32 Factors to Consider When Setting Up Your Indoor Garden
When doing anything new, it’s usually helpful to seek advice. Even if you’ve been gardening indoors for years, there’s always something to learn. Hopefully, regardless of your skill level, you’ll come away from reading this article having learned something that improves your indoor garden.
Temperature Range (Summer versus Winter)
In the summer, you run the air conditioner to keep the indoor temperature comfortably low. In the winter, you run the heater to keep the indoor temperature comfortably high. You may have a fireplace that increases the temperature even higher during winter.
Your plants perform best within a certain temperature range. For each type of plant you include in your indoor garden, look up its optimal temperature range. Once you know the optimal temperature for each plant, you can find ways to ensure you provide those optimal conditions for your plants.
If you find you keep your house cooler than one type of plant prefers, look at different areas of your house for a location where the temperature favors the plant.
A room with a computer at the end of the hall stays warmer in summer than other rooms because it gets diminished air flow from the air conditioner. You can put plants that love warm temperatures in this room. In winter, grow cool-weather plants like lettuce in this room if this room temperature stays lower than the others.
A Hydroponic Growing System is a kitchen appliance that grows food.
“Hydroponic Growing System” is a boring name for an exciting kitchen appliance. You can grow herbs, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers, and it’s so easy. Look at Hydroponic Growing Systems on Amazon. [affiliate link] You’ll discover why these gardens are so popular.
Beware the Vent Air
You may want to keep the room temperature in your home around 73° all year. In the winter, vents in your home blow 90° to 100° air. In the summer, vents in your home blow 50° to 65° air. Placing your plants on top of or in front of a vent subjects those plants to extreme air temperature fluctuations, which can be harmful.
Air blown from the vent may be of higher or lower humidity than the humidity in the room air overall. This difference may affect your plants, too.
If the location you choose for your indoor garden ends up being close to a vent, redirect the air coming from the vent to not blow directly on your plants.
Temperature Range (Day and Night)
Many households—maybe including yours—have a programmable thermostat [affiliate link]. They are very handy, automating the setting of the temperature based upon when you are home or sleeping. How you use your programmable thermostat can affect plants in your garden.
Some plants benefit from higher daytime temperatures and lower nighttime temperatures. Tomatoes, for one, like daytime temperatures in the 70s Fahrenheit to be about 10° higher than nighttime temperatures. (Read more about growing tomatoes indoors in the companion article, You Can Grow Tomatoes Indoors.) You can use your programmable thermostat to provide your plants a favorable day/night environment by lowering the temperature at night.
Natural Light Works, Too
Both the Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System implement artificial light, but that does not mean you are trying to avoid using sunlight to grow your indoor garden. By all means, if sunlight is available where you’d like to set up a garden make use of that source.
(You’ll learn all about the Self-Watering Container System by reading the companion article, A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On!.)
Will Your Garden be Visible to People Outside Your Home?
Natural light can greatly enhance your garden, but if you prefer your neighbors not know of your garden, you’ll have to position your indoor garden away from the windows.
You don’t have to be growing anything illegal to want to be secretive; you may simply not want to have to share your harvest when all other sources of food become scarce.
Blackout shades for your windows [affiliate link] may go a long way toward preventing people outside your home from suspecting you have a garden. However, the LEDs for indoor gardens are very bright, and even blackout curtains may not stop all light.
And if you do put an indoor garden in a room with a window, when the shades are open you can be assured the lights will be visible from a distance even if the reason for the lights is not. The consistent on/off schedule of the garden apparatus may lead an observer to recognize the light belongs to a garden.
Should you realize that, no matter what, the light from your grow LEDs will be visible to passers-by, consider this trick. Let the world see you growing flowers in your Hydroponic Growing System. [affiliate link] When you place a Hydroponic Growing System on the window sill, clearly visible to passers-by, they will see the flowers. Position your food gardens deep in the room so only lights are visible, not details of your gardens. People will jump to the conclusion that all the lights are for additional flower gardens. Sneaky!
Another option to consider is covering your indoor gardens with a tent.
Will You Put Your Light Under a Tent?
A few factors play into whether you’ll want to place a tent over your indoor garden. A tent designed specifically to cover a Hydroponic Growing System [affiliate link] keeps light in and humidity elevated.
You may have to place your indoor garden near a window, but you would prefer not advertise that you have food growing in your home. A tent hides the light from prying eyes.
Your indoor garden may fit perfectly in a corner of your living room, but the bright lights reflect on the television. You can cover your garden to control light levels within your home.
Your plant may grow better in a higher humidity environment, so you raise the humidity within the tent instead of your dwelling as a whole. You’ll see many Hydroponic Growing Systems and seed starting trays [affiliate link] come with clear plastic covers. The cover retains the humidity to encourage seedling growth.
A tent helps keep curious children and pets from investigating your plants. If you get a tent with a clear panel you can see your plants, but they are protected from accidental damage.
One argument in favor of using a tent is conservation of light. Select a tent with a reflective interior coating so light striking the inside of the tent bounces back toward the plant. Areas of the plant otherwise shaded will get light.
Of course, to tend to your plants inside the tent, you need a wide door or the strength to lift it up and over the garden. If you cannot maneuver the tent, you may need to seek alternative arrangements.
Light Pollution
The tent section touched on the issue of light pollution. When positioning your indoor garden, be aware the grow LEDs are very bright and typically shine for 16 hours per day. Where you place your garden affects the entire room.
You can control the light three ways.
First, you can place a tent over your garden. This option is discussed above.
You may decide you don’t need a full-blown tent but just something to prevent your eyes from peering directly into the LEDs. Get a wide roll of the blue tape painters use to cover trim. [affiliate link] Apply one piece of tape along the entire outside edge of the light assembly so two-thirds of the strip of tape hangs down below the light. When you look at the light, the tape blocks you from seeing the harsh LEDs unless you are looking straight up at it.
Second, you can set the timer to power the light when you are least affected. If you want your house dim in the evening, set the timer to turn on the light at 3 AM so the light turns off at 5 PM.
Third, you can set up your garden in a room away from your daily activities. Since the Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System require no natural light, you could even set up your garden in a closet, so long as the spot you select has access to electricity.
Do Pets and Gardens Mix?
If you have pets, consider how they will interact with your indoor garden. The primary concern is protecting them from chewing on or eating a plant harmful to them. A quick search online (“Are bell pepper plants harmful to cats?”) will help you determine whether you should take extra precautions with certain areas of your indoor garden.
Pets also present a risk to your garden from just being curious, playful, or rambunctious. Any time you’re tending to your garden, your cat wants to know what you’re doing and will climb up to see. Things get knocked over or stepped on.
Anything is a potential toy to a pet, so have a place you keep your gardening tools put away.
And pets like to just run around at full speed sometimes. A shelf with a Hydroponic Growing System on the top shelf is top-heavy and at risk of being tipped over when bumped. Large, happy dogs wag heavy tails that can topple unprotected containers.
Your garden can benefit your pets if you grow plants specifically for your pets. Catnip [affiliate link] comes to mind immediately, of course. But you can also grow wheatgrass for your cat to chew on. [affiliate link] Again, be sure any plant your pet chews on benefits them.
How Important is Humidity?
Humidity levels can play a part in the health of your plant. Now, they’ll grow outdoors where humidity fluctuates not only over the course of the day but also over the course of the growing season. But each type of plant has an “optimal” humidity level, and being indoors, in a controlled environment, you can hold the humidity at that level.
You can hold the humidity at a specific level using either of two ways.
You can set the humidity in your house to match the optimal humidity level of your plants. However, should you have two plants with starkly different humidity level preferences, you have a dilemma in that you can satisfy only one.
Therefore, a tent is the best option for holding the humidity for a set of plants that share a preference for a specific level of humidity. Group your plants according to their needs, if humidity plays a significant factor in your garden plans, and tent each group separately.
You could simply choose to ignore the humidity level in your house until it matters. During certain months or in some regions of the country the humidity gets very low or very high. If you see a plant suffering, take action to adjust the humidity more to its liking.
Leave a Path for Foot Traffic
Your indoor garden should allow easy passage through commonly traveled areas of your home. Plants can sprawl out beyond their containers. Check how wide a plant grows before settling on its location.
Also be sure people passing by your garden won’t be likely to bump it and knock over things. Pets aren’t the only beings that disturb plants!
Electrical Outlet
Both the Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System require electricity. At the minimum, both have a LED. Your set-up may also include a fan or additional light kits.
Make sure the wires and plugs are shielded from water spillage. You can wrap and group wires to eliminate clutter and improve the look of your garden. Loose wires are at risk of being cut along with branches when pruning a bushy plant.
A garden consisting of multiple Hydroponic Growing Systems requires numerous power outlets, so select a high-quality power strip.
Look at the orientation of the plugs on the transformer so you can choose a power strip with compatible plug directions. A transformer with the wire coming out the bottom can block three outlets on a power strip but only one if the sockets on the power strip were turned 90°.
If you require access to multiple wall outlets, make sure any cable you buy will reach with slack to spare. The slack allows you to arrange the cable to be less visible and out of the way.
Keep Your Garden Easily Visible in Case of Alarm
A person can easily overlook one very important factor in locating an indoor garden. You need to place your garden where you can see visual alarms that your plants need water or nourishment.
Most Hydroponic Growing Systems incorporate a visual alarm to alert you to a low-water situation. Some also remind you to feed your garden at regular intervals, again using a visual indicator. As you evaluate a potential place to set up an in-home garden, ensure you’ll see any visual indicators of sub-optimal conditions within a reasonable amount of time after they occur.
Got WiFi Signal?
You can tuck your indoor garden in a hidden corner without worry you’ll miss a critical alarm if your Hydroponic Growing System offers Wi-Fi connectivity. Using an app you install on your phone, you can monitor conditions and even control settings on your Hydroponic Growing System.
A growing number of Hydroponic Growing Systems offer the Wi-Fi feature. The manufacturer determines what app connects to the gardening appliance and what features come included. Three examples of a Hydroponic Growing System with Wi-Fi are the LetPot LPH-SE 12 pod, the iDOO 12-pods WIFI, and the AeroGarden Bounty Elite 9 pod. [affiliate links]
Counter Space or Floor Space
You can probably find the space on top of a counter or on the floor in the corner fairly easily for a single Hydroponic Growing System or Self-Watering Container System. But like many people, you’ll soon want another, followed by yet another, and then more. And the counter or corner of the floor becomes cluttered. Now, you need a plan.
If you want to grow a variety of plants in your home, you’ll need to find a place for each garden. This is where the indoor garden offers benefits not available to an outdoor garden. You can distribute your garden throughout your residence.
When you garden in a raised bed outdoors, you arrange all your plants together in a single box. With small gardening appliances, you can grow six to eighteen plants anywhere the appliance fits. They fit on bookshelves, end tables, countertops, desks, and so on.
A Self-Watering Container System, being somewhat larger, needs a portion of the floor where people won’t trip over it. A corner is fine. And you can get creative in where you place a Self-Watering Container System.
You can built two to resemble and function as living room end tables. Mount the LED on the underside of the table top with the self-watering container suspended just above the floor. You’ll want to be able to lower the light to just above the top of the container for when you have seedlings.
You can also arrange your garden vertically, another advantage you have when gardening indoors. Stack your Hydroponic Growing Systems on shelves, being sure to leave enough space above each one so you can extend the light assembly to its full height.
A narrow five-shelf unit can hold four Hydroponic Growing Systems with the top shelf being reserved for supplies. (Unless you’re open to climbing a ladder to tend to a plant growing on this shelf.) Limit these gardens to plants like lettuce that grow short so the light assembly never rises far above the grow deck. A shelf that uses (thick) glass shelves will allow light from the higher shelves to benefit plants growing on the lower shelves.
Get Closer! Sharing Light
The previous section introduced the idea of a plant in one garden benefiting from the light emitted from another garden. On a rack with glass or otherwise transparent shelves, the light from the gardens on the higher shelves shines through to the gardens on the lower shelves. You can position gardens in close proximity on a countertop or on the floor so those gardens share light as well.
You can have all the lights turn on at about the same time so they all get the maximum exposure for all 16 hours. You could also stagger the light schedules so the plants experience something akin to sunrise and sunset. Their “day” will be longer than 16 hours, but the light won’t be at full intensity the entire time.
Not All Shelves are Equal
You can make the most of a small footprint on the floor by stacking gardens on shelves. Plants that don’t spread out much, like lettuce, can fit on a narrow rack. A Self-Watering Container System fits perfectly on the floor under the lowest shelf, with the light mounted on or suspended from its underside.
This is where you think like an indoor gardener. How can you stack your garden? You cannot do this in a raised bed outdoors!
Typically, you would want a vertical gap between shelves sufficient to allow the light platform of a Hydroponic Growing System to extend fully. But what if you limited yourself to planting short plants in that Hydroponic Growing System? You could fit more gardens in the same vertical space.
A rack mounted on wheels provides nearly 360° access to plants in your garden if the rack comes without a back panel. Of course, a rack on wheels should be positioned on a hard, flat surface like a tile floor. A rack positioned perpendicular to the wall instead of against the wall does not need wheels, as you can just walk around it. This accommodates a Self-Watering Container System on the lowest shelf or on the floor below the lowest shelf.
360° Access to Produce for Harvesting, Pruning
Whether you position your plant on a shelf or on a countertop, arrange as close to 360° access to the plant as you can manage.
You can clip lettuce leaves or pluck tomatoes from a plant even if you have only “front” access to the garden. Providing yourself access to the plant from any angle is purely a convenience for you. You’ll inevitably miss a ripe tomato hiding in a thicket of leaves or have to reach around to the back of the lettuce plant to cut a leaf.
Arrange Garden Access for Easier Maintenance
Having full access to your plants for pruning and harvesting is a great convenience. Being able to access all parts of your gardening appliance improves your gardening experience as well. Indoor gardens are not maintenance-free. You’ll need to fill the water reservoir, clean the tray where the pods go, clean stains on the platform, and even rearrange your gardens.
Leave Hydroponic Growing Systems accessible so you can pull out the tub for cleaning between crops. The power cord for the water pump in the AeroGarden Hydroponic Growing Systems [affiliate link] connects to a socket on the back of the device. You’ll need to either spin the device or reach two hands behind it so one hand braces the wire while the other hand detaches the plug from the socket. Each manufacturer runs wires differently, so your situation will be unique to your arrangement.
Get Exercise While Watering Your Garden
You’ll need to fill the water reservoir of your Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System. That means you’ll need to carry water from the source to the garden. This can be part of your healthier life style!
You can view this as an opportunity to get your 10,000 steps in for the day or a deal-breaker for any location more than a few steps from the water source.
If you have restrictions on how much weight you can carry, you’ll be making more trips between your water source and your gardens hauling small containers.
Fill water containers and store them near your garden so when the time comes to water the plants you can just grab the water jug and get the job done.
The Water You Use for Your Plants Matters
You want to use the purest water available in your gardens for two reasons.
The first reason to use high-purity water is that you don’t want to eat food harvested from contaminated plants. Isn’t that one reason you’re growing your own food?
The second, and less obvious reason reason to be selective where you source water for your garden, is filling the reservoir with contaminated water eventually damages the pump or coats the walls of the tub. You shorten the life of your equipment.
Distilled water, water run through a RO (reverse osmosis) filter, rain water, or spring water provide the best water for your plants. Distilled and RO water are less likely to have particulates that degrade equipment over time.
Think Ahead Toward Ease of Cleaning
Plants shed leaves, water spills, and nutrients drip. In other words, you will spend time cleaning the area around your garden. Take steps early on to make cleaning less of a burden.
Leave space between gardens to allow you to sweep leaves and dropped flowers. Get a vacuum with an attachment that fits into crevices so you don’t have to sweep.
Lay down plastic under your gardens to catch drips and drops.
Gardens Don’t Belong Where Stains Cause Heartache
Will you place your Self-Watering Container System on your new carpet? Probably not. Find a place for your garden where, should the worst-case event occur, a permanent stain won’t ruin your year. Accidents happen.
Introduce Guests to Your Garden (Or Not)
Your gardens intrigue people who visit your home. They’ve never seen a Hydroponic Growing System or a Self-Watering Container System. The thought never occurred to them to grow their own food in their own home. They will ask you all about your garden. Before you set up your indoor garden, decide whether you want visitors, at least the casual visitors who never step past the kitchen or living room, to know you have a garden in your home.
You may want your garden to remain hidden. The most obvious reason is that you don’t want people coming to you when they cannot get food at the grocery store due to widespread shortages. The same people who ridiculed you for growing a survival garden will be the first ones in a crisis to remember you have fresh food and come knocking on your door.
You’ll have a difficult time keeping your garden a secret as the size of your indoor garden grows. Hiding a single Hydroponic Growing System is easy. Hiding six of them and two Self-Watering Container Systems is much more difficult if you host guests with any level of frequency.
Even if you dedicate a bedroom you never show guests, you’ll need blackout curtains for the window. Either choose your guests carefully, help your guests set up their own indoor gardens, or make it clear you aren’t sharing!
Alternatively, you might enjoy your garden so much you’re bursting to tell every person who casts a shadow in your home all about your garden and how they can begin gardening indoors themselves. (You might even start a blog about it!)
You can improve your dinner party conversation by explaining how many ingredients in the main course or salad or salsa came from your indoor garden. People truly marvel at how well these systems grow food.
You can strengthen ties with other people when you have something in common. An indoor garden makes a wonderful common interest. You can share seeds and lessons learned.
Your Vacation Caretaker Needs Full Access
Whether you want to hide your garden or spend the entire evening discussing it with dinner guests, eventually you’ll want to go on a vacation long enough you’ll need somebody to tend to it for you. Set up your garden to be easily tended by somebody other than yourself.
Keep your maintenance routines simple so the instructions you write for your substitute are equally simple. If you insist on feeding your plants a concoction of a dozen ingredients precisely measured out, let your caretaker just pour nutrients from a bottle you filled before you left. Your plants will do just fine until you return.
Your caretaker needs access to the garden. You might be able to squeeze into a back corner to feed and water some gardens but your caretaker may not fit. Don’t expect your elderly neighbor to be able to climb that step-stool to reach the gardens on the top shelf of a rack.
Store Supplies for a Tidy Garden
You’ll assemble an impressive collection of gardening tools and supplies over time. Rather than leave them spread out on the counter next to your gardens, dedicate a cabinet or closet shelf to them. When guests visit (and you want them to see your garden), the focus should be on the gardens themselves.
If a guest shows greater interest in the full process of growing food indoors, you can start pulling supplies and tools out of storage. Otherwise, focus on making your gardening area presentable.
Keeping your gardening area free of clutter benefits you, as well. Gazing at living plants is calming. Looking at living plants surrounded by boxes and bottles and tools is not. Allow your indoor garden to benefit you as a calming agent in addition to supplying you with food by keeping your garden pleasant to look at any time.
Keep a Trash Can Handy
One tool to keep near your garden is a trash can. Plants shed leaves. You’ll prune branches. Sometimes you’ll uproot all the plants in a garden so you can begin again. Have a trash can close at hand to keep cleaning regularly as effortless as possible.
In keeping with the idea that your garden should look pleasant, keep the trash can hidden or find one that is somehow decorative in addition to being functional.
Your Plants have Fans!
In the wild, your plants would be subjected to stressors like wind. Wind causes plants to stiffen branches and leaves. The interior of your home likely lacks wind on a scale of the outdoors, but a basic fan makes a great substitute.
A fan can toughen up plants like lettuce. A fan can also assist in pollination of tomato plants. Add a small fan near your garden to provide your plants a little agitation. An oscillating fan can cover multiple Hydroponic Growing Systems arranged in a semi-circle.
Do You Smell That?
Odors should not be a factor in your indoor garden, but some people may be more able than others to smell the plants, soil, or other parts of your garden. You may need to locate your garden away from people with sensitivities.
If garden smell affects somebody in the household, the power and direction of any fan blowing on your garden becomes a factor. Either move the garden or eliminate the fan.
The flip side to not wanting to smell your garden is actually planting a garden you want to smell. While the Bountiful Indoor Garden website focuses heavily on growing your own food, you should consider that a Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System can grow beautiful flowers just as easily as they do herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers.
Soil Management Keeps Things Clean
A Self-Watering Container System involves mixing various components to create grow media. That can get messy. Many gardeners love getting some soil under the fingernails, but few probably enjoy cleaning up soil from the table and floor when the project is done. Plan for soil management.
You can spread a table cloth and fold it in on itself to carry the soil crumbs to the trash or outside. However, you can also get a dedicated soil pad that offers raised edges [affiliate link] so the soil stays in your work area.
Know the Bugs are Coming
Even indoors, bugs will eventually find your garden. It’s amazing something with a brain the size of three atoms can find its way through doors, windows, and screens to your little garden. But, never fear, you can take action.
Set fruit fly traps [affiliate link] around your indoor garden plants. The traps you set can stay in place until they are covered with bugs.
See Further with Cameras
Some Hydroponic Growing Systems come with cameras (like the Gardyn 4.0 vertical garden) [affiliate link] so you can see your plants anytime from anywhere. They might include a time-lapse feature so you can replay the life cycle of your plants. While cameras may sound like an unnecessary extravagance, they could serve a valuable purpose.
If you put your garden in a back room because nobody else in the household appreciates lights turning on at 3 AM to grow wonderful, fresh food, you can set up an internal camera system to allow you to quickly evaluate the state of your garden with having to make the trek to the back room for yourself. Remember the earlier mention of visual alerts when a Hydroponic Growing System detects the reservoir is low on water? A quick glance at the streaming video allows you to see any flashing warning lights.
If you enjoy showing people pictures of your garden when they show you pictures of their children or pets, a camera with a remote feed provides you that ability.
A camera requires power and network (typically Wi-Fi) access, and feeding the stream to the Internet may require opening a port on your router. A common security camera may be all you need. Remember to change the default user name and password, especially if your camera will stream video over the Internet, to make it harder for somebody to gain access without permission.
Get the Approval of Your Spouse
Getting the nod from your spouse is the most important factor in setting up an indoor garden. Finding a place in the house for your garden where you spouse approves is important. Keeping the garden area uncluttered and presentable to guests so as to not upset your spouse is important. Don’t allow your indoor garden to become a wedge in your relationship with your spouse.
You may have caught the indoor gardening bug and you’re ready to convert the spare bedroom into a full-blown farm, but your spouse wants none of it. A compromise can be that you get a couple Hydroponic Growing Systems (to start with) but you renounce converting the spare bedroom into a farm.
You’ll need to show your spouse you can be trusted to not make a mess, the garden won’t be a source of embarrassment when you’re hosting guests, and your new obsession won’t disrupt your lives. Especially your spouse’s life.
Key Takeaways
You’ve reviewed numerous issues to consider before setting up a garden in your home. Now get that Hydroponic Growing System or Self-Watering Container System and start growing your own food!
The items listed above are considerations, not arguments why you should not garden inside. You’ll find the perfect location for your garden, you will keep your garden tidy, and you’ll (probably) impress your guests. Your garden will operate efficiently and you’ll grow plenty of food.
Growing food indoors is not effortless, but it should be enjoyable. Hopefully, some of these tips made your indoor gardening experience more pleasant.