thing to keep in mind is the ease of movement in caring for the plants. In other words, you want to organize the space so you can maintain your indoor garden with ease.

Growing plants indoors also comes with a consideration for vertical space. With this, you need to think about the mature height of the plant, which would also include space requirements for the hydroponics lights, as well as the ceiling. Then, be sure you add in the height for your planter, making sure your plants will have adequate room to grow tall and healthy. After taking the location and plant options into consideration, you need to turn your attention to the actual equipment needed for an indoor garden. As you begin shopping around, chances are you will be surprised by the wide array of choices but the right choice will depend on the type of plants chosen and the location.

Generally, lights used for indoor gardens are described in two primary categories - florescent and high-pressure. Most florescent lights are long narrow tubes. The advantages to using florescent lighting include low cost, easy to work, low heat production, and readily available. However, this type of lighting does not produce the same level of lighting as that of high-pressure lighting. Even so, fluorescent lighting works well for seedlings and plants not requiring high levels of light.

High-pressure lights are those often used as streetlights, industrial lighting, and indoor gardening. Within this category, you have two options to include high-pressure sodium or HPS and metal halide or MH. The HPS lights produce more red and are typically the better choice for flowering plants whereas MH lights produce more blue, making them a better choice for growing plants. With high-pressure lights, you can use them individually or alternately, depending on the growth stage of the plant. The main advantage to the high-pressure light is more light production but they also use more electricity and produce a greater level of heat. In fact, high-pressure lights can become so hot they should be kept a minimum of 12-inches from the plants to avoid burning. You also have to use caution when watering plants in that high-pressure bulbs can explode when becoming wet.

Additional type of equipment needed for indoor gardening includes a fan, reflector, and a timer. The fan will maximize ventilation while strengthening plant stems by exposing them to constant movement, much as they would experience outdoors. Typically, a household fans work fine. Then, some type of reflective material around the edge of the garden is beneficial in reflecting the electric light back onto the plants. However, you want to avoid aluminum foil since this also reflects heat. Instead, you could use opaque white paper or reflective Mylar. Finally, a simple electric light timer would regulate the light cycle. Many times, setting the light to a shorter period helps encourage flowering.

To care for your indoor garden, you would need to follow specific instructions according to the type of plants chosen. For this reason, we suggest you keep plants with like requirements planted in one area, making on-going care more convenient. Typically, you would need to water your indoor plants less often than you would outdoor plants due to limited root space and heat from electric lights instead of the sun. Growing with a hydroponics self-watering system is one option to eliminate concerns of watering too much or too little.

Another consideration is pests, which can affect indoor plants as well, although not to the same degree they would outdoor plants. In the outdoors, many pests are driven away by the wind, predators, rain, and so on but with an indoor garden, you will need to keep a close eye on your plants, watching for any type of pest invasion. Prevention is always the best step, which can be done in most cases by keeping any outdoor plants away from your indoor garden. In addition, try to keep pets away from the indoor garden in that they too can bring insects inside with them. If you find your indoor garden has small invaders, you can create a home remedy of water and liquid dish soap to mist the plants once a week.

Indoor gardening is a very rewarding way to enjoy the same beautiful plants and flowers that you would as if you had a large, outdoor garden. In addition, you can still put fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, onions, or whatever foods you like on the table that you grew indoors. Fresh herbs are also a wonderful addition. If you love to cook, then fresh dill, parsley, oregano, chives, garlic, thyme, marjoram, etc. What you do not use immediately can be dried and then stored or frozen fresh. The bottom line is that the possibilities of indoor garden are limited only to your creativity.