Plants are a great way to decorate indoors. If you’re thinking about starting an indoor vegetable garden, you’re probably wondering how much space you will need. The simple answer is that indoor gardening can take up as much or as little area as you like. If you only have a small pot of herbs, a sunny window should work just fine. Larger indoor gardens need room for both plant pots and equipment. You will need to be able to provide plenty of light and humidity for a bountiful indoor garden.

Aside from the aesthetic value plants provide your home with, there are also health benefits – grade school science class tells us that plants cleanse the air through utilizing the carbon dioxide and producing more oxygen. Here is some important information on how to care for your indoor plants to gain the optimum health and aesthetic benefits.

Calculating How Much Room You Need for Indoor Gardening

Making Sure Your Plants Have Enough Light

Most indoor plants need good lighting. You can provide this through natural lighting in the room of your choice or electric lighting. Darker leaved plants usually don’t need as their lighter leaved friends.

For the most part, common herb varieties don’t require as much light as vegetable plants, which is why southern windows work well. Most vegetable plants need as much as 16 hours of full, direct sunlight to be healthy. If your vegetables have access to lots of natural sunlight, a supplemental florescent fixture placed near to the plants should provide enough light. However, if the area you selected doesn’t have much natural sunlight, you will need a lot of vertical space to hang high intensity discharge grow lights. Depending on the rating of your grow lights, they should be mounted anywhere from 1-6 feet above your indoor garden, and you will need enough fixtures to make sure that all of your vegetables receive even lighting.

Here are the varieties of plants (usually those that only require medium to low light) that are known to be suitable for indoor gardening:

1. Creeping Fig
2. Cyclamens
3. Boston ferns
4. African violets
5. Philodendrons

Regulating Humidity for Larger Indoor Gardens

For indoor gardening, humidity is a big issue. The amount of moisture in the air has a direct effect on the growth of the plants. During mornings, you could spray the plants with water for their much-needed moisture. Make sure the leaves don’t get covered in dust.

Humidity isn’t usually a problem unless you have a large indoor garden. For large indoor gardens, plan on designating space for humidification equipment. If you notice that leaf tips are browning, leaves are dropping off, or your plants look wilted, your atmosphere is probably too dry. To fix this problem, you can set out a tray filled with water. Place lava rocks in the water to help the water evaporate more quickly. You can also use a humidifier to help reach the correct humidity levels.

Watering

A common mistake most people make in indoor gardening is they tend to over-water the plants, which may lead to rotting roots. Make sure to research the type of plant you have, because each kind of plant varies on their watering needs.

Fertilization

Just like watering, fertilizing depends on the type of plant. If you have managed to supply your indoor garden with the right amount of light, water and humidity, fertilization may not need much attention. A good indoor fertilizer can be bought from most home depot or hardware stores. Orchids need the special fertilizer available.

Finding Room for an Indoor Garden

Choose good quality and attractive container for your indoor plants. Make sure that the pot is clean before placing your new plant into it to prevent infection and to encourage healthy growth.

If you only want a few small plants like lettuce, carrots, onions, basil or parsley, a shelving unit is the best way to save space. Place the shelving in front of a south-facing window that isn’t shaded by trees, buildings or other obstacles, and you should have enough light for herbs, lettuces and other small vegetables. If you don’t have a window for your shelves, you will need a grow light for each shelf.

Larger plants like tomatoes and peppers – or even small shrubs like blueberries – need to be in pots on either the floor or a low table. For these bigger plants, a south window probably will not be enough light, so make sure you have enough room to hang larger grow light fixtures.

If you are interested for more indoor gardening tips and tricks, contact us today! 805-773-5395.