Indoor Container Vegetable Gardening Ideas
If you are an apartment dweller, look to your patio and balcony to provide the perfect place to start your indoor container vegetable garden. Herbs can be grown indoors easily as well. An added benefit to indoor container vegetable gardening is you can do this all year round!
You may raise an eyebrow or two at this suggestion, but it can be done, within limits. Certainly pumpkins, squash, and sweet corn are not going to be items grown inside the average home. But, many leafy crops, root crops, tomatoes, and other vegetables can be grown indoors during the cold months of the year. You don’t need a large outdoor garden to enjoy growing fresh vegetables.
Container gardening is great because you can position your containers for the best light exposure and best growing conditions. Although vegetable production will be limited by the number and the size of your containers, indoor container gardening can be very rewarding. So, let’s get started with a plan for your vegetable harvest for this year!
Here are a few vegetables to consider for indoor growing: Cherry tomatoes, Hungarian sweet peppers, ‘Gypsy' peppers, Short vined cucumbers and squash, Endive, Radishes, Spinach, Swiss Chard, Leaf Lettuce, Miniature cabbage, Eggplant, Chives, Green onions, Bush beans and most any Herb.
Planning your garden is one of the most important parts of container vegetable gardening. You can have hanging baskets, pots, and planters filled with various crops that will perform fairly well if lighting, pollinating, watering, fertilizing, and temperature requirements are met. Decide what pots you want to use, and then choose your soil carefully. Soilless mixes like peat-lite are usually too light for container vegetable gardening and will not support plant roots effectively. However, indoor gardening soil is different than regular garden soil, so inquire at your local nursery as to the best soil for your container gardening. Preparing your garden soil for planting is the most physically demanding part of vegetable gardening and may also be the most important part.
Next, you need to decide whether you will be starting your vegetables from seed or from started plants. If you are new to gardening, starting vegetables from seed may be too huge an undertaking, instead purchase plants. Successful vegetable gardening involves far more than just popping a few seeds into the ground and waiting for a tomato to appear. Even if you start with a small existing plant, you will have the joy of tending, nurturing, and stacking your growing vegetables. Added to the pleasure of vegetable container gardening will be the satisfaction derived from eating your vegetables fresh.
Learning is a process, vegetable gardening needs time. As in so many other pursuits, it is true in the art of vegetable gardening: practice does make perfect. Indoor container vegetable gardening might not be quite the same as growing the same plants outdoors, but it can be fun to tend an indoor vegetable garden when the snows are blowing and the winds are roaring outdoors! Your family and friends will be delighted and surprised when your serve that salad with the green onions and cherry tomatoes they discover that you harvested that day from your indoor container vegetable garden!
Frequently Asked Questions
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QUESTION:
gardening ideas?
whats yr best plant in the garden and hy ,any tips on planting flowers that come bk year after year will be appreciated ,
live in england thanks for the advice ,anyone else?-
ANSWER:
IDIOT PROOF PLANTS:
Shade to Part Shade: Columbine (easy to start from seeds, blooms second year on), Bleeding Heart, Phlox, Dianthius (Pinks) (easy to start from seeds, blooms first year and on), Sweet William (easy to start from seeds, blooms second year on_, Lilly of the Valley, Hosta, Wild Violets, Forget-Me-Nots, Daffodils and other spring bulbs (except tulips and hyacinth, they're work).Partial Sun to Full Sun: Phlox, Sweet Peas (easy to start from seeds, bloom second year on), Iris, Daisies (including colored ones - easy to start from seeds, bloom first year on), Sweet William, Dianthius, Wild Violets, Peonies, Hollyhock (easy to start from seeds, blooms second year on), Forget-me-Nots, Lavender, Bee Balm (easy to start from seeds, bloom first year on), Tiger & Day Lillies, Honeysuckle, climbing Clematis (easy to propogate), Black-eyed-Susies, Jurusalem Artichokes.
The above constitutes a list of idiot-proof flowers in my garden that are low-maintenance, get more beautiful every year, smell great, and aren't readily eaten by deer, bunnies, or other marauding beasties. If I haven't mentioned the perennial above, then its because it is something the deer or woodchucks will munch on. And, overall, all of the above make great cut flowers.
A LIITTLE MORE ATTENTION FLOWERS;
Roses (that is as far as I want to go when it comes to fussing with my flowers).
LOW Bushes/Shrubs: Pink and white Flowering Almond Azaleas (stay low, do well in shady areas), Mock Orange (grows about 10 feet high, bushy, needs regular pruning of dead stalks), lilacs (can be trained to keep low)
I suggest you check out a site like Springfield Gardens. They offer complete "collections" and lots of ideas for gardens, incorporating different blooming times, color coordination, and what is suitable for your area and amount of sun. Happy gardening.
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QUESTION:
I would like some gardening ideas for the winter to help with those long cold days. ?
Having lived in Florida, the winter in North Carolina can be long and boring. I would just appreciate some new ideas for continuing my gardening during the winter months. I have a greenhouse.-
ANSWER:
compost piles ,fill low places in the yard ,trim trees,rake ,
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QUESTION:
Does anyone have any great ideas on gardening a gravesite. Flowers, small bushes and such?
I have been tending a family plot for several years. Then my grandmother passed last August, and all my gardening was upheaved. But now the plot is full, nobody else will be buried there any more, and I would need to start from scratch. Any ideas on planting flowers that will come back next year and maybe a small type bush?-
ANSWER:
You left out what growing zone you are in. One very awesome ground cover is roman chamomile ... it's perennial, not to be confused with German chamomile which is an annual. It's beautiful ... covered with little daises in the summer, and stand up to walking on. When touched it gives off the smell of apples.
A small tough, but very fragrant shrub I like is a type of fragrant rose that needs no care an stand up to harsh conditions ... rosa rugosa.
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QUESTION:
What are some good landscaping and gardening ideas for a LOW budget?
I don't have a lot of money(not broke!) but I would really like to do some work on our yard. What plants can I buy or yardwork can I do that works for a low budget. If at all possible, can u add pictures please? any help is greatly appreciated.-
ANSWER:
What you can do if you don't want to spent too much money on plants is by propagating existing plants from your backyard (if you have any) or from friends/family.Alternatively, you can grow new plants from seeds.
You have to know what kind of plants are suitable for your garden.
If you are planning to plant these plants to the ground, you don't need to spend any money for containers.
But if you do want to have some container plants, there are a lot of things that you already have in your house that you might not want to use anymore that can be used as a pot. For example, old buckets, old rubbish bin, unused plastc cups, plastic bottles, etc. Just make sure there are good drainage by poking holes at the bottom.
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QUESTION:
For my 4-H project I have to do a demonstration (My project is gardening), ideas for this demonstration?
I mean, the best I can come up with is "This is how you plant a seed", or "This is a shovel, it is used for...."
Preferably nothing that involves carrying around dirt etc.
Any ideas?-
ANSWER:
Hi:
Think about a garden as an a little adventure in landscape design. Take a three different small pots of flowers. (you can buy them inexpensive) Arrange the pots in a triangle and explain this is part of designing a small flower bed. You could also do this with pint or one gallon shrubs. Take a look at my website and see if it will help at all. I am a landscaper and designer and if you need more suggestions, contact me. Think about how you would plan for this garden, how to prepare for your plants and different aspects of planting, watering and maintaining them. Make it simple for yourself. Good luck you and I hope you win the 4-H project! Kimberly
Glance through different sections and you may come up with some other ideas. Let me know how you made out!
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