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You Have A New Hydroponic Growing System. Now What?

Whether by gift or purchase, you now have an indoor garden sitting in a box on the kitchen table. What do you do with it?

Welcome To The Indoor Gardening Community!

Indoor gardening includes all the fun of gardening with much less effort. You can garden all year long. You can experiment easily. And forget weeding your garden. You don’t even need a window! You’ll love this!

In this article, you’ll learn what to expect, what’s required of you, and what to do after your first crop of food.

Setting Up Your Hydroponic Growing System

Set up your Hydroponic Growing System according to the provided instructions. Each Hydroponic Growing System is slightly different and some have unique features.

If you received your Hydroponic Growing System as a gift, or are just curious as to how the system works, look at the companion article, How A Self-Watering Hydroponic System Works. With an understanding of the system, you’ll have the knowledge you need to get the most from your gardening appliance.

You can improve your chances of success with your new garden by checking the companion article, 32 Factors to Consider When Setting Up Your Indoor Garden.

Your new Hydroponic Growing System grows an impressive array of garden produce. For some ideas what you can grow, see the companion article, What Can I Grow With My Indoor Garden?. It’s a long list!

At this point, you know how the system works, you’ve selected a favorable location for your indoor garden, and you’re familiar with the gardening capabilities of a Hydroponic Growing System. It’s time to choose seeds for your indoor garden.

Selecting Indoor Garden Seeds

Unless your garden appliance came from AeroGarden (out of business) or Click and Grow, you probably need to supply the seeds for the plants you grow. Even if you’re device came with pre-seeded pods, you might want to grow something completely different.

You can start pretty much any seed in your Hydroponic Growing System. However, your Hydroponic Growing System may not have the water capacity, vertical clearance, light power, or pod size to support thirstier, taller, denser, or thicker plants. You cannot grow a full-size Heirloom tomato plant in your $50 countertop Hydroponic Growing System.

(If growing very large vegetable plants like a full-size Heirloom tomato plant or in-ground plants like carrots and onions indoors interests you, see the companion article, A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On!)

You can grow most herbs, a variety of lettuce and other leafy greens, and fruits like tomato and pepper in your countertop Hydroponic Growing System. The vertical clearance of the typical Hydroponic Growing System is about twelve inches (12″), which is plenty for herbs and lettuce. Tomato and pepper plants need more height between the deck and light or consistent pruning to fit under the light.

The seeds you choose for your Hydroponic Growing System make a difference. Some plants like hydroponics and small spaces more than others. For example, the Tiny Tim tomato seeds [affiliate link] grow dwarf tomato plants, just right for countertop Hydroponic Growing Systems. You can find many food plants in dwarf size on Amazon [affiliate link]. The plants are the same as what you’d use outdoors, just smaller.

Lettuce and most herbs can be regular plants. They grow small and compact enough to fit in an indoor garden just fine.

You now know what types of seeds work best in a kitchen garden. So which seeds should you buy?

Planning Your Indoor Garden

Now that you can grow a garden, what garden will you grow? You have options for what you can grow.

  • Grow plants based upon seeds you have on hand
  • Grow ingredients for recipes (herbs)
  • Grow foods for a salad (lettuce, tomatoes, bell pepper)
  • Grow foods for salsa (peppers, tomatoes)
  • Replace food you’d buy at the grocery store (lettuce)

You can read more about planning an indoor garden in the companion article, How To Plan Your Indoor Garden.

I’ve found the problem with just winging what I grow in my garden is that I don’t use too much of what I grow. My garden lacks purpose.

My first garden was an educational experience with the herb pods included with an AeroGarden. But I discovered I rarely use fresh herbs when I cook. Don’t worry too much about getting the perfect garden the first time; just focus on becoming familiar with the process. Use the time you spend learning your first garden planning your second garden. My current gardens are planned. I want a salad.

I grow cherry tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers, and green onions I regrew from bulbs bought at the grocery. I have multiple Hydroponic Growing Systems.

Bulb of green onion purchased from grocery store now seated in pod of Hydroponic Growing System
You can replant green onions purchased from the grocery store

When you know what you want to grow, you can gauge how much capacity you need to do it. Add as many Hydroponic Growing Systems as you need to accomplish your goal.

Setting The Seeds In Your Hydroponic Growing System

You are ready to set the seeds inside the grow sponge/plug. The sponge should have a cavity in the top (when held like an ice cream cone).

Most manufacturers recommend soaking the grow sponge before inserting the sponge in a pod. Use the same water to soak the sponge as you will in your gardening appliance.

Drop two to four seeds into the cavity. How deep does the seed packet recommend planting seeds for this plant? If the depth is more than just below the surface, you can push one or two of the seeds deeper into the sponge. With two deep seeds and two shallow seeds, you may increase your odds of a successful germination. If you check the pod often, you might be able to determine whether a shallow or deep seed germinated; make a note so you can replicate that the next time you start this seed again.

Clearly, the easiest way to start a plant in your Hydroponic Growing System is by dropping a few seeds into a soggy sponge and setting pods in the deck. But some plants might be reluctant to grow this way. You can transplant a seedling to your Hydroponic Growing System.

Picture of AeroGarden grow sponge split length-wise with inserted strawberry seedling
Grow sponge split length-wise with inserted strawberry seedling

Follow these steps to transplant a seedling to a Hydroponic Growing System.

  1. Soak a grow sponge thoroughly.
  2. Carefully (and without hurting yourself!) slice the sponge length-wise so you can fold the sponge open like a split loaf of bread.
  3. Clean the roots of the seedling to remove all soil. Soil doesn’t belong in a Hydroponic Growing System.
  4. Lay the seedling in the grow sponge with the above-surface section at the top and roots exiting at the bottom point of the cone. Fold the grow sponge closed.
  5. Insert the grow sponge in a pod and insert the pod into the deck of the Hydroponic Growing System. You’re done!

Watch your transplanted seedling for a couple days to be sure it’s getting the water and nutrients necessary to survive. You can re-seat the plant if it seems to be struggling.

I used this transplant method on a couple small strawberry plants I pulled from my outdoor garden. During the winter, I grow a couple plants indoors to produce numerous baby plants from runners. Those baby strawberry plants go outside in spring.

Managing Your First Crop

Growing food in a Hydroponic Growing System for the first time is exciting. It’s surprising to see how well plants take to growing in water instead of soil.

Growing food indoors is fun and easy but not without some effort on your part. The plants need maintenance, of course.

Use the purest water you can find. Distilled or reverse osmosis (RO) water is good. Hard water may leave stains and softened water may contain salt. Tap water may have chlorine or other additives.

You’ll feed the plants regularly. Follow the instructions on the food supplied with the appliance. You can decide later if you’d like to alter the feeding schedule, but, starting off, stick with it.

Depending on the size of your Hydroponic Growing System, you may need to prune your plants to keep them from spreading everywhere or bumping up against the light assembly. Pruning your plants is a good thing; the nutrients in the water cannot support a massive plant. I’ve noticed the cherry tomatoes on my plant ripen quicker after I prune non-productive branches.

You should change the water in the reservoir regularly for long-term plants like tomatoes. A tomato plant can last for a year or even more in a countertop Hydroponic Growing System given proper care. Drain the water in the reservoir and immediately refill it with fresh water to clear out the crud that builds up in the tank. I do this about once a month for my tomato plants. I can tell when I’ve let the roots go too long in a dirty tank. You can use a siphoning device or a turkey baster to extract the water.

Wrapping Up Your First Crop

Eventually, the plants in your first crop will reach the end of their natural lives. Or, you’ll decide you want to try something else, and just terminate them. Either way, you need to prepare your Hydroponic Growing System for the next crop. Thoroughly clean your Hydroponic Growing System to remove any nasties that might negatively affect the next crop.

Wash out the water reservoir and clear all water lines of crud. The nutrients may leave residue and algae may be growing along edges of the tub or deck. Rinse off the pump.

The manufacturer of your device should have included cleaning instructions, but, if not, these ideas should get you through.

I run water mixed with some chlorine (bleach) through my Hydroponic Growing Systems to kill anything that might start growing again on the next crop. You can also run white vinegar by itself through the system.

I manually start the pump several times with the cleaning solution in the tub to ensure the solution cleans the water lines. Take your time with the cleaning process, since a few extra minutes here can prevent weeks or months of substandard plant growth. Once I’m satisfied the cleaning solution has worked its way through the system, I rinse the tub and deck and pump, fill the tub with fresh water, and run the pump manually enough times to clear residue of the cleaning solution. Then I repeat this process with fresh water. I don’t want any cleaning solution left in the tub or on the deck when I start my next crop.

Once I have a clean device and fresh water, I’m ready to start my next crop.

After Your First Indoor Garden, What Then?

Your Hydroponic Growing System should have come with the grow sponges, pods, stickers, transparent domes, and nutrients necessary to grow one plant in each available seat on the deck. Just no seeds. But the supplies included in the box covered only your first garden.  When you’re ready to start your second crop, you’re out of supplies. What do you do?

You’ll need to purchase supplies before starting your next garden. Supplies you’ll purchase to continue receiving the benefits of your Hydroponic Growing System include pod kits and nutrients. You may purchase grow sponges without the full pod kits if you reuse your pod cones and domes and fashion your own pod cone covers (maybe aluminum foil).

AeroGarden Pod Assembly
Breakdown of a seed pod (with seed)

Grow Sponges/Plugs

Grow sponges are generally a one-time use component of your garden. Budget for the cost of one grow sponge for every plant you start. I’ve reused dried sponges when the seed failed to germinate.

The popular Haligo 128 pcs Seed Pod Kit [affiliate link] fits AeroGarden and comparable Hydroponic Growing Systems. You get the equipment to plant 50 seeds, plus some “A and B” nutrients. If you need only the sponges, look at the Growell Grow Sponges 120 Pack [affiliate link] of AeroGarden-compatible grow plugs.

Plant Nutrients

Your garden requires nutrients. Several manufacturers offer nutrients for Hydroponic Growing Systems. You’ll see many plant nutrients are “A and B” combinations, some are “add to water” liquids, and others are all-in-one solutions. Keep enough nutrients on hand so you never run out. Reorder with plenty of time for the new supplies to arrive.

The General Hydroponics Flora series of plant fertilizers [affiliate link] fall into the “add to water” category. Based upon what you grow, mix the prescribed amount into a gallon of water and fill the tank of the garden appliance. I’ve tested this product on a crop of lettuce with good results. An alternative product in this category is the Humboldts Secret Set of A & B Liquid Hydroponics Fertilizer [affiliate link].

TPS Nutrients Liquid Plant Food [affiliate link] works like the AeroGarden plant food, with you simply adding an amount of solution directly to your device reservoir based upon the size of the Hydroponic Growing System. A review of the ingredients shows the TPS formula closely mirrors the AeroGarden formula.

Finally, iDOO Plant Food [affiliate link] is a standard “A and B” style fertilizer. iDOO is a well-established manufacturer of Hydroponic Growing Systems, so the nutrients they supply should be of high quality.

You can experiment with mixing your own nutrients, if you wish. There’s no harm in trying new things, as you can always just terminate the garden and start another if the plants fail to thrive.

Tips To Get You Going

If you’re accustomed to growing plants outdoors or on your windowsill, here are a few observations on the differences between traditional and modern gardening.

Your indoor garden runs year-round and can be placed anywhere in your house with access to electricity. You’re no longer limited to summer gardens or windows.

Starting over on a garden is no big deal. Plants often grow quicker in a Hydroponic Growing System than in soil. You may be reluctant to restart a plant in soil in a pot but you should be quick to restart an under-performing plant in your Hydroponic Growing System.

If you are the adventurous type, try starting a variety of plants from seed. “Will it grow?” can be your mantra. Your indoor garden can provide you with the exotic vegetables not found in the typical grocery store.

You can try growing more than one lettuce plant in a single pod. Your six-pod garden appliance might give you twelve lettuce plants. Test your limits here.

Fill the water reservoir before the device reminds you. Your plant needs that water and the low-water reminder is a fail-safe to keep your plant from dying from neglect. A tomato plant drinks water quickly, so top off the water level every one to three days. A low water level means the roots of your plants are in air, not the nutrient-rich water.

Your plants love the light so keep the light platform as low to the top of the plants as possible. You’ll find this difficult to do if you plant tall and short plants in the same Hydroponic Growing System. (That’s another reason why you need several Hydroponic Growing Systems!)

You can find more tips on growing food indoors in the companion article, Tips For Growing A Bountiful Indoor Garden.

Key Takeaways

Your new indoor garden will bring you years of food and fun with far less effort than a raised bed in the back yard. You’ll love it!

It’s hard to have just one Hydroponic Growing System once you experience how easy gardening can be. Get a couple more and you can diversify your garden. Tall plants in one device, lettuce in another, and herbs in a third. Why bother growing food outdoors at all?

Welcome to the indoor gardening community.

The post You Have A New Hydroponic Growing System. Now What? first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> Surviving in a Post-AeroGarden World https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/surviving-in-a-post-aerogarden-world/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 02:47:02 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=12682 AeroGarden announced its closing effective the first of January, 2025. Farewell, good friend.

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Surviving in a Post-AeroGarden World

AeroGarden announced its closing effective the first of January, 2025. Farewell, good friend.

What Just Happened?!

AeroGarden dominated the Hydroponic Growing System market. The name AeroGarden was synonymous with Hydroponic Growing System, becoming almost a generic term for the product category similar to Kleenex, Xerox, and Coke. But being the best known is no guarantee of long-term success.

In late 2024, AeroGarden announced the closing of its doors effective the end of the year. Products remain for sale on Amazon [affiliate link] through the end of the year but few if any are available on the AeroGarden.com website.

AeroGarden specialized in convenience, quality, and innovation. By including seeded pods in the box, the company made their gardens the perfect all-in-one gifts or starters for first-time gardeners. The quality of the product was top-notch. And they covered the gamut of indoor gardening needs with options supporting 3, 6, 9, 12, and even 24 plants. The floor-model 24XL provided a full three feet of vertical space for your plants. And you could stack the Farm model gardens!

The evidence of the end was there. Over the past year, models started disappearing from the company website and Amazon. Sam’s Club clearanced the Harvest 360 model it sold. But who expected the major player in the market to completely shut down?

Other manufacturers offer Hydroponic Growing Systems. Hydroponic Growing Systems are simple products and so popular you’d think the market could support a high-end product line from AeroGarden in addition to the cheaper alternatives. Apparently, not.

What Made AeroGarden Special?

AeroGarden played a major role in the Hydroponic Growing System market. The company was an early provider of hydroponic indoor food gardens. Over time, the company built a loyal following of indoor gardeners.

AeroGarden had the floor-based Hydroponic Growing System market just about all to itself. Most floor-based Hydroponic Growing Systems offered by other companies stack plants vertically, whereas the Farm series was a flat garden. With the optional anchor kit, you could stack a Farm 24Plus atop a Farm 24XL to grow up to 48 plants using just a few square feet of floor space.

The Bounty series offered the opportunity to grow medium-sized plants on a countertop. The 24″ light deck height meant you could grow tomatoes and peppers in addition to lettuce and herbs.

The AeroGarden Harvest series may have been the most popular Hydroponic Growing System on the market. At least, apparently, it was at one point. The device was compact and offered basic conveniences. However, with a 12″ light deck limit, it’s best suited for lettuce and herbs. It certainly grows tomatoes and peppers, but you’ll need to prune the height of these plants often.

AeroGarden standardized the pod sizes across its entire product line. You could own a 3-pod Sprout and a 24-pod Farm 24XL and use the same pods in both.

AeroGarden offered starter trays for its Hydroponic Growing Systems that allowed you to start seedlings for transplant to a soil-based garden. You’d just pluck the grow sponge/plug from the tray once the seedling was ready and move it outdoors. Of course, you can do this with any Hydroponic Growing System, but the tray converted a 6-pod Harvest to a 23-pod seed starter.

AeroGarden also offered trays to grow microgreens in the Harvest series and Bounty series. The AeroGarden products were simply very versatile.

AeroGarden seemed to have everything going for it, but could not compete in a market saturated with less-expensive competitors. As you shop for your next Hydroponic Growing System, keep in mind what made AeroGarden special, and look for the company following that path.

With AeroGarden Gone, What Next?

Your AeroGarden appliance continues to grow food, just as it has done reliably for years. It’s OK. Continue using your AeroGarden devices as before. You can get supplies and most replacement parts from third parties.

You cannot assume the company will continue to offer updates to the phone app. You probably need to prepare for it to go away entirely. All Wi-Fi-enabled devices function using the control panel, so your garden won’t “shut down”. If you own or believe you will buy an AeroGarden Bounty or Farm garden, perhaps you should download and install the app now. The company promises “extended” support for the app, but that doesn’t mean the app will be available in the store for new users.

You’ll need to find alternative suppliers for replacement grow sponges/plugs, pods, and nutrients. Several third-party companies offer compatible sponges and pods. However, you’ll probably be adding seeds to your pods manually from here on out.

Expanding your garden or replacing worn-out AeroGarden devices involves finding worthy alternatives. AeroGarden competitors will quickly fill the void left by AeroGarden leaving the market.

AeroGarden stated their products will be available on Amazon until the end of 2024, but retailers will be selling AeroGarden products until their inventory runs out. You can search for AeroGarden products still on sale on Amazon and stock up today [affiliate link]. Get them quickly; they won’t be available for much longer!

Manufacturers such as Mufga, LetPot, Ahopegarden, RainPoint, and iDOO seem to be the contenders for replacing AeroGarden as the dominant products on the market. However, with the market so splintered, it’s possible no one manufacturer dominates the field as did AeroGarden.

The countertop indoor garden market continues to expand. You’ll have no lack of selection here.

Rather, the void left by AeroGarden will be in the floor-based garden beds. The Farm series provided growers the option to grow a large number of plants in a small space, a few very large plants like squash, or a few very tall plants like tomato, pepper, or sunflower. AeroGarden offered the ability to stack Farm models, so you could grow 48 plants using just a couple square feet of floor space. This style of gardening is where AeroGarden may be missed the most.

The Bounty series offered a 24″ clearance under the grow light for tall plants. Perhaps more manufacturers will take up the slack here. LetPot offers an interesting pair of gardening appliances that come close to the height of the Bounty but outperform it elsewhere.

I expect eventually some manufacturer will fill the market gap left by the Bounty series and maybe even the Farm series. We’re already seeing some activity in this area.

Can AeroGarden Competitors Fill The Gap?

Companies other than AeroGarden offer quality Hydroponic Growing Systems. While none seem to have reached the popularity of the AeroGarden Harvest series of gardens, they’re on their way to achieving it. What are your options for growing food using Hydroponic Growing Systems from these up-and-coming manufacturers?

Here are some alternatives to AeroGarden you can explore.

The light deck rises to 20″ high on the LetPot LPH-SE 12-pod garden [affiliate link]. You can even interact with it through a Wi-Fi app like on the Bounty Elite. The 5.5 liter (5.5L) reservoir capacity keeps your plants fed longer. And you get two light modes so you can customize the light to the plants you’re growing.

The 21-pod LetPot LPH-Max [affiliate link] falls between the AeroGarden Bounty Basic and Bounty models. The 36 watt (36W) light exceeds the power of the Bounty Basic light but is less than the 40W Bounty. You get 21″ clearance for your plants and a 7.5 liter (7.5L) water reservoir that should greatly reduce the number of times you need to top it off. Even better, the LPH-Max comes with a 2-pod tray with larger holes so you can grow tomatoes and other plants with thicker stalks. These people are getting imaginative! And you control this appliance with a handy 4.8″ LCD screen or Wi-Fi.

Superegrow introduced a possible alternative to the AeroGarden Farm series. With a maximum plant height of 32″, the Superegrow 6100F [affiliate link] approaches the vertical space of a Farm 12XL and Farm 24XL. You gain a great degree of control over the pump and lighting settings with this garden device. A 7 liter (7L) water reservoir provides enough water for even the thirstier plants.

The Click & Grow Indoor Herb Garden Kit [affiliate link] resembles a long, skinny toolbox with a handle. If you have no interest in adding seeds to grow sponges yourself, look at the Click & Grow product line of 3, 9, and 9 with Wi-Fi gardens. The company offers packages of 3 or 9 pods with a wide variety seeds for herbs, greens, flowers, and fruits [affiliate link]. Here is something interesting: the pods include the nutrients for the plant. Note: the pods are incompatible with AeroGarden appliances.

An alternative to a flat floor-based garden is the vertical garden. It’s a column, with plants growing out its sides on all sides, having a water reservoir as the base. Learn more about vertical gardens as an alternative to countertop gardens in the companion article, Limited Floor Space? Go Vertical With Your Garden!

AeroGarden will be missed, no doubt. But even the great AeroGarden can be replaced.

Can You Still Get AeroGarden Supplies?

Yes, you can continue buying pods, sponges, and other compatible accessories. Two factors come into play here. AeroGarden sold enough Hydroponic Growing Systems to ensure the demand remains strong for years to come. Moreover, some manufacturers designed their devices to be compatible with the AeroGarden pods. Owners of those devices need replacements, too.

The Haligo 128-Piece Seed Pod Kit [affiliate link] equips you with 50 sponges, 50 labels, and 12 pods, along with nutrients. Regardless of the company making the product, so long as the pods fit and the grow sponges hold together in water, you should have no reason to be concerned.

If you’re concerned AeroGarden-compatible supplies will become difficult to find, consider stocking up on compatible pod kits. How many plants will you start growing per year? You’ll need a grow sponge/plug for each.

You can reuse the plastic pods. Clean them well and sterilize them between crops. Substitute aluminum foil for the stickers or buy them online. Keep and reuse the transparent lids; those are harder to fashion yourself. In a pinch, you can clean out the transparent snack cup [affiliate link] after you eat the fruit in it.

The GoorDik 150 Grow Sponge Kit [affiliate link] should keep you in business for a long time. If you use the AeroGarden Seed Starter trays, having a large supply of grow sponges makes sense.

With AeroGarden gone, their pre-seeded pods go away, too. This is a shame. Those pods almost always worked, were replaced if they did not, and produced good food. The trend in the market seems to be going away from pre-seeded pods.

The AeroGarden fertilizer will probably go away. The primary appeal of the AeroGarden fertilizer was the ease of having a single bottle. Many companies offer a two-bottle plant-food solution. Changing how you feed your plants may be the greatest inconvenience of losing AeroGarden, beyond not being able to get more gardens. Try the TPS Nutrients Liquid Plant Food [affiliate link] as a one-bottle substitute for the AeroGarden fertilizer.

Even the pump for AeroGarden devices [affiliate link] can be had from third-party providers. This part may not work with other devices, and as demand wanes, so too will supply. If you’re serious about keeping your AeroGardens operational, maybe you should have a few spare water pumps handy.

Key Takeaways

AeroGarden offered high-quality, innovative products. They certainly pioneered the Hydroponic Growing System industry. But AeroGarden certainly isn’t the only provider of Hydroponic Growing Systems. The Hydroponic Growing System market is just getting started. Great things are coming!

Keep your AeroGardens in good condition, and you’ll surely get many years of service from them. But fret not; losing AeroGarden by no means losing the ability to garden indoors. You’ll try something new when you buy your next Hydroponic Growing System and you’ll find that—while it’s not an AeroGarden—it’s still a darn good Hydroponic Growing System. It’s just different.

The post Surviving in a Post-AeroGarden World first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> The Most Reviewed Indoor Gardening Equipment https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/the-most-reviewed-indoor-gardening-equipment/ Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:53:07 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=12389 You don’t get thousands or tens of thousands of reviews by being a horrible product. What works? Find out here.

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The Most Reviewed Indoor Gardening Equipment

Buying products online can be risky. At least in the store you could hold the box in your hands, maybe open the flap to peek inside. You could feel the material or compare two products side-by-side. Not so much online. That’s why product reviews carry so much weight with buyers. Somebody else evaluated the product for you.

Since reviews carry so much weight with online shoppers, I’ve curated a list of indoor garden products with the most reviews in their category.

See the Criteria for Inclusion section of this article for an explanation for how I selected products listed below.

The article lists many products, and the list will grow over time as I find more highly-reviewed products to add. I use only text links to reduce page load time. Product links take you to Amazon.com, where you can see images and investigate the product further.

Let’s see what indoor garden products are the best of the best!

All product links in this article are affiliate links. Purchases made after you click on a product link may result in me earning a small percentage of the purchase price. This costs you nothing, but helps cover the cost of publishing the website.

Hydroponic Growing Systems

A Hydroponic Growing System is a “garden in a box”. All but the largest units or vertical towers fit on a kitchen countertop. The combination of the hydroponic technique and LED technology almost guarantee you a successful garden.

Based upon the number of ratings received by these Hydroponic Growing Systems, these products stand out as the most popular on the market.

Title Description
AeroGarden Harvest Elite
6 pods, 20-watt LED, convenient control panel, 12″ plant height, and it comes with herb seeds ready to grow. Available in stainless steel, sage, and platinum. The manufacturer sells pre-seeded pods containing seeds for a wide variety of plants.
AeroGarden Bounty Basic
9 pods, powerful 30-watt LED, 24″ plant height, vacation mode, trellis, and it comes with seeds ready to grow. With the Basic model, you get a powerful LED and 9 pod capacity without the extra conveniences. The manufacturer sells pre-seeded pods containing seeds for a wide variety of plants.
AeroGarden Sprout
3 pods, 10-watt LED, 10″ plant height, and it comes with 3 herb seed pods. Available in black and white. The Sprout works best for small plants and fits in small spaces, like a dorm room or RV. The manufacturer sells pre-seeded pods containing seeds for a wide variety of plants.
iDOO 12Pods
12 pods, 22-watt LED, 11″ plant height, built-in fan, and two grow modes for the grow light. The 4.5L (liter) water tank expands the time between waterings. Light modes options are vegetable or fruit and flowers. Available in black and white. No seeds included.
Click & Grow Smart Garden
3 pods, 14″ plant height. Three basil pods included. Click & Grow promotes their pods as being superior to “regular” grow pods. Available in gray, white, and beige. The manufacturer sells pre-seeded pods containing seeds for a wide variety of plants.

Self-Watering Containers

The self-watering container differs from an old-fashioned flower pot in that the self-watering container includes a built-in water reservoir below the soil compartment that allows water to wick up into the grow medium to the roots of the plant.

A self-watering container when combined with a powerful grow LED makes a Self-Watering Container System, an indoor raised bed garden. (See the companion article, A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On!) You can grow so many different plants indoors in a Self-Watering Container System.

Title Description
Keter Urban Bloomer
Self-watering container raised up on legs with a shelf below. Holds more than twelve gallons of soil. Allot about a yard by a foot and a half of floor space. Great design for indoor garden. Built-in water level indicator.
T4U Set of 3 Small Self-Watering Containers
Three small self-watering containers. Well-suited for herbs, radishes, and shallow-rooted plants. Uses a cotton rope wick. Clear section of container shows water level. Fill water through opening in corner. Looks nice.
Amazing Creation Set of 3 Small Self-Watering Containers
Three small self-watering containers. Well-suited for herbs, radishes, and shallow-rooted plants. Uses a cotton rope wick. Clear section of container shows water level. Fill water through opening in corner. Looks nice.
Lechuza 30 Self Watering Planter, 22"
Present your indoor garden as a decoration with these superb self-watering containers. High-end planters show gardening can be stylish. Comes in slate and white. 12″ x 12″ x 12″
Lechuza 40 Self Watering Planter, 30"
Present your indoor garden as a decoration with these superb self-watering containers. High-end planters show gardening can be stylish. Comes in slate and white. 15″ x 15″ x 15″
HBServices 8" Self Watering Plant Pot
The self-watering container allows water to seep into the soil and wick up to the roots of the plant. You can grow a small plant. Simple design.

All product links in this article are affiliate links. Purchases made after you click on a product link may result in me earning a small percentage of the purchase price. This costs you nothing, but helps cover the cost of publishing the website.

Seed Pod Refills

Your Hydroponic Growing System will last you many years, providing many crops. Each crop needs new grow sponges. You may also need to replenish your supply of pod labels and pods. Check out these popular refill kits.

Title Description
GoorDik 150 Pack Grow Sponges
Grow your own seeds using these replacement grow sponges. The kit includes 150 AeroGarden-compatible sponges, 10 plant labels, and tweezers. Other options include kits with fewer sponges with or without grow baskets (pods).
GoorDik 50 Pack Square Grow Sponges and Lables
Square grow sponges fit some models of iDOO, QYO, and Lyko gardening appliances. Get 50 square sponges and 50 labels for your Hydroponic Growing System.
Haligo 128 Piece Seed Pod Kit
Get 50 sets of sponge and label, plus 12 sets of pods and domes, and plant food. Compatible with AeroGarden devices. Options include the same kit without plant food, just pods and labels only, or a set of 100 sponges and 50 labels.
GardenCube 160 Piece Pod Kit
The GardenCube consists of 40 complete plant kits, each with a sponge, basket (pod), dome, and label. The sponges are cone-shaped. One option to this kit includes plant food.
Tigvio 125 Piece Pod Kit
In the Tigvio seed pod kit you’ll get 50 sponges and 50 labels, plus 12 pods (baskets) and 12 domes. A set of tweezers for picking up seeds rounds out the kit. The sponges are cone-shaped. Options for this kit includes 50 sponges by themselves or a full set of 30 plant kits with food.
Yoocaa Hydroponics Pods Kit
Get 50 square sponges and 50 labels along with plant food for compatible iDOO, Lyko, and QYO Hydroponic Growing Systems. One option available provides just grow sponges and plant food.
Click and Grow Smart Garden (Basil)
Click and Grow offers pre-seeded pods (not compatible with AeroGarden) for use in their Hydroponic Growing Systems. Basil is one of the most popular.
Click and Grow Smart Garden (Strawberry)
Click and Grow offers pre-seeded pods (not compatible with AeroGarden) for use in their Hydroponic Growing Systems. Strawberry is one of the most reviewed seed pod kits.
Click and Grow Smart Garden (Tomatoes)
Click and Grow offers pre-seeded pods (not compatible with AeroGarden) for use in their Hydroponic Growing Systems. Tomatoes are always a popular indoor garden plant and unsurprisingly generated many reviews.

Seed Starters

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Seed Packets

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Potting Soil

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Fertilizer

Coming soon. Check back often.

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All product links in this article are affiliate links. Purchases made after you click on a product link may result in me earning a small percentage of the purchase price. This costs you nothing, but helps cover the cost of publishing the website.

Grow LED

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Microgreens

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Books

Grow your library of reference materials for a bountiful indoor garden. Whether you grow your food indoors or outdoors, the plant is the same. Learn all you can how to provide your indoor plants all they need to thrive.

Title Description
All New Square Foot Gardening, 3rd Edition
The book pertains to growing food in a raised bed outdoors, but the knowledge for growing in a raised bed can be adapted for growing in a Self-Watering Container System.
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, 2nd Edition
The book topic revolves around growing food outdoors but contains information about vegetables you may find of value as you grow them indoors.
The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook
Like many gardening books, this book centers on outdoor gardening, including calendars and planting recommendations. However, the book also contains information on vegetables and plants that can help you grow better food indoors.
The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables
This book geared toward new gardeners is (surprise!) focused on outdoor gardening. As with many gardening books, you are looking to gain knowledge on growing food in general with specifics on each plant type. You may find this book informative. The book is one of four books in a series but the only book in the series that meets the requirements for inclusion on this page.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition
A classic! The information supplied in this encyclopedia goes well beyond a simple garden into full-blown homesteading. If you feel the desire to move beyond your indoor garden, you should find this book valuable.

Indoor Garden Hydroponic Supplies

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Miscellaneous Indoor Garden Accessories

It’s the little things, or in this case, the accessories, that can make an indoor garden successful. These products refill or replace parts worn out.

Title Description
ORIMERC Capillary Wick Cord
Capillary wick cords in a variety of lengths and thicknesses. Use these cords to draw water from the reservoir in a self-watering container to the grow medium. Most smaller self-watering containers use wicks. Larger self-watering containers may have areas to submerge the grow media in the water, and will not need a wick like these.
ORIMERC Capillary Wick Cord
Capillary wick cords in a variety of lengths and thicknesses. Use these cords to draw water from the reservoir in a self-watering container to the grow medium. Most smaller self-watering containers use wicks. Larger self-watering containers may have areas to submerge the grow media in the water, and will not need a wick like these.

All product links in this article are affiliate links. Purchases made after you click on a product link may result in me earning a small percentage of the purchase price. This costs you nothing, but helps cover the cost of publishing the website.

Hybrid Indoor Garden Systems

Coming soon. Check back often.

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Criteria for Item Inclusion

Products were included in this list (and will continue to be added to the list as I find more) based upon these criteria.

  • This product surpassed the threshold I set for a minimum number of reviews of a product in its category.
  • I believed the product would benefit people growing food in their home.

I’ll clarify four aspects of reviews.

  • I set the minimum number of reviews for products by the category. Products in one category may require fewer reviews to be included than products in another category. Some product categories simply don’t sell enough products to generate many reviews or the technology changes so quickly new products replace existing products often.
  • Some manufacturers group multiple colors of one product under a single set of reviews. If color (or maybe size/capacity) is the only difference, I consider those products to be the same.
  • Sometimes a manufacturer groups unique products under a single set of reviews. I attempt to break the group apart to learn the actual number of reviews for each unique product before deciding whether to include any products in this curated list.
  • A product may attract activist reviewers—people who have not purchased the product or service—but wish to make their opinions known regarding the product, seller, or manufacturer. I’ll not count activist reviews on either side of an issue if possible, and may choose to include the item based upon the above two criteria alone.

The customer-tested products listed on this page should help you get your indoor garden operational with minimal fuss. Good luck and happy gardening!

Key Takeaways

You can construct a spectacular indoor garden even if you limit yourself to the items presented in this article.

The items listed above can also make “safe” gifts, because you know the products have stood the test of time. You can read enough reviews to decide whether the product matches the needs of your intended recipient.

Don’t reject innovative new products just because they haven’t generated the minimum number of reviews for me to include them here. Wonderful new technologies and techniques come along all the time.

Come back to this article often, as the lists will continue to grow. Good products earn more reviews and as those products meet the minimum number of reviews they’ll be added to these lists.

The post The Most Reviewed Indoor Gardening Equipment first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> 32 Factors to Consider When Setting Up Your Indoor Garden https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/factors-to-consider-when-setting-up-your-indoor-garden/ Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:42:28 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=11906 Avoid making simple mistakes when you set up your indoor garden.

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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.

Color drawing of three plants in containers, and the containers are checkboxes that are checked.

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.

AeroGarden Harvest power plug plugged into wall outlet
Choose a power strip that matches the orientation of your power block.

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

Three light sources with overlapping 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.

The post 32 Factors to Consider When Setting Up Your Indoor Garden first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> You Can Grow Tomatoes Indoors https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/you-can-grow-tomatoes-indoors/ Sun, 22 Sep 2024 12:11:41 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=11346 You can grow delicious tomatoes indoors all year long, and it’s actually quite easy. Get started now!

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You Can Grow Tomatoes Indoors

You can grow tomatoes in your own home, and it’s actually quite simple. In this article, you’ll learn how to grow tomato plants using the Hydroponic Growing System and the Self-Watering Container System, and how these two systems differ from a typical backyard garden.

Fastest, Easiest Indoor Tomato Garden

Let’s cut to the chase. If you want the fastest, easiest indoor tomato garden, you need only 3 things. Combine an AeroGarden Bounty Basic [affiliate link] Hydroponic Growing System with the AeroGarden Red & Golden Cherry Tomato Seed Pod Kit [affiliate link]. Add a package of hole covers [affiliate link], since you’ll dedicate the entire Bounty Basic to your tomato plant.

Close up view of 5 cherry tomatoes growing in AeroGarden Harvest 360
Cherry tomatoes growing in an AeroGarden Hydroponic Growing System

Tomato Plants Love Hydroponic Growing Systems

Tomato plants absolutely love, love, love Hydroponic Growing Systems. You’ll have a sprawling tomato plant with dozens of little yellow flowers quicker than you thought possible. 

The AeroGarden Bounty Basic mentioned above is one example of a Hydroponic Growing System. It’s a self-contained, soil-less garden for growing plants like herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers. A Hydroponic Growing System is a kitchen appliance. Depending on the number of plants a Hydroponic Growing System grows, the device could be as tiny as a two-slice toaster or as large as a small microwave.

In a Hydroponic Growing System the size of an AeroGarden Bounty Basic, you can choose to grow one tomato plant in the center or two plants, one on each edge of the grow deck.

You can decide whether to allow your tomato plant to sprawl out, extending a foot or two out from the Bounty, or trim the branches to keep it compact and tidy. (I allow my tomato plants to sprawl out on the counter and prune unproductive branches periodically.) 

A well-tended tomato plant growing indoors can live the better part of a year or even longer. You’ll need to add water to the tank every couple days, as a tomato plant that large gets very thirsty. Your plant will appreciate a full replacement of the water in the tank at least monthly. 

Selecting A Hydroponic Growing System For Growing Tomatoes

At the open of this article, I recommended starting with an AeroGarden Bounty Basic and the AeroGarden tomato pod kit as the quickest path to an indoor tomato garden. I’ll explain why next, but also offer alternatives to AeroGarden products.

AeroGarden Pre-Seeded Pods Save Time and Reduce Risk

Plenty of manufacturers offer Hydroponic Growing Systems. However, AeroGarden is one of the few manufacturers that offer pre-seeded pods, and AeroGarden promises to replace any seed pod that hasn’t germinated in 3 weeks, so you risk nothing. With other manufacturers, you buy seeds separately, you assemble the pod, and you have no assurance the seeds will germinate.

AeroGarden offers a wide range of pre-seeded pods compatible with all their Hydroponic Growing Systems models. You just open the box and drop the pods into the holes in the deck, and you have a garden. AeroGarden offers a Salad Greens Seed Pod Kit [affiliate link] worth investigating.

If you have plants you’d like to try out in your AeroGarden garden, you can grow your own seeds with the AeroGarden Grow Anything Seed Pod Kit [affiliate link]. Of course, AeroGarden does not guarantee your seeds will grow, but your seeds use the same system as theirs, so fresh, healthy seeds should do just fine.

A Powerful Grow Light and Ample Space to Spread Out Promote Higher Tomato Yields

In addition to AeroGarden guaranteeing the seeds will germinate, AeroGarden is one of the few manufacturers offering a high-power grow LED mounted on a high-enough platform to accommodate taller plants like a tomato or pepper plant.

A typical countertop Hydroponic Growing System offers a grow LED between 15 watts and 24 watts. The light platform of the typical countertop Hydroponic Growing System extends about 12 inches above the pod deck, with some devices having light platforms that extend up to 18 inches.

The powerful 30-watt light assembly on the AeroGarden Bounty Basic lifts a full 24″ above the grow deck, leaving ample room for a large tomato plant. The light platform on the two other models in the AeroGarden Bounty series of Hydroponic Growing Systems also extend 24″ above the grow deck, but they offer even more powerful lights. The mid-level AeroGarden Bounty [affiliate link] offers a 40-watt light and the AeroGarden Bounty Elite [affiliate link] offers a 50-watt light. The two higher-level models even offer WiFi connectivity make easy gardening even more convenient!

If you choose to allow your tomato plant to sprawl out, the more powerful light of the Bounty and Bounty Elite models could prove to be an advantage. The power of a light diminishes quickly the further the plant is from the light source, so the more powerful light mitigates this loss.

All the AeroGarden Bounty models have nine pod holes and each model comes with 9 pre-seeded pods with a variety of herbs. Set aside the herb pods if you intend to grow one or two tomato plants. Even one tomato plant can grow so large it crowds out the herb plants.

Alternatives to the AeroGarden Bounty Series Hydroponic Growing System

If the AeroGarden Bounty series is not to your liking, Hydroponic Growing Systems from other manufacturers can do the job. Few devices offer as powerful a growing light and a light platform that extends as high to provide the same vertical space for growing your tomato plant. But I’ve grown tomato plants in an AeroGarden Harvest 360 [affiliate link] (6 pods, 12″ light deck), so if a kit works for you, go with it.

The Suncoze 20-pod garden [affiliate link] comes closest to the AeroGarden Bounty in features. The 30-watt light matches the AeroGarden Bounty Basic and the 25″ light assembly height even rises an inch higher than any Bounty model. The tank holds 10 liters of water, significantly more than most other countertop Hydroponic Growing Systems, and a great convenience when growing thirsty tomato plants. You supply your own tomato seeds; the Tiny Tim micro dwarf cherry tomato plant [affiliate link] fits the bill perfectly.

You’ll still need the hole covers to block the light from getting into the water in the pod holes you don’t use. Light plus water equals algae growth. However, each manufacturer sets its own pod dimensions, so verify hole covers fit before purchasing them.

Hydroponic Growing Systems Grow Awesome Tomato Plants

The AeroGarden Bounty Basic combined with the AeroGarden pre-seeded tomato pod kit gets your indoor garden started in a jiffy. What garden is easier to set up than a Hydroponic Growing System? You do little more than fill the tub with water, insert a seed pod, and plug it in, and you have a garden on your kitchen counter!

A Hydroponic Growing System may be the quickest way to start a tomato garden indoors but you have other options. The Self-Watering Container System offers a soil-based garden also incredibly favorable to growing tomatoes.

Grow Tomatoes Indoors with a Self-Watering Container System

Tomato plants grown in a Hydroponic Growing System will be limited in size and type. You can grow full-size tomatoes in a soil-less garden, but a Self-Watering Container System probably furnishes you with better results. The trade-off is that you’ll have to assemble the Self-Watering Container System yourself.

A Self-Watering Container System Is Like An Indoor Raised Bed Garden

A Self-Watering Container System is similar to an indoor raised bed garden paired with a powerful grow light (typically LED) on a timer. What appears to be an indoor raised bed garden is a self-watering container matched with a technique similar to square foot gardening. This system results in tremendous plant growth.

The Self-Watering Containing System brings together some of the best technologies and techniques available into a garden you set up indoors. You blend high-quality potting mix, nutrients, fertilizers, and a continuous water supply with a light source designed for maximum plant yield. Each Self-Watering Container System takes little floor space, so you can set up several.

A floor space of about 2 square feet suits a Self-Watering Container System well. You want your chosen area to allow for tall and/or wide plants. A Self-Watering Container System is amazingly flexible in the variety of plants it will grow. In this case, your tomato plant will grow tall, but you can allow it to grow wide as well.

You mount a grow LED above your self-watering container to draw the tomato plant up. Be prepared to raise the LED platform as the plant grows. A 60-watt or greater LED is recommended. As you increase the height of the light, the light disperses, resulting in less light hitting any particular point on your plant.

To extract the greatest amount of light from your grow LED, you can place your Self-Watering Container System under a cover with reflective interior walls. The reflective interior walls bounce the dispersing light back toward the plant. You also won’t have a very bright light illuminating your living room for 16 hours per day. On the down side, you don’t get to gaze over at your beautiful indoor garden to see all those tasty tomatoes ready to be harvested.

You can add vertical grow LEDs [affiliate link] to your garden if you feel it helps. Vertical grow LEDs are a stick, about four feet long, on a tripod, so the stick stands straight up. Three or four of these lights positioned surrounding your indoor garden bed, with the lights aimed inward, provide light to the entire height of your tomato plant.

A Self-Watering Container System is a self-watering container, adapted for indoor use, combined with a powerful grow LED, and filled with a specialized soil media. Everything about the system is designed to boost the growth and yield of your plants.

You are surely familiar with a traditional flower pot. The pot holds potting soil and an attached pan catches water that flows through the soil. The water that ends up in the pan evaporates. A self-watering container integrates a water reservoir into the bottom of the container so very little water evaporates. Instead, the water reservoir of a self-watering container actively promotes plant growth.

The self-watering container used for your indoor garden actually blends the potting mix into the water, so the water wicks up into the potting mix to feed the roots. Holes in the bottom of the compartment holding the potting mix allow roots to grow down into the water reservoir. You’ll water your plants less frequently; just keep the reservoir topped off.

How To Assemble A Self-Watering Container System

Three self-watering containers stand out as worthy candidates. Rectangular models from EarthBox [affiliate link] and Emsco [affiliate link] and a deeper, square model from EarthBox [affiliate link] work well. These containers hold about two to three gallons of water.

The grow media is a high-quality potting mix [affiliate link], not dirt or potting soil. If you were to blend your own potting mix, one-third peat moss [affiliate link], one-third vermiculite [affiliate link], and one-third compost [affiliate link] gets the job done. You’ll need a total of about two cubic feet of potting mix.

Both EarthBox and Emsco recommend mixing Dolomite [affiliate link] to the potting mix as you fill your self-watering container. Dolomite adds essential calcium and magnesium to the system.

Fertilizer you apply to the surface of the potting mix feeds the plants over the long term. The fertilizer you select varies based upon the plants you’ll grow. Qualified fertilizers include Cz Garden 10-10-10 All Purpose Fertilizer [affiliate link]; Dr. Earth Home Grown Organic & Natural Tomato, Vegetable, and Herb Fertilizer (4-6-3) [affiliate link]; and Burpee Natural All-Purpose Plant Food (4-4-4) [affiliate link]. EarthBox and Emso instruct you how to select and apply the fertilizer.

You can start your tomato plants in the Self-Watering Container System. Just set the seeds where recommended by the self-watering container manufacturer. You can start seeds using a dedicated seed starter tray on a heater mat [affiliate link] and transplant seedlings later. You could buy seedlings if you are starting your garden in the spring, but a fundamental reason for an indoor garden is being able to start a garden any day of the year.

You may find having a dedicated seed starter tray with a heated mat expedites growing certain plants for your Self-Watering Container System. You can start a couple extra seeds and choose the best plants to transplant. If you later add a vertical garden [affiliate link] to your home, you’ll have the tools already for starting seedlings.

Your self-watering container kit probably includes a tarp to cover the grow media. You stretch the tarp over the container and cut slits where your plants grow. The tarp suppresses weeds, a bigger concern when growing plants outdoors, but it also reduces evaporation of water from the reservoir and discourages bug activity. Although you are growing plants indoors, install the tarp. Take every advantage you have to promote plant growth (and prevent visits from annoying bugs).

Provide Your Indoor Tomato Plants With Favorable Growing Conditions

Most of the material you’ll come across on the Internet regarding growing tomatoes focuses on helping you grow tomatoes outdoors. You’ll have to adapt what you learn about growing a garden to your in-home environment. You’re looking for universal facts about tomatoes. For example, what is the perfect range of temperatures for growing tomato plants? Once you know this, ensure your house temperature stays within that range. When is the best time to harvest a tomato? Once you know this, watch your in-home tomato plant closely and pick tomatoes at the optimal time.

Growing a tomato plant in a Hydroponic Growing System is fairly straightforward. It’s even easier when starting with the pre-seeded tomato plant pods from AeroGarden. But you increase your odds of success by understanding the needs of a tomato plant and providing your tomato plants with favorable growing conditions.

Temperature Matters to Your Tomato Plant

Many articles about growing tomato plants outdoors allot much print space to scheduling planting times based upon optimal soil and air temperatures and planning around frost dates. Frost dates don’t apply to indoor gardens, but air temperature does. Fortunately, tomato plants adapt well to the temperature range found in a typical house or apartment. 

Tomato plants grow best when the daytime temperature holds between 70°F and 82°F and the nighttime temperature drops to between 60°F and 70°F. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Your tomato plant suffers if you allow the temperature to drop too low. 50°F is the floor for temperature for maintaining healthy tomato plants.

For example, in tomatoes, if the nighttime temperature were to drop below 50°F at 10 p.m. and not warm up until 8 a.m. the next day, the plant would behave as if it were still night and continue nighttime activities during daylight hours. At the same time, the plant would initiate daytime processes that compete with such ongoing nighttime processes as the breakdown of starch into sugars.

Cool Nightlife Bad for Tomatoes – United States Department of Agriculture

Hopefully, you keep the temperature in your home above 50°F. But 86°F seems to be a commonly recognized ceiling for daytime temperature before your tomato plant suffers. (3)

Seed germination can be around 77°F but temperature should be lowered soon afterward. (2) This matters more for the Self-Watering Container System than the Hydroponic Growing System.

Fertilization of Flowers on Your Tomato Plant

Tomato plants make your life easy in the fertilization arena. Tomato flowers are self-pollinating. You don’t need bees and butterflies or homemade tools. You can shake the tomato plant branches to pollinate the flowers. And you don’t even need to do that yourself! Place a fan near your plant and let the breeze pollinate your tomato flowers.

You can help the pollination along by keeping relative humidity near 70%. (2) Granted, that’s a little high for a house or apartment. A tent (like a Vivosun Grow Tent [affiliate link]) over your Self-Watering Container System or Hydroponic Growing System aids in retaining humidity, if you want to provide your plant the greatest odds of success. A tent serves up another benefit, that being light management, especially desirable if you have a bright light in a small apartment.

Temperatures below 55°F inhibit pollination. (6) Again, hopefully, your in-home temperature never gets this chilly.

Watering Your Tomato Plant

How you water your indoor tomato plant if you grow your plant using a Hydroponic Growing System or a Self-Watering Container System differs significantly from how you water an outdoor plant.

In a Hydroponic Growing System, a tomato plant grows with its roots submerged in water laced with nutrients. You don’t “water” a plant growing hydroponically. You’ll keep the water reservoir full. A Hydroponic Growing System includes an indicator of current water level or it alerts you when the water level drops below a certain point.

A Self-Watering Container System also holds water in a reservoir. The water wicks up into the soil from the reservoir below the soil. You simply keep the water reservoir full. If your Self-Watering Container System lacks a water level indicator, become familiar with the pace of water use by your plants and top off the reservoir often enough to prevent the reservoir from running dry. The self-watering container prevents you from overfilling the reservoir by allowing excess water to spill out.

Here are some tips for watering your tomato plant if you plant it outdoors. You may find this information valuable one day for your tomato plant growing indoors.

Water your tomato plant early in the day (6, 7), providing about 1-1½ inches per week. (7, 8) Don’t water the leaves; apply the water to the soil directly.

Preparing the Best Soil for Your Tomato Plant

Growing tomato plants in the ground means setting up your garden where the soil is already favorable or amending the soil where you want to place your garden. Growing tomato plants indoors is much simpler.

Your outdoor tomato plants prefer loamy, well-drained soil. (7, 8, 9) Lacking that, you’ll need to compensate by mixing in compost, peat moss, or some other organic material. (8) Adjust the soil to a pH between 6.2 and 6.8, which is slightly acidic. (9)

Even after you find that perfect loamy, well-drained soil, you’ll need to rotate where you plant tomatoes to stay ahead of diseases.

If you are growing tomatoes in a raised bed, you can follow instructions from the book, All New Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew [affiliate link], for setting it up. Growing tomatoes in a raised bed comes closest to what you’ll experience growing them indoors, at least as far as preparing the soil is concerned.

You’ll save much time and disappointment preparing the soil for an indoor tomato garden. A Hydroponic Growing System does not even use soil. Now, that’s a time-saver! And the Self-Watering Container System uses a specialized potting mix you assemble.

Choosing Your Tomato Plant

You are choosing a tomato plant to be grown on a kitchen counter (Hydroponic Growing System) or on the floor (Self-Watering Container System). You may have a vertical garden such as the Gardyn 3 [affiliate link] or Gardyn 4 [affiliate link], which are Hydroponic Growing Systems that take up about two square feet of floor space, but are tall, so plants grow up the side of a column. Select a variety of tomato plant that best suits your indoor garden environment.

How do you select the “right” tomato plant for your indoor garden? You can first consider what you want to do with the tomatoes you harvest.

If you’re going to eat the tomatoes in salads, cherry tomatoes work best. If you’re wanting to can them, consider growing Roma tomatoes or something similar. Tomato slices for hamburgers typically come from a full-size tomato. Perhaps you want to eat a specific variety of tomato. Assemble your garden to fit the needs of that type of tomato plant, meaning you’ll choose whether you go with a Hydroponic Growing System or a Self-Watering Container System.

Or, you can limit your options to indeterminate tomato plants that provide you a consistent harvest of fruits for the life of the mature plant. This is an indoor garden, after all, and the point (unless you are canning) is to have a steady supply of food all year long. If you want to eat three salads a week, you want an indoor tomato plant garden capable of supplying six ripe cherry tomatoes three times per week.

Determinate or Indeterminate or Something Else

When researching what type of tomato to plant, you’ll inevitably come across the terms Determinate and Indeterminate. You need to know the difference when growing tomatoes indoors because you’ll need to manage the height and breadth of the plants you grow. You also typically but not necessarily want a consistent harvest spread over a long time.

Determinate tomato plants grow to a set height and stop. They typically produce one crop all at once. They don’t need to be staked or actively pruned. They produce fruit early. (9, 10, 11, 12)

Indeterminate tomato plants are more like vines, spreading out and growing quite large. They produce fruit continuously. You’ll want to prune suckers. The plant likely requires staking to support the vines. They take longer to begin producing fruit. (9, 10, 11, 12)

Tomato plants also may be categorized as semi-determinate or parthenocarpic. You can think of a semi-determinate tomato plant as a small indeterminate. Parthenocarpic are a specialty variation not likely to show up in a typical indoor garden. (11)

Tomato suckers are also called laterals or side shoots. Suckers are the new growth that appears in the leaf axile between the stem and a leaf. If left to grow, a sucker can become another strong stem with flowers and fruit. Tomato suckers can directly compete with the main stem for nutrients, water, and sunlight, thus weakening the main stem.

Growing Tomatoes in the Home Garden (Ohio State University Extension)

You might want to grow a determinate tomato plant indoors to get a very specific variety of tomato or because a neat, compact bush plant fits the decor as opposed to a sprawling mess of vines. The downside, unless your plant provides more than one harvest of tomatoes, is that you start over once the plant stops growing fruits. Being indoors, you may actually get multiple harvests given the indoors environment is favorable for a long plant life. Experimentation will reveal how your determinate tomato plants produce.

You may want to experiment with growing interesting varieties of tomato plants or perhaps you just want a summary of a particular type of tomato. Rutgers University hosts a page categorizing an overwhelming number of tomato varieties. You can arrange the list of tomatoes by variety, shape, or skin color. Some entries include pictures. It’s quite informative.

For growing a garden indoors, as mentioned above, an indeterminate probably serves you best, as it produces a consistent supply of fruits.

Fertilizing Your Tomato Plant

You will fertilize your in-home tomato plant. However, the instructions you follow differ from those for growing tomatoes outdoors or in a greenhouse.

Feeding Plants in a Hydroponic Growing System

You’ll find fertilizing plants you grow in your Hydroponic Growing System an easy matter. Almost every manufacturer includes the kit needed to start seeds. A few manufacturers also include seeds, but most expect you to provide your own. The manufacturer includes in the kit the nutrients you’ll mix into the water you pour into the tank. The nutrients can be liquid or pills or powder you mix with water. You simply follow the instructions for when to add nutrients.

Now, you may find the plants you’re growing in your Hydroponic Growing System do better if you adapt the schedule or formula for mixing the nutrients. For example, I have a tomato plant growing in an AeroGarden Harvest 360 [affiliate link], and as a mature plant, it drinks a great deal of water. I fill the reservoir (it’s smaller than the reservoir in the Bounty mentioned earlier) every other day. That means the nutrients get used up quicker. So I add AeroGarden nutrients more often than the recommended two weeks. The tomato plant seems happier.

You can buy nutrients from several reputable providers [affiliate link]. Start your Hydroponic Growing System with the nutrients supplied by the manufacturer to get the hang of growing plants indoors. At some point, though, try nutrients from other providers to see if you improve your crop yield and plant life span.

Feeding Plants in a Self-Watering Container System

Your Self-Watering Container System closely resembles a raised bed in how you fertilize your plants. But there are differences.

You’ll fertilize your plants according to the instructions provided by the manufacturer of the self-watering container growing your tomato plants. The EarthBox website has a wonderful summary describing how to grow tomatoes in an EarthBox Original self-watering container [affiliate link].

Transplanting Your Tomato Plant

When you grow plants outdoors, germinating seeds in a seed starter tray allows you to get a six to eight week jump on the growing season. For your indoor garden, where you don’t worry about frost, germinating seeds in a seed starter tray allows you to select the strongest plants to transplant to your Hydroponic Growing System or Self-Watering Container System.

A seed starting tray with a heat mat and built-in grow light like the Vivosun 40-cell seed starter tray [affiliate link] keeps the seeds warm and the seedlings nourished.

When you transplant a tomato to the outdoors garden, place the roots deep enough in the soil so some branches end up under the surface of the soil. Roots will grow from from the underground section of the trunk.

If your tomato plant has a long trunk with no branches between the roots and the lowest branch, set the roots low enough in the ground to allow you to lay flat a section of the trunk under the soil, where it will grow more roots. (6)

Since a Self-Watering Container System uses a modified potting mix as its grow media, the rules for outdoors transplanting generally apply here as well. If you start tomato seeds in a seed starter tray, you can choose the strongest seedling to transplant. Set the tomato plant lower into the soil to facilitate the growth of new roots from the trunk.

When transplanting to a Hydroponic Growing System, you first want to clean off all the soil from the roots. Soil has no place in your Hydroponic Growing System. Cut a vertical slit in the grow plug, open the plug at the cut and carefully set the seedling inside. Arrange the roots to encourage growth through the bottom of the plug. Allow longer roots to pass through. Then just insert the plug into a cone and place the cone into a hole in the tray.

Storing Your Tomatoes

At this point, you’ve grown some awesome tomatoes in your Hydroponic Growing System or Self-Watering Container System. How long can you keep your harvest before you eat it?

Ripe tomatoes may be stored for a week and maybe two weeks if you hold the temperature between 45°F and 55°F. (8, 13) Tomatoes will keep on the kitchen counter at room temperature for several days.

You can harvest mature green tomatoes and ripen them in a paper bag at a temperature between 55°F and 65°F. (8, 10, 11, 13) This might be important to know if your plants growing outdoors face an impending killing frost, but you’re growing your plants indoors. You should be able to ripen your tomatoes up to the day you eat them. That is why you garden indoors.

You actually have a good opportunity to do A-B comparisons, since you control all the environmental variables for the tomatoes you grow. Pick equally mature tomatoes from your indoor garden and place one on the kitchen counter, one in your refrigerator, and one in a warm, dark, humid place to see which tomato remains edible the longest.

What’s Hot in Indoor Gardening?

Most Popular

See what’s trending on Amazon in the world of Hydroponic Growing Systems! [affiliate link]

Deals Today

Check whether a Hydroponic Growing System you want is on sale on Amazon. [affiliate link]

New Releases

Sneak a peak at the Hydroponic Growing System products just hitting the Amazon market. [affiliate link]

Cool Things To Know About Tomatoes

Benefits (and Risks) of Eating Tomatoes

You’ve probably already decided to grow tomato plants indoors, which is why you’ve arrived at this article. However, if you need just a little more encouragement to grow tomatoes, check out this National Library of Medicine article, Tomatoes: An Extensive Review of the Associated Health Impacts of Tomatoes and Factors That Can Affect Their Cultivation.

The article lists a many health benefits of eating tomatoes, but also some risks. Interestingly, many of the risks involve the application of pesticides and herbicides used to grow healthy-looking tomatoes for sale, something growing your own food indoors helps you avoid.

Origin of Tomatoes

If you’re the type that loves to know the “behind-the-scenes” history of things, check out this Molecular Biology and Evolution article, Genomic Evidence for Complex Domestication History of the Cultivated Tomato in Latin America. The article details the history of the plants that became the tomato you know today. It’s just cool to know these things!

Key Takeaways

You learned to two exciting tomato gardening systems, the Hydroponic Growing System and Self-Watering Container System. If you want tomatoes as quickly as possible, the Hydroponic Growing System is your best bet. The Self-Watering Container System provides the flexibility of growing large tomato plants and large tomato varieties. Both systems offer great possibilities for your in-home garden.

You also learned how to care for your in-home tomato garden. What works for outdoor gardens does not always apply to indoor gardens, even an indoor garden bed. If you approach your indoor garden with a spirit of adventurism, you’ll never be disappointed. Everything you learn you can apply to the next garden, which you can start immediately.

Before you go, take a moment to check out a few pages from other sites. The information is well-presented and informative, and you’ll find it helps you grow better tomato plants.

You have enough knowledge now to start your indoor tomato garden. Return to the top of the page to refresh your memory about starting a garden in a Hydroponic Growing System or a Self-Watering Container System. You’ll be eating fresh tomatoes you grew right in your own home in no time!

Referenced Sources

1 Cool Nightlife Bad for Tomatoes - United States Department of Agriculture
2 Temperature, Humidity, and Water in Protected Culture Tomatoes
3 Will Heat Make My Tomatoes Ripen Faster?
4 Understanding Tomato Fruit Set
5 Soil Temperature Conditions for Vegetable Seed Germination (PDF)
6 Growing Tomatoes (PDF)
7 Tomatoes: From Seedlings to Fruit
8 Growing Tomatoes in the Home Garden
9 Growing Vegetables: Tomatoes [fact sheet]
10 Tomato
11 Growing Tomatoes in Cool, Short-Season Locations
12 Growing Tomatoes in the Home Garden (PDF)
13 Growing Tomatoes in the Home Garden

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]]> Is Indoor Gardening Expensive? https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/is-indoor-gardening-expensive/ Wed, 07 Aug 2024 23:55:20 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=10026 Is gardening indoors expensive? Relatively, no.

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Is Indoor Gardening Expensive?

Gardening indoors has its costs in money, time, and effort. Nothing’s free. But is indoor gardening expensive?

To know whether indoor gardening is expensive, you need a baseline. You need to ask, “Compared to what?“. Depending on your circumstances, you could answer that question one of two ways.

If you have a back yard, you might compare the costs of an indoor garden to an outdoor raised bed. If you live in an apartment, where you have no back yard, then you might compare the costs of an indoor garden to buying food at the grocery store.

Non-financial costs factor in the equation. During the pandemic (and still even now), some fresh food just wasn’t available in the grocery store. Is coming home without the fruits and vegetables on your shopping list “expensive”?

What are the Costs of Gardening Indoors Versus an Outdoor Garden?

Estimate the cost of an outdoor raised bed garden

Gardening outdoors can get expensive quickly. The cost estimates below come from building a small raised bed in your back yard. You could save money by forgoing the raised bed and planting directly into the ground. However, a raised bed will likely produce more food in less time with less effort (after you construct it, of course!).

The unit prices shown come from a variety of sources and will change. Take them for the approximate examples they are meant to be. You may have to buy more material than you need due to bundling or volume discounts.

Building the raised bed frame

Let’s sketch out the cost of a 4’x4’x18″ (four foot square, eighteen inches high) raised bed garden.

We’ll construct our raised bed garden frame from cedar lumber. Cedar is naturally resistant to bugs so it’s not treated with chemicals. Treated lumber would work, too, but cedar adheres closer to the ideal of a natural garden.

We’ll need six (6) eight foot cedar 2×6 boards. Cut each in four foot sections. We’ll also need one (1) eight foot cedar 2×4. At $25 per 2×6 and $12 for the 2×4, our cost comes in around $162 for the frame materials. Cut the 2×4 into four 2-foot sections. A box of two and a half inch screws will come in around $20, so we’re up to $182.

Assuming you have a saw and impact driver [affiliate link], you can assemble the four foot long 2x6s into a frame using the two foot long 2x4s as the inside corner braces. Extend the extra six inches or so of the 2x4s into the ground to anchor the raised bed frame. You’ll end up with a frame about four foot by four foot.

I have gophers and other underground critters in my yard, so on my raised beds I added a wire mesh [affiliate link] as a floor before setting the beds into their permanent locations. Wire mesh is costly. You’ll pay a dollar or more per foot for a 48″ wide roll. And you’ll have to buy more than the four feet you want, so this purchase only makes sense if you have a really bad critter infestation or you’ll be constructing multiple beds. At a dollar per foot, a 50′ roll of wire mesh will cost you $50.

I know the wire mesh protects my gardens because when I empty a raised bed I see tunnels crisscrossing right below the wire mesh.

Our costs for our raised bed are up to $232.

You can layer the floor (above the wire mesh) of the bed with scrap cardboard or newspaper (if you can find it). Your call. It’s just an additional weed barrier or water retention tool.

I layered the inside of the raised bed frame with weed barrier fabric [affiliate link]. Fabric comes in 3′ or 4′ wide rolls, although narrower or wider rolls can be found. Thickness of the fabric varies as well. Fabric costs around 25 to 50 cents per foot. Thickness and width factor into the cost. Fifty or hundred foot rolls are very common. At 25 cents per foot, a hundred-foot roll will cost you about $25, so we’ll add that sum to the running total.

A roll of fabric often comes with U-shaped metal anchors. Be sure before buying or buy them separately. However, you’ll need a staple gun [affiliate link] to hold the fabric to the inside walls of the raised bed frame.

You’ll get a couple seasons from your fabric, maybe. The weather really chews it up. The extra you buy can be used to replace damaged fabric later or for a second bed now. I wrap the inside of the bed well, overlapping seams, and bring the fabric up over the top of the frame. You can decide your preferred balance between looks and weed deterrence.

Our raised bed frame price is now up to $282.

Of course, the cost of the frame will vary depending on the materials you use and local prices. Maybe you’ll locate your raised bed on concrete and not need the wire mesh or weed barrier fabric.

Other than the fabric, the frame should last you many years with minimal maintenance. If you want, seal or stain the lumber, keeping in mind you are growing food in this raised bed and roots or branches may come into contact with the frame.

It adds to the cost, but you can build a lip on the edge of the raised bed to act as a bench. Sitting on the edge of a 2×6 can get uncomfortable quickly.

Another improvement you can make to your raised bed frame is a trellis or hoop cover. Since the frame is made of wood, mounting attachments to your frame is easy.

The cost of building a cedar raised bed frame with the mesh floor comes in just under three hundred dollars. You can save money up front by purchasing a metal raised bed kit [affiliate link]. A metal raised bed kit would cost about a third of the cost of the cedar frame bed. However, the cedar frame bed should last years longer than a “kit in a box”. One argument for the metal raised bed kit is that you have a variety of colors from which to choose.

Filling the raised bed frame

A raised bed frame four (4) feet long by four (4) feet wide by eighteen (18) inches tall holds twenty-four (24) cubic feet of grow media when filled to the brim. Grow media consists of some combination of peat moss, coconut coir, vermiculite, perlite, compost [affiliate links], and/or other materials.

Three cubic feet of peat moss costs about $22 at my local big-box store. Compost costs about $6.50 per cubic foot at that same store. Vermiculite [affiliate link] runs about $18 per cubic foot in bulk. Using Mel’s Mix Formula, filling 24 cubic feet of the raised bed costs roughly $262.

The materials breakdown is 3 three-cubic-foot bags of peat moss (you’ll have some left-overs), 8 bags of compost, and 2 four-cubic-foot bags of vermiculite.

Constructing the raised bed frame and filling it brings the overall cost to $544.

Rounding out the raised bed garden

You’ll also purchase incidentals for your raised bed garden. Fertilizer is a given. You may want some soil modifiers. If you construct a raised bed garden, you owe it to yourself to read the book, “All New Square Foot Gardening, 3rd Edition” [affiliate link], by Mel Bartholomew. The book has value for the indoor gardener, as well, as you’ll see later in this article.

We’ll just put the purchase price of incidentals at $56, so our raised bed project lands at a flat $600.

The estimated cost of a raised bed garden does not include a drip irrigation watering kit [affiliate link]. Nor does the cost include the cost of using more city water (or electricity, if you’re on a well system). When you spray water on your garden, you water the entire surface, even if no plants grow there. Drip irrigation delivers water directly to each plant. And with your drip irrigation system attached to a water hose timer [affiliate link], your plants don’t suffer from neglect. You could easily spend $50 to $100 on a complete drip irrigation system.

A 4'x4'x18" raised bed garden costs about $600

Our raised bed as described cost us about $600.

You can reduce the cost by substituting treated lumber for the cedar and skipping the wire mesh floor. You could reduce your lumber and grow media expenses by making the bed only twelve inches tall.

You could just purchase a raised bed frame kit, which certainly lowers the initial cost, but probably ends up costing more in the long term as a store-bought kit may deteriorate quicker.

Six hundred dollars sounds like a steep cost for a garden in the back yard. But that’s still less expensive than a powerful gasoline-powered tiller [affiliate link] like you’d need to start a fresh in-ground garden.

But what do you get for that $600?

Square Foot Gardening maximizes the yield of your raised bed garden. You can grow as many as 16 plants in one square foot, and you have 16 squares in your 4×4 garden. The Square Foot Gardening Foundation offers a chart listing many garden foods and how many plants of each you can grow per square foot. 

You could grow 256 radish plants in your 4×4 garden. That’s 16 radishes per square foot, 16 square feet. Or 16 pepper plants, at one per square foot. Or 4 tomato plants, which take 4 squares each.

(OK, actually, you could cheat and grow radishes around your taller, slower-growing plants since radishes grow small and fast. The radishes will be harvested before the tomato or pepper plant grows tall enough to block the sunlight.)

Let’s put this into perspective. The back of a packet of radishes recommends planting radishes in a 12″ wide row one inch apart. 256 radishes (the number that fits in the raised bed) spaced an inch apart takes more than twenty-one linear feet. You need to plow a twenty-two foot long row a foot wide to grow 256 radishes the old-fashioned way.

The benefits of the raised bed add up. Your in-ground radishes grow in dirt. With dirt, you get what you get. To get the most from dirt, you need to have it analyzed and apply compost and/or fertilizers (possibly over multiple seasons) to compensate for any deficiencies. Even dirt isn’t free! Your raised bed garden offers a plant super-soil that encourages faster growth and healthier plants than is possible with plain dirt.

Your raised bed slows down or prevents weeds from competing with your plants. You can lay a weed barrier on top of your garden soil to further discourage weed growth. Your plants get all the food and water to themselves.

So, as you can see, a raised bed garden crushes a dirt garden consisting of plowed rows and makes a worthy competitor to indoor gardening. But how does the cost of a raised bed compare to an indoor garden? Well, this is where we try to compare apples and oranges.

Apples to oranges: Comparing the cost of growing food indoors versus outdoors in a raised bed

Comparing growing food outdoors in a raised bed to growing food indoors is something of an apples to oranges comparison.

In this scenario, your reason for gardening is providing fresh food to your family. You want herbs to include in your recipes and ingredients for salads or salsa. Your goal is to grow exactly what you need, not looking to grow extra that you give away, preserve, or discard.

A 4×4 raised bed has 16 squares. Let’s say you set up your raised bed this way.

  • 4 Basil
  • 4 Parsley
  • 1 Mint
  • 1 Dill
  • 1 Thyme
  • 1 Cilantro
  • 16 Carrots
  • 16 Onions
  • 16 Radishes
  • 4 Leaf Lettuce
  • 1 Bell Pepper
  • 1 Jalapeno
  • 1 Tomato (which takes the remaining 4 squares)

Let’s start comparing costs with some intangibles.

Overplanting

You planted four basil and four parsley plants. The square foot gardening chart said you can put four of each in one square, so you did. Do you need four basil plants? Unlikely. This highlights one cost of gardening outdoors. You plant more than you need to compensate for produce lost to weather, critters, and disease. Overplanting costs resources, space, and time. You’ll give away or discard what you don’t need.

Your indoor garden grows in a near-perfect environment. The only bugs that find your plants are the ones you let into your home. Disease is nearly non-existent in an indoor garden. Feeding and watering follow a beneficial schedule. Therefore, you probably can get all the basil you need from a single plant. 

When comparing the cost of an outdoor garden to an indoor garden, remember you can grow fewer plants indoors. You save space, effort, time, and resources growing fewer plants indoors.

Short growing season

Depending on where you live, your growing season outdoors may be two to five months.

The narrow harvesting season for food grown outdoors increases the cost per plant per year. You can plant seeds each week for a staggered harvest to distribute your yield. But that harvest is still limited by the growing season.

An indoor garden grows food all year long. You can stagger plant life cycles in your indoor garden so you always have a producing plant. Any money spent on an indoor garden kit (discussed later) buys you a garden 365 days a year. When comparing fixed dollar amounts for an outdoor garden versus an indoor garden, remember an outdoor garden is idle half the year.

To be clear, your six-hundred-dollar raised bed frame provides you a garden only half the year.

No long-term storage options

You planted 4 leaf lettuce plants. For the entire season, you’ll clip lettuce leaves for some salads in July and August, and then you’re back to buying lettuce in the store when your plants die from the heat. Lettuce doesn’t store well. This is almost a “Why bother?” situation.

You don’t worry about how to store food or how long your stored food will last with an indoor garden. Your indoor garden grows food every day of the year. You harvest leaves of lettuce for your salad and the plant grows more. You pick tomatoes, and the plant grows more.

Indoor gardening is continuous gardening.

Risk of loss due to uncontrollable variables

Financial institutions use a mathematical formula to calculate the cost of risk of an investment, and they increase how much their investment must earn to offset that risk. You need to calculate the risk to your outdoor plants as a cost.

The plants growing in your outdoor garden are at risk. Severe weather—heat or cold, drought or flood—can kill your plants. Bugs and deer can eat your plants. Disease can ruin a plant.

In the hypothetical raised bed, you’ve planted one each of mint, dill, thyme, cilantro, tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno. You calculated one tomato plant will supply all you need. But if you check your garden in the morning to find a plump neon-green caterpillar wiping the corner of its mouth as it relaxes on the stump that used to be your tomato plant, you’ll realize you just lost your entire tomato crop.

The time, effort, and resources you expend defending your plants is a cost of growing food outdoors.

By growing food indoors, you protect your plants from nearly all the destroyers. You all but eliminate the risks to your plants. But it gets better.

If somehow your indoor garden plant dies prematurely, you can immediately start growing another. Very soon, you’ll have a replacement. 

Dollar Comparison

The 4×4 raised bed framework, filled with special grow media, represents the outdoor garden. Indoors, you’ll grow your garden in a Hydroponic Growing System and a Self-Watering Container System.

A Hydroponic Growing System is a long, technical name for an indoor gardening appliance. It’s an all-in-one gardening device you can set up in minutes right from the box. A Hydroponic Growing System works wonders growing plants with “normal” roots, but is the wrong tool for plants with bulbs, tubers, and taproots.

A Self-Watering Container System could be described as a raised bed garden, utilizing square foot gardening techniques, adapted for use indoors. Unlike the Hydroponic Growing System, which comes in a box, you assemble a Self-Watering Container System from components you buy separately.

It’s a system

Before continuing, take note that both indoor techniques are classified as a “system”. Not a device or an appliance or a kit. These systems, one started, do all they can to automate the process of growing food for you. You power the system with electricity and maintain the system by adding water and nutrients.

You can build a Hydroponic Growing System from components you have on hand or buy a ready-made device, but, regardless, the system is the same. Follow the system, get a bountiful indoor garden.

Hydroponic Growing System

A Hydroponic Growing System gardening appliance is a “garden in a box”. Setting up a garden is not much more complicated than following these steps.

  1. Unpack your Hydroponic Growing System
  2. Fill tub with water
  3. Add seed(s) to each pod
  4. Seat pods in openings in tub lid
  5. Add nutrients to water
  6. Plug it in

If you’re factoring in the cost of your effort and time when starting a garden, that list should have sold you on indoor gardening already! We’re talking minutes to set up a garden.

A 6-pod Hydroponic Growing System takes up about as much countertop space as a 2-slice toaster.

In the raised bed example, you planted 4 basil, 4 parsley, a mint, a dill, and a thyme plant. That’s 5 square feet of your garden. With a Hydroponic Growing System, using a toaster-sized area of you kitchen countertop, you can grow one each of basil, parsley, mint, dill, and thyme, plus one more herb.

The AeroGarden Harvest Elite [affiliate link] Hydroponic Growing System comes with pods already seeded with parsley, mint, dill, thyme, and two types of basil (meaning you can skip step 3 in the list above). The entire garden is less than 7 inches by 11 inches. That’s a savings of more than four square feet versus growing your food outdoors.

Our example Hydroponic Growing System comes with seats for 6 pods. If you really need those two basil and three parsley plants, just get a Hydroponic Growing System that holds 18 pods (such as this one from MUFGA [affiliate link]). In the area typically occupied by a small microwave, you can grow all your herbs plus the 4 leaf lettuce plants and have room left over for that cilantro plant and two more small plants. Wow!

The cost of a Hydroponic Growing System seems to be coming down. Fierce competition in this market prevents even the most popular company from raising its prices too high. This contrasts with the back yard raised bed garden, which only gets more expensive each year.

For this example, we’ll get two 12-plant Hydroponic Growing Systems. To save a few dollars, we’ll forgo the convenience of WiFi, which is being built into a growing number of appliances.

In one container, you’ll grow your basil, parsley, mint, dill, thyme, and leaf lettuce. You can leave three pod seats unused to space out your plants. You don’t have to use every pod seat.

In the second container, you’ll grow your (cherry) tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno pepper plants. Choose a Hydroponic Growing System that offers an 18 to 24 inch (preferred) gap between the tray and the light. These are taller plants that will take all the room you give them.

Your two Hydroponic Growing Systems, which replace thirteen (13) square feet in your raised bed, occupy less than three (3) square feet in your house. You can put them on a counter, on an end table, or on a shelf unit. (Leave enough vertical space for the light deck to fully extend.)

What’s your cost? Each 12-pod garden can be purchased for approximately $50. You’re into this for about a hundred dollars ($100). Watch for sales like Amazon’s Prime Day or Big Deal Days.

At this point you’re into the indoor garden for $100. You nourish your plants by adding liquid food to the water tank. Several companies offer plant food compatible with your Hydroponic Growing System.

You can buy a 1000 milliliter (1 liter) bottle of AeroGarden liquid food. At 24mL per feeding every 2 weeks, you’ll get more than a year of feedings from a single bottle for a 12-pod tank. Figure on two bottles for the year, since you have two 12-pod gardens. (Note the dosage recommendations are for an AeroGarden 12-pod device, and you may need to adapt dosage for other brands.)

Alternatively you can buy plant food from the manufacturer of the Hydroponic Growing System you bought. This will be an ongoing expense you can budget for once you get in a routine with your plants.

We’ll set the annual cost for plant food at $100. That may be a little on the high side. But padding the amount allows you to stay under budget even as you experiment with a few different solutions to see what best suits your own garden.

Now, what’s missing? Seeds! We didn’t add the cost of the seeds into the raised bed price estimate because we’ll buy the same seed packets for any garden. But you’ll spend about $4 per packet and we listed 10 different plants that will be grown in the Hydroponic Growing System, so that comes to about $40.

The cost of electricity will be a factor. The power supply for one 6-pod Hydroponic Garden System with a controller, water pump, and 22 watt (22w) LED shows a rating of 0.8 amps at 120 volts. Let’s do the math to figure the annual cost per device.

120 volts * .8 amps is 96 watts.

96 watts * 24 hours is 2304 watts, or 2.3kW (kilowatt), per day.

2.3kW * $0.13/kWh (kilowatt hour) is $0.30 per day.

$0.30/day * 365 d/year = $109 / year

We have two devices, so that totals up to $218 per year in electricity. But that is not realistic. The Hydroponic Growing System only powers the light for 16 hours per day at most. And the pump only runs a few minutes per hour; thirty minutes at most. The computer runs all the time.

We can cut the cost of 8 hours of light and 60% of the cost of running the pump. $218 * .667 (two-thirds) is roundabout $145, or slightly more than $12 per month. We’ll estimate the cost of electricity per year for two 12-pod gardens at $145.

(Note: You can use a Kill A Watt electricity usage monitor [affiliate link] to get a very close approximation of your actual costs.)

We didn’t add the cost of city water to the cost of the raised bed but did include the cost of electricity when calculating the cost of the indoor garden. Growing food indoors just has fewer hidden costs!

Your indoor garden, with 10 of the 13 plants from your raised bed, rings up at a total of roughly $345 (not counting the seeds).

Did you remember this is a comparison between apples and oranges? The indoor garden runs all year long. The $345 is for 12 months of food growth, whereas the raised bed is for half that, just 6 months.

An outdoor raised bed garden costs $600 versus a pair of indoor Hydroponic Growing System appliances that cost $345, but the Hydroponic Growing System appliances provide a continuous growing season.

But we still need to grow our onions, radishes, and carrots.

Self-Watering Container System

To properly grow onions, radishes, and carrots, you need soil. Not dirt. Enter the Self-Watering Container System, a variation of the raised bed garden adapted for use indoors.

The Self-Watering Container System consists of a self-watering container, modified for use indoors; quality soil, additives, and fertilizer; and a powerful grow light on a timer.

A self-watering container participates in watering your plants.

You are familiar with a traditional flower pot. You pour water on the soil surface and a dish under the pot catches the excess. That water just evaporates; it’s wasted, so you have to water the plant often.

A self-watering container holds soil above a water reservoir. The floor of the soil basin dips into the water reservoir, and holes allow water to wet that soil. The water in the soil wicks up through the soil.

To see that wicking action, dip the edge of a paper towel in a puddle of water on your kitchen counter. The water defies gravity to flow up the paper towel.

The water coming up from the water reservoir draws the roots of the plants down to meet it.

Holes in the floor of the soil basin (above the water line) allow deep roots direct access to the water reservoir.

You fill the reservoir by pouring water down a tube in a self-watering container. The only time you water the soil directly is when you establish your garden. The water reservoir allows you to go days between waterings.

A hole in the container allows excess water to spill out should you try filling the container above the recommended fill line. Since you’ll be using this container indoors, you must provide a pan or cup to catch the overflow water.

A Self-Watering Container System works better with seedlings you started from seeds elsewhere than with seeds themselves. This expense is not covered here, like the drip irrigation was not covered for the raised bed garden. Interesting note: you can use your Hydroponic Growing System to start your seeds and transplant seedlings to your Self-Watering Container System. This just keeps getting better!

EarthBox and Emsco offer popular self-watering containers. Those are the EarthBox Original [affiliate link] (rectangular), EarthBox Root & Veg [affiliate link] (square, deeper), and the Emsco City Picker [affiliate link].

The EarthBox website provides a handy planting chart that shows how many plants you can grow and offers helpful information about many plants.

Since the container holds about 2 cubic feet of growing media, it’s easy to just buy a bag ready-made (like Espoma Organic Potting Soil Mix [affiliate link]) and pour it in. You can mix in any soil modifiers (like dolomite) before applying a strip of fertilizer to the soil surface.

You cannot compare a self-watering container directly to a raised bed garden using square foot gardening techniques. Some plants you can grow in less space but others require more space.

You can grow two tomato plants in a single self-watering container. Two tomato plants in a raised bed occupy eight (8) square feet. So a self-watering container truly wins that comparison. But a self-watering container with about two (2) square feet of surface area can grow only 16 carrots or radishes, which is half what could be grown in the same area of a raised bed. The loss is greater for onions, which drops to about 12 in the self-watering container.

In the comparison between the raised bed and the Hydroponic Growing Systems, we chose to grow one basil plant indoors versus the four growing in the raised bed. Could we reduce the number of plants grown in the Self-Watering Container System and still have a fair comparison?

We can grow 16 carrots, 16 radishes, and 16 onions in three square feet of the raised bed. We grew that many because we could. Do we need to harvest 16 onions, carrots, and radishes all at once? We could stagger the harvest so we get one onion, two carrots, and two radishes a week, but that only gets us food for 3 weeks and then we’re without food until each plant matures. And it also assumes three types of plants will be ready to harvest at the same time.

Our indoor garden requires two Self-Watering Container Systems.

You can plant 6 onions along the long edge of an EarthBox, pour the fertilizer along the center line, and grow 8 carrots on the other side. In the other container, plant 8 radishes along one long edge and a mix of carrots and radishes (up to 8 total) along the other long edge. You don’t plant them all at once. Plant one onion and a couple radishes and carrots, then plant again in a week. Continue to get a rotation of harvests and feedings. Adjust to satisfy your needs.

Let’s look at costs.

A self-watering container can run roughly $40 – $70, depending on what comes in the kit. Let’s go with $60 for this example.

A typical Self-Watering Container System holds about 2 cubic feet of soil. As was done above, let’s estimate high at $40.

A pound of 7-7-7 fertilizer can be had for around $5.

You’ll need a pound of natural dolomite, but a 5 pound bag costs only a bit more than a 1 pound bag, so just buy the larger bag for $18 and keep the leftovers for later.

Finally, you’ll need a grow light. Watch the sales and you should be able to get a 100 watt grow LED for at or below $60. The large surface area of your garden requires a large light to cover it all and the extra power handles taller plants.

Add $10 for a basic timer you can program to light up your garden 16 hours per day.

You can calculate the cost of electricity for one light using this formula.

100 watts * 16 hours per day * 365 days per year = 584 kWh per year

584 kWh per year * $0.13 per kWh = $73 per year

Your electrical costs will be $73 per year if you run the light 16 hours per day at full power. With a dimmable light, you can cut that cost down significantly. However, for the sake of this project, we’ll factor in the full cost.

The bill for all these parts comes to $256. If you watch sales and conserve electricity, you can lower the cost quite a bit.

To match the raised bed garden, you need two Self-Watering Container Systems, so the actual total comes to $512.

Dollar Comparison

The $512 for the two Self-Watering Container Systems plus $345 for the pair of Hydroponic Growing Systems brings your one year indoor garden bill to $857.

Wow. That sounds terrible! The raised bed costs only about $600.

But back up. Oranges to apples comparison, remember?

The indoor garden runs all year long, twice as long as the raised bed garden. You can build a greenhouse to extend your outdoor growing season, but that adds considerable cost to the outside garden and you still only get to grow a very limited selection of plants during the cold months.

Your indoor garden rarely loses any plants to bugs.

You don’t have to go outside to plant, maintain, or harvest your garden.

You control just about every variable of your indoor garden, allowing you to experiment to find repeatable ways to improve your yield.

You waste less food by growing only as much as you’ll eat.

Nobody sees your garden unless you invite them into your home.

You don’t get eaten alive by mosquitos while tending to your garden.

Live plants in your home can be very calming and the bright grow lights might reduce the winter blahs.

Conclusion of the comparison of outdoor and indoor gardens

You compared the cost of a 4×4 raised bed outside to an indoor garden comprised of two Hydroponic Growing Systems with 12 pods each combined with two Self-Watering Container Systems. The yield of each garden was different but reflected the strengths of the environment.

The in-home garden came in at a higher cost (although adding in your increased water bill and a drip irrigation system for the raised bed would have narrowed the difference). But you get twice the growing season and many conveniences bundled with the indoor garden. A continuous growing season makes the in-home garden the less expensive option overall. The raised bed outdoors simply cannot compete with that.

The title of the article is, “Is Indoor Gardening Expensive?”. It’s costly, especially when paying for all the equipment that first year. But look at the dramatically lower costs during subsequent years, and indoor gardening becomes much more the bargain.

But how does that indoor garden compare to just buying your food at the store?

What are the Costs of Gardening Indoors Versus Buying Food at the Grocery Store?

You could just forgo the garden (indoor or outdoor) and just buy all your food at the grocery store. Let’s explore the cost difference of buying your food or growing it indoors.

Onions are $1.25 per pound.

Cilantro is $0.60 per clump.

Parsley is $0.60 per clump.

Carrots cost $1.00 per pound.

Radishes are about $2.00 per bag of about eight.

Romaine lettuce is about $2.00 per stalk.

Cherry tomatoes are $4.00 per pound.

Bell peppers cost about a dollar each.

Jalapenos cost $1.00 per pound.

Spices like oregano, dill, basil, thyme, and mint come preserved in plastic dispensers. You’ll pay between one and five dollars per spice container.

Your indoor garden, as calculated above, is $857 for the first year. For later years, your costs will be electricity, pods for your Hydroponic Growing Systems, plant food and fertilizer, and seeds. We’ll figure $325 per year, give or take some, after the first year.

So, when you’re at the grocery store and buy 200 pounds of cherry tomatoes, you’ll just be breaking even! No, you don’t shop like that.

How much do you spend per week on fresh food? Depending on what you need, maybe $10 per week? That’s $520 per year. Huh. $520 per year comes in pretty close to the cost of a first-year garden and more than the annual garden cost after the first year.

Compared to an indoor garden, shopping at the grocery store doesn’t seem to save you much money.

Moreover, your in-home garden provides fresh herbs, not the dried stuff in the plastic containers. There’s value in that.

The grocery store wins on the convenience factor, given you were going there anyway. Just drop it in the cart and pay on the way out. But what if the grocery store shelf is empty the day you shop?

Another benefit of growing your own food is you get to choose the exact variety of lettuce or tomato or pepper you get. And so long as you arrange your plant growth schedules, you can always have something ready to harvest.

Start small and built your indoor garden

When comparing the costs of an indoor garden to a raised bed garden outdoors, we compared two large-scale gardens. But when comparing an indoor garden to the grocery store produce section, we can compare growing individual plants to buying individual foods at the store.

What if you simply wanted to grow lettuce at home rather than purchase it at the grocery? Or cherry tomatoes?

Store-bought cherry tomatoes can be rather expensive, sometimes costing as much as $5 for a small container. And for lettuce, your grocery store choices are iceberg, romaine, or that basket with the random mixed leaves.

What could you do with a basic 13-pod Hydroponic Growing System like the stylish LetPot garden [affiliate link]? Grow 13 types of lettuce [affiliate link], course! One advantage of growing food in your own kitchen is choosing what you grow, and being able to grow it in small batches. Get a matching set of LetPot gardens and grow just your lettuce and cherry tomatoes, two of the most expensive grocery produce products.

Do you like a variety of peppers but cannot find them at the grocery store? Grow your own peppers [affiliate link]. If this strikes your fancy, look for a Hydroponic Growing System with 24″ clearance under the grow light so plants have room to grow. You’ll want a powerful grow light for such tall plants, a light like the 50 watt light on the AeroGarden Bounty Elite (which also has WiFi) [affiliate link].

Manufacturers will promote how many different types of foods you can grow in your Hydroponic Growing System. They neglect to mention you can grow a large crop of just one type of plant, if that is your interest. You have so many options in how you use your indoor garden appliances.

Just a side note here. A “kitchen countertop garden appliance”, the Hydroponic Growing System, makes a superb gift. It’s inexpensive, it’s compact, and it’s useful. People love growing things. If the person you have in mind prefers growing flowers, a Hydroponic Growing System can grow flowers. Check out the Bountiful Indoor Garden page for indoor garden gifts for indoor garden gift ideas.

Conclusion of the comparison of outdoor and indoor gardens

Grocery shopping for produce is less expensive than growing it in-house. At least when compared to the garden start-up costs.

However, product shortages, questionable quality or freshness, and lack of variety make shopping for fresh food unpredictable. And not everything is actually fresh, like many of the herbs.

Key Takeaways

Which brings us back to the question, is indoor gardening expensive? Relatively, no. Does it cost money? Yes. Might you spend more than if you just got all your food from the grocery store? Maybe.

Setting up an indoor garden involves a lower outlay than a raised bed garden outdoors but comes in higher at the end of the first year after factoring in the cost of electricity.

Buying produce at the grocery store is less expensive than either garden type, but you’re dependent upon a shaky supply chain. And growing your own food gets less expensive the second year, potentially even dropping below the cost of food from the grocery store.

The costs of growing food in a raised bed versus indoors versus just buying it come in fairly close. It’s the intangibles that tip the win to growing your food indoors. 

Your fresh food is just a couple steps away from where you’re preparing dinner. You can snatch a cherry tomato off the plant and pop it in your mouth as you walk through the kitchen. You can harvest all the food for salads for you and your guests while they watch. Having plants in your home can be calming.

Don’t let the costs deter you from gardening indoors. Start small, maybe just a single Hydroponic Growing System and a variety of lettuce seeds. Expand your garden as you gain experience and confidence.

The prices used on this page are the “retail” costs. Shop the sales to save money on components. You’ll soon have a well-rounded indoor garden. 

The post Is Indoor Gardening Expensive? first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On! https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/a-raised-bed-garden-indoors/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:34:48 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=3723 Learn how to grow your food indoors using an indoor garden bed.

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A Raised Bed Garden Indoors? Bring It On!

Your indoor raised bed is called a Self-Watering Container System. You’re going to like it!

The Self-Watering Container System is a self-contained soil-based garden you can set on the floor in a corner. The automatic lighting and wicking action of the large water reservoir reduce the time you spend tending to your garden. The superior potting mix and fertilizer ensure a healthy crop. It’s gardening; it’s just indoors!

This article begins with a review of the Raised Bed System, from which the Self-Watering Container System derives. If you don’t garden outdoors, or just want to get to the actual indoor-gardening stuff, you can skip this section. However, if you do skip ahead, I do recommend you back up just a bit to read the section on Square Foot Gardening. 

As you read this article, you’ll see indoor gardening from a whole new perspective. Rest assured, the indoor garden bed is possible, and actually quite easy to assemble. You’ll find out how, right here.

Table of Contents

What Is a Raised Bed Garden?

The Self-Watering Container System: A Raised Bed Garden Indoors

The System Part Of A Self-Watering Container System

Making Your Self-Watering Container System Work Smoother

Key Takeaways

Large suburban back yard outfitted with a couple dozen raised bed gardens that have a variety of plants growing in them.
Raised bed gardens come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and often have trellises

What Is a Raised Bed Garden?

A raised bed is an outdoor gardening blend of technologies and techniques that improve on the centuries-old system of plowing rows in dirt. Raised bed gardening is well-suited for backyard gardeners. Raised bed gardens are low volume, highly productive gardens.

The raised bed frame is a permanent outdoor container. A typical raised bed frame holds a soil-substitute mixture, additives, and fertilizer, and may be outfitted with a drip irrigation system on a timer. Raised beds are often associated with Square Foot Gardening techniques.

Common dimensions of a raised bed frame are two foot wide by two foot long (2′ x 2′) up to four foot wide by eight foot long (4′ x 8′), and a raised bed is typically six (6) to twenty-four (24) inches tall. But you can build one in whatever size suits you. Some are even U-shaped so you can sit in one place and reach much of your garden. Fancy!

The raised bed is open to the elements, not enclosed like a greenhouse. Rainwater augments any manual watering routine. A raised bed can be enclosed to extend the growing season and keep out bugs.

This 3′ x 6′ x 11″  cedar raised bed manufactured in Maine [affiliate link] provides a good example of a wooden backyard raised bed frame. A comparably sized galvanized metal frame raised bed like this model from Land Guard [affiliate link] costs less than most cedar frames.

Pre-built frames range widely in dimensions, cost, and durability. The companion article, Is Indoor Gardening Expensive?, investigates the cost of gardening indoors versus gardening outdoors in a raised bed.

A raised bed frame won’t work for an in-home garden. When you look at the frames mentioned above or other raised bed frames, you’ll see they don’t have a bottom or floor. You place these frames on level ground, which acts as the floor. Once filled with soil, their positions are fixed. For an indoors garden bed, you need a container, which has a floor and can be relocated.

The Raised Bed System

A Raised Bed System involves growing fewer plants with the objective of harvesting more product per plant by controlling as many variables as possible given the plants grow outdoors. The Raised Bed System comes together from the combination of several components.
  • A raised bed frame
  • A weed barrier
  • Some mixture of peat moss, compost, vermiculite, perlite, and other soil-substitutes
  • Soil additives
  • Drip irrigation system on a timer
  • Fertilizer
  • Square Foot Gardening techniques
The Raised Bed System makes for a powerful outdoor gardening system. Compared to other outdoor gardens, it’s hard to beat.

Details of the Raised Bed System

The raised bed frame isolates the garden from ground plants. Some people spread mulch or pebbles around their raised beds to keep the lawn or weeds from encroaching on the raised bed. (Remember the raised bed frame has no floor to prevent lawn plants from growing up from the ground.)

The soil-substitute mixture provides the plant a grow media superior to dirt. It retains water and resists being compressed. (Don’t stand or walk inside your raised bed to avoid compressing the soil.) A soil-substitute mixture for raised beds can be a blend of equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. [affiliate links]

With a traditional garden, you’d begin by removing any unwanted vegetation. The raised bed starts your garden off without competition from weeds, the weed barrier [affiliate link] helps prevent growth of weeds, and removing plants that do trespass is simple.

Drip irrigation applies water to the plant directly at a measured pace to ensure maximum effectiveness. A drip irrigation system [affiliate link] saves water versus broadcasting water of a wide surface area.

Fertilizer and soil additives ensure the plants get the proper nutrients. The soil substitute provides a means to anchor plants’ roots but cannot supply the nutrition necessary for your plants to thrive.

And, finally, by applying the Square Foot Gardening techniques, you maximize your yield in your garden. Square Foot Gardening is a gardening technique that revolutionized backyard gardening by promoting growing plants in one-square-foot grids rather than in rows. You can learn about Square Foot Gardening in Mel Bartholomew’s superb book, All New Square Foot Gardening [affiliate link].

To reiterate, a Raised Bed System provides plants a nutrient-rich growth environment, a steady and plentiful water supply, and proper spacing. By following the Raised Bed System, you greatly improve your chances of a plentiful outdoor harvest.

Raised Bed System Shortcomings

While the Raised Bed System crushes the ancient tradition of plowing rows in dirt, the Raised Bed System has its limitations.

Raised beds don’t stop bugs, deer, or other critters from eating your plants. You’re responsible for deploying countermeasures to protect your plants. Chemicals, netting, and fencing keep thieving animals at bay. You need to stay on top of this for the entire lifespan of your garden.

Raised beds don’t deflect hailstones or shield plants from the scorching sun or keep plants warm enough to survive a late frost. Weather, in short, can be your enemy. A single hail storm can end your entire gardening season. Maybe the spring is extra rainy, proving it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

Raised bed frames need annual maintenance. The weather and bugs aren’t only attacking your garden. Your raised bed frame itself is under attack. Some kits consist of metal walls, which come with their own failings (rust). All construction materials have their pluses and minuses. Suffice it to say, raised beds are far from maintenance-free.

The Genius of Square Foot Gardening

Square Foot Gardening takes a raised bed to a whole new level. A couple new levels. It’s genius. You can grow more food in less space using fewer resources in a raised bed versus tradition row-gardening techniques by employing Square Foot Gardening.

Square Foot Gardening involves replacing dirt with a mixture of peat moss, compost, vermiculite, and/or perlite and other ingredients. Since you grow your plants in a bed raised above ground level, you control what you put into the box. So use a quality growing mixture and fertilizer.

You then plant seeds by the square foot rather than in rows like in the ground. Read the back of a seed packet and you’re told to plant seeds 3 inches apart but in rows spaced 12 inches apart. Why? Do the plants only grow outward on the X axis but not the Y axis? Do you need to drive your tractor down the rows? For a walking path, you’re sacrificing a lot of real estate in your garden.

In Square Foot Gardening, you plant a grid of seeds inside a one-foot square section of your raised bed. In one square foot, you can plant 9 green bean seeds. Or 16 radish seeds. 

Larger plants, like tomatoes, require 4 one-foot squares per plant. But you can cheat and grow other plants underneath and before. Start a tomato plant in the center of a 2×2 grid of one-foot squares, and plant quick-growing radishes in those same squares.

Square Foot Gardening really is far superior to row-gardening for the typical backyard gardener.

If you have an outdoor garden, you owe it to yourself to learn and follow the Square Foot Gardening techniques as laid out in the extremely popular book on the subject. These techniques apply even if you’re growing food in a bucket or a bag.

Or indoors.

The Self-Watering Container System: A Raised Bed Garden Indoors

You’ve been introduced to raised beds and Square Foot Gardening, but how do you bring them indoors? Two recent technologies make this possible.

One new technology is the self-watering container, which replaces the raised bed frame. The other new technology is the grow LED, which eliminates the need for sunlight.

These tools combined with Square Foot Gardening techniques form the Self-Watering Container System for indoor gardens.

The Self-Watering Container System is the backyard raised bed adapted for use inside your home. A Self-Watering Container System can grow just about any garden food you want. And a Self-Watering Container System takes up very little floor space.

Let’s start by answering the most pressing question, which is, “What can you grow in a Self-Watering Container System?” You can grow herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers, and you can also grow onions, radishes, carrots, and other root foods. You’ll find a long list of foods you can grow indoors in the  companion article, What Can I Grow With My Indoor Garden? 

What’s Hot in Indoor Gardening?

Most Popular

See what’s trending on Amazon in the world of Hydroponic Growing Systems! [affiliate link]

Deals Today

Check whether a Hydroponic Growing System you want is on sale on Amazon. [affiliate link]

New Releases

Sneak a peak at the Hydroponic Growing System products just hitting the Amazon market. [affiliate link]

Resale

Maybe you can save some money on your gardening gear with Amazon Resale. [affiliate link]

Go All In With Books

Find a book on Indoor Gardening that answers your hardest questions. [affiliate link]

Some Assembly Required

A Self-Watering Container System must be assembled from individual components. This is a hands-on project, but the work is easy and the reward is great.

Self-Watering Container

The self-watering container is a garden planter with a built-in water reservoir. This water reservoir is not a tray for catching water that spills out the bottom of the pot when you pour in too much water. The design of the self-watering container encourages a wicking action that pulls water up from the reservoir into the soil and draws roots down toward the water. You water plants from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

A gardening-quality self-watering container is wide enough to grow many small plants or deep enough to support a couple large plants. EarthBox, Emsco Group, and Keter [affiliate links] offer self-watering containers in a variety of shapes and sizes large enough for a food garden. Before choosing a container, determine whether you want more surface area (for more smaller, shallow plants) or more depth (for larger, deeply rooted plants).

Whether you prefer wide or deep, your garden is small enough to fit in a corner of your home. A self-watering container may come with wheels to make maneuvering it easier when filled with soil. A self-watering container suitable for use in the Self-Watering Container System holds approximately 2 cubic feet of soil.

The container is made of durable plastic designed for years of use outdoors, so you should get far more years from the container by keeping it indoors. Some manufacturers offer optional stands that raise your container so you don’t need to bend over to tend to the plants. Alternatively, you can get a self-watering container designed from the start as a raised platform. Not having to bend over is another benefit of growing food in an indoor Self-Watering Container System.

Since the manufacturer expected the self-watering container to be used outside, most containers come with a cover for laying over the soil to prevent evaporation and weeds. You can decide whether to install this cover when you grow your food indoors.

The manufacturer also drilled a hole in the self-watering container to prevent you from overfilling the water reservoir. You’ll want to keep this hole open, as you don’t want to overfill the water reservoir, so place a plate or something to catch the water that drips out. Fill the reservoir slowly so as to minimize the amount of water lost through this overflow hole.

The EarthBox website offers helpful insight into how the self-watering container works.

Soil-Substitute

Dirt has no place in your Self-Watering Container System. You’ll fill your Self-Watering Container System with carefully mixed grow media (soil substitute) to give your plants the greatest chances of success. You can purchase potting mix ready to use or mix your own as instructed from the EarthBox website or the Square Foot Gardening book.

The Self-Watering Container System potting mix consists of some combination of peat moss, compost, vermiculite, and perlite, along with other helpful ingredients. A potting mix aids your plants by retaining water and preventing compression of the grow media.

You’ll need approximately two cubic feet of grow media to fill a typical self-watering container.

Record the ingredients, including percentages of each, of your potting mix when setting up your self-watering container. Jot down the date, so you know how old the potting mix is when you start future gardens. You’ll use this information to help you learn how many gardens you can get from a single two-cubic-foot bag of grow media. When you decide to experiment with grow media mixtures, you’ll have a history of past gardens for comparison.

Soil Additives

Follow the instructions on the EarthBox website or the Square Foot Gardening book for mixing additives into the potting mix. The additives you mix in often depends on the plants you want to grow. Pay close attention to the quantity to mix in as you can easily provide too much of a good thing and harm your plants.

Dolomite [affiliate link] is often recommended as an additive to the potting mix.

Track what you put in and how much, along with the plants you’re growing, and record how your plants respond to the additives. You may find your plants do better when you provide a little more or less of any one additive.

Fertilizer

Fertilizer [affiliate link] goes on top of the soil, so fertilizer gets a mention apart from soil additives. Once again, the EarthBox website and Square Foot Gardening book furnish you with valuable information. Be sure to adjust any quantities to an amount suitable for your two cubic foot container and the plants you intend to grow.

Choose a fertilizer that matches what you want to grow to maximize your odds of success. Fruiting plants may benefit from a different N-P-K balance than leafy lettuce.

Grow LED and Timer

The right grow LED (with a timer to simulate day/night conditions) renders sunlight obsolete. A grow LED (light emitting diode) is actually many LEDs on a square or rectangular board or in a tube like a fluorescent light or as a bulb. The LEDs on a board are the most common form for indoor gardening but stick-like lights work better for aiming light at a plant from the side rather than from above.

The grow LED emits different percentages of red, blue, and white light. The light colors mimic sunlight and may even improve on sunlight by increasing the intensity of certain colors. Some LED kits allow you to switch modes to encourage growth during different stages of the plant’s life. Others allow you to dim the light, something you may find valuable if you keep your Self-Watering Container System in a high-traffic area of your home.

The System Part Of A Self-Watering Container System

The Self-Watering Container System works for you to grow healthy plants.

A potted plant placed on a windowsill is not a system. It’s more an arrangement. The plant gets whatever light comes through the window. Water passes through the pot, draining into the tray below, where it evaporates eventually. Potting soil anchors the roots. The plant gets less light on cloudy days and the soil dries out when you forget to water it.

The Self-Watering Container System manages all aspects of the plant’s lifecycle needs.

The LED supplies light 16 hours per day, thanks to the timer. Light comes to the plant regardless of external conditions like clouds. You control the type of light, the brightness of the light, and the duration of the light.

The container manages the water flow to the plants through the wicking action. The potting mix can hold only so much water, so the plants won’t drown. Watering from the bottom up entices the roots down into the potting mix. The water reservoir ensures you can go longer between waterings.

The potting mix controls the variables of what goes into your garden. Potting mix could be as simple as equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. Potting mix is not potting soil or dirt.

The dolomite added into the potting mix provides essential nutrients your plant craves. You manage the amount your plant gets by measuring the volume added.

The fertilizer seeps into the potting mix from the surface over time, providing your plants a steady food source. The positioning, balance, and quantity of the fertilizer enhance your plants’ odds of growing up strong and productive.

Even the indoor environment plays a part in promoting healthy plants. Growing your plants indoors ensures favorable weather every day. Most people maintain temperatures between 65° and 75° Fahrenheit. Bugs are few. You don’t plan on deer eating your indoor garden. 

How you arrange the plants within the self-watering container factors into the overall system. While not strictly a square foot gardening regimen, the same principles apply. You are spacing the plants to maximize the use of the surface area of the self-watering container. The EarthBox website offers a spectacular growing guide that includes the recommended layouts for a wide variety of plants you can grow in an EarthBox container.

You could implement some of the above components to grow your own food. And any one individually will likely improve your garden. But when taken as a whole, you have a system, and each component of that system works together to turn your indoor garden into a food-growing machine.

Making Your Self-Watering Container System Work Smoother

You may decide to start your seeds in a seed-starter kit and transplant seedlings to your Self-Watering Container System. This is perfectly acceptable. You get to choose the best seedlings for your garden and you won’t have gaps in your container where some seed just refused to germinate. All your plants will start at the same time.

Key Takeaways

You can bring a raised bed garden into your home and grow amazing plants with your Self-Watering Container System.

Every part of the system works together to quickly raise healthy plants. You can grow in-ground foods like carrots, beets, turnips, and onions in addition to regular fruits, herbs, and leafy greens. You can grow tall plants, since you control the placement of the grow light. The Self-Watering Container System is amazingly flexible.

You’ve learned of the Self-Watering Container System. How does gardening indoors compare to gardening outdoors using a raised bed or shopping for produce in the grocery store? Check out the article, Is Indoor Gardening Expensive?, next.

Amazon recently introduced “Amazon Haul”, and you might find gardening bargains here. “Haul” is still in Beta, meaning it may change or go away entirely, so don’t delay.

You’ll have to poke around a bit to find products to help with your indoor garden. Give it a try!

Check out “Amazon Haul” [affiliate link] now.

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]]> Tips For Growing A Bountiful Indoor Garden https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/tips-for-growing-a-bountiful-indoor-garden/ Sat, 11 Nov 2023 11:31:13 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=3137 Make your life easier and grow more food indoors with these tips, tricks, and suggestions.

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Tips For Growing A Bountiful Indoor Garden

Your bountiful indoor garden will be your pride and joy. Whether you want to grow a few select herbs in a tasteful kitchen setting or you want to cram as many salad plants into as tight a space as possible, you’ll find ideas to help you succeed on this page.

This article will grow over time. New tips appear at the top of the page, so you don’t need to hunt them down each time you return.

There’s no shame in adding grow lights to your plants, even those in Hydroponic Growing Systems. If you have a full garden growing in a Hydroponic Growing System, the additional light can give your plants a boost.

I’ve grown tomatoes and peppers in AeroGarden Harvest series Hydroponic Growing Systems. Those plants grow so big! I prune to keep them in check, but I’ve found branches growing outside the scope of the light survive just fine. All the same, when I have a few larger plants arranged in close proximity, I believe having an independent grow light aimed at the lot of them provides a boost.

You’ll need to attach supplementary lights to a timer set to roughly match the schedule of the automated light. Your plant needs time to rest. The lights don’t need to be exactly synchronized, but the timers should be closely aligned.

Your Hydroponic Growing System has a very bright LED grow light. Or you added a LED grow light for your EarthBox or vertical garden. Get the most of your light by positioning other plants nearby. They won’t get direct light from the LED but it should be enough for many types of plants.

Position two or more lights close together and fill the space between them with planters. If you have three or more grow lights, you get a central growing area by arranging the lights in a circle. The light in the circle center will not be as bright as a dedicated light but it’s enough for some plant types.

Grabbing some free sunlight doesn’t hurt, either. Using artificial sunlight for your garden doesn’t mean you cannot make use of the real thing, too. Position your plants near a window facing south, west, or east for the most sunlight, but even a window facing north affords your plants a little extra “light food.”

Don’t throw away green onion bulbs after you cut off the stems! They may grow just fine in your Hydroponic Growing System.

Push the bulb down into an empty grow pod. You may fit more than one in a single pod. When the water circulates the Hydroponic Growing System will water the roots, which will grow down into the water in the tub. Pad the bulb with a grow plug cut in half if the bulb sits too low in the grow pod.

Other plants often regrown from stumps include celery and lettuce. You may find the size of the hole in the Hydroponic Growing System tray to be the limiting factor. But give it a try!

Avoid locating your plants near vents for heating and cooling. The air blowing from the vent can be as cool as the 50s to as high as the 90s Fahrenheit.

Provide your plants a location where the temperature is regulated but constant.

Some plants may harm children or pets. For each plant you decide to grow, do a quick Internet search for information whether the plant should be grown out of reach.

You can grow so many plants indoors, listing them all along with any possible adverse effects is not possible here. (Companion article: What Can I Grow with My Indoor Garden?)

Some plants may not be harmful to pets, but they certainly attract them. My cats enjoy chewing on the strawberry runners (and shoelaces, and just about any other strings). So, in addition to protecting your pets from your plants, protect your plants from your pets.

Healthy, happy plants grow tall and wide. This is what you want. But if your plant fills a corner with walls on two sides, you cannot get to all the goodies it grows.

A tomato plant can hide ripe cherry tomatoes better than you may realize. You may not see the little orange beauties due to the dense vegetation. And if you do see them you need to reach through the plant to grab them.

Position your plants where you have access to them from all sides. You can examine the plant from all angles so you miss no ripened fruits.

Your tomato or pepper plants can continue giving you fruits for months. You risk damaging your plants when you move them.

Therefore, when starting a plant that will be large and long-living, find a location for your plant where it can reside for as much as six months, or maybe even more.

Think in three dimensions. This isn’t a plowed field. Stack your gardens.

Countertop Hydroponic Growing Systems fit on shelves. They’ll fit on a narrow rack. Just be sure the spacing between the shelves accommodates the light when fully extended. 

The AeroGarden Farm series of Hydroponic Growing Systems are floor models that stack using a simple bracket kit. Imagine two 24-pod gardens stacked vertically, growing food all year long. That’s a very compact, indoor, self-contained garden!

Another option is to grow plants on a column (tower) garden. Rather than arranging your plants on a flat tray, position plants around a column that stands two to six feet tall. You can grow many plants without taking up more than a few square feet of floor space. (Companion article: Limited Floor Space? Go Vertical With Your Garden!)

Don’t limit yourself to growing your food in the kitchen just because you are growing food. Plants add character to any room.

Decorate your home with leafy greens where you have limited space and jalapenos where a plant has room to expand.

Grow a cucumber plant and spread the vines out from the Hydroponic Growing System. So long as the vines get adequate light and you support the cucumbers it’s not much different than a spider plant. But with pretty yellow flowers! Be creative. Think outside the box.

Choose plants with similar growth characteristics if they share a hydroponic growing system or EarthBox. You want your plants to reach maturity around the same time, to share the light, and to expect the same watering schedule. Don’t plant a desert and tropical plant side-by-side! Or a short and a tall plant. Or a slow-grower and a fast-grower.

Be realistic in what you can grow and when in your Hydroponic Growing System.

You can grow other plants with your dwarf tomato plant if you have an AeroGarden Farm series garden or Hydroponic Growing System of similar capabilities. But if you have an AeroGarden Harvest or Hydroponic Growing System of similar capabilities you’ll need to cap five pod seats. The tomato plant will crowd out any other plants.

You are not always going to grow plants in every pod seat on the tray. Cap the pod seats to keep debris from falling into the water and prevent algae growth in the water.

 

You might think of plants like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, or even sunflowers as being too large to grow indoors. Most likely, you’ve seen these plants growing outdoors and they’ve been huge. But variations of all these plants and more have been bred for growth in tight spaces.

Seed pods you’d buy from AeroGarden include recommendations for the smallest Hydroponic Growing System series you’d want to grow them in. The AeroGarden tomato seed pod grows a plant that expands outside the range of the light of the Harvest series. Just prune a bit and the plant does just fine.

If you want to grow your own seeds in your Hydroponic Growing System, search for seeds using keywords such as “dwarf container seeds”.

When growing plants that grow a large trunk one thing to consider is the size of the openings in the tray for the pods. Watch to be sure the trunk does not grow too thick for the opening. You don’t want the plant trunk to crack the tray. You may never need to worry, but this is a page listing tips for getting the most from your Hydroponic Growing System, and this is a tip.

 

Why are you doing this? Are you happy planting random veggies and planning meals around what you have available? Or do you have a plan for everything you’re growing? You’ll get more from your indoor garden by having a plan for everything you grow.

Set objectives. Maybe you want a salad every day (Companion article: How to Get a Salad Every Day from Your Indoor Garden) or two. You want the perfect selection of herbs for your homemade dinners. Or ingredients for your salsa recipe. Or maybe a selection of finger food snacks to replace unhealthy treats. Decide what you need to grow and how to best achieve your objectives. (Companion article: How to Plan Your Indoor Garden)

Keep a journal. You cannot remember everything.

Use the journal to improve every crop. Just like a real farmer would.

Here are a few things you can track.

  • When did you plant each seed?
  • How long did the seed take to grow into a mature plant?
  • How much nutrients did you add to the water, and when did you do it?
  • How long did the plant survive?
  • How many times did you harvest or how many fruits did you get?

 

You get the idea. Add your own questions to the list.

The point of this exercise is knowing what to expect when you start each seed. When you know what to expect from each plant you can plan your harvests to supply food for salads or meals. You know when to start new seeds to replace your existing plants to ensure no laps in your harvest.

You are growing food in a controlled environment. You can start a seed when you want and terminate the plant anytime. Experiment.

Try different plants. Which do you like better, the AeroGarden Red Heirloom or Golden Harvest tomato plant? Grow your own seeds for plants you don’t think will work well indoors.

Try pruning (or not pruning) the plants or adding supplemental grow lights if they are large plants.

Feed your plants nutrients from different manufacturers. Some people add small doses of hydrogen peroxide or calcium and magnesium to the water. Does that improve your crop yield? Or kill the plants?

Alter the feeding schedule. Is a fourteen day span between feedings optimal, or is it perhaps twelve days? For some plants, fourteen days between feedings works better, but maybe for others, half doses every seven days results in healthier plants.

It’s your garden. They’re your plants. You can grow your plants all year long. Try things out. Track your experiments and the results of your experiments. Over time, you’ll have that bountiful indoor garden you’ve longed for.

If a plant is not performing, kill it, clean the planter, and start over.

If your plants are growing outdoors, and it’s too late in the season to start over, you do whatever you can to revive your plants. That is the wrong way to think about an indoor garden.

With an indoor garden, there are no seasons. Keeping an ailing plant alive prevents you from starting over with a healthy replacement.

Be sure you know why the plant under-performed so your next attempt meets expectations. Think about the long term as you work to achieve your objectives. Your fifth crop should outperform your first crop. Yes, this is for fun, but it’s also about getting food you can eat.

When you garden outdoors, you plan around the four seasons. Plant in spring; harvest in summer and autumn; wait through winter for the next spring.

But your indoor garden enjoys a perpetual summer. You can start growing plants any time. Therefore, you should think in terms of cycles instead of seasons. A cycle is a round of growing food in your Hydroponic Growing System or Soil-Substitute Container.

You control the environment in which your plants grow. Take full advantage of this power. (Companion article: Why Your Outdoor Garden Should Be Indoors)

Plants eventually reach the end of their useful life. Learn to recognize the signs a plant is trending downward. Start a new crop cycle for that plant early enough that when the current crop cycle ends, you have a new crop cycle to replace it.

Your objective in overlapping crop cycles is to always have food to harvest. Sometimes that means leaving a pod seat in a tray empty for a little while so you have a place to start that new oregano plant as the existing one declines.

Since you are growing plants indoors, you probably won’t benefit from the efforts of natural pollinators like bees and butterflies.

Look for self-pollinating varieties of plants like cucumbers. They do exist. Pollinating this type of plant can be as easy as positioning a fan to blow air across the plant to jiggle the flowers. You can jiggle the branches yourself, if you wish.

In the absence of self-pollinating variants, you become the pollinator. You can use a cotton swab, an electric toothbrush, or an AeroGarden Be The Bee pollinator.

Research the plant so you understand how to identify male and female flowers and whether you need multiple plants to achieve pollination.

You may be able to save money when ordering an AeroGarden seed pod kit.

The AeroGarden Harvest has seats for six pods on its tray. Therefore, most people would look for a six pod kit when ordering refills. Stop! Compare the prices of the nine and twelve pod kits. 

Take the total cost of the six pod kit and divide by 6. That is the cost per pod in that kit. Take the total cost of the nine pod kit and divide by 9. That’s the cost per pod in that kit. Which one is less expensive? Do the same for the twelve pod kit.

You may get more pods for just a few cents or dollars more. Why not? You save money and they’ll keep until you are ready to use them.

Be sure to check the contents of the different pod kits. The contents of the twelve pod kit may be different than two six pod kits. It depends on the kit.

Note that the number of fertilizer bottles in the different kits are designed for one cycle of the included pods. If getting a comparable amount of nutrients is important to you, be sure you are not saving money on the pods but losing money on the nutrients.

Do you start your spring outdoor garden with a trip to the nursery section of your local big box store? You pick out a selection of seedlings ready for transplant into your raised beds or patio containers. The price of those baby plants sure seemed to go up a lot in the last few years. Want to save some money?

If you have an AeroGarden Harvest, Bounty, or Farm series Hydroponic Growing System, you can swap out the regular tray with an optional tray designed for growing many seedlings for transplant.

How many seedlings can you grow?

  • 23 seedlings in the Harvest
  • 50 seedlings in the Bounty
  • 85 seedlings in the Farm 12
  • 170 seedlings in the Farm 24

 

How much would you pay to buy 170 seedlings at the big box store? Grow them from seed right in your own home! Seeds are so much less expensive.

And don’t stop with one batch of seedlings. After transplanting one batch of seedlings, just start on the next! 

Key Takeaways

Gardening indoors is no longer a collection of struggling plants fighting for sunlight from a south-facing window in winter. There are so many new ways to grow food indoors now. I trust the tips provided in this article help you save some money while increasing the yield of your indoor garden.

Check back with this page periodically. I’ll add new tips at the top of the page.

Good luck, and have fun growing your own food.

Scroll down for more insightful articles related to your indoor garden.

Get More Indoor Garden Ideas Here

The post Tips For Growing A Bountiful Indoor Garden first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> How to Choose Your Hydroponic Growing System https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/how-to-choose-your-hydroponic-growing-system/ Fri, 13 Oct 2023 10:35:15 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=1665 Ready to buy a hydroponic growing system, but not sure what features matter? Start here!

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How to Choose Your Hydroponic Growing System

You’ve seen those hydroponic growing systems for sale, and you’d like to buy one, but you’re not sure which one fits your needs. This article will help you choose an indoor garden.

Indoor gardens have come a long way since the days of plants in pots of soil crowded around a window, eking out a meager existence fighting over light from the winter sun. Advances in technology and new techniques have revolutionized indoor gardening in recent years.

An exciting example of technology and techniques merging into an awesome product is the hydroponic growing system. Hydroponic growing systems have flooded the market. Why? Because they work, they’re convenient, and they’re relatively inexpensive. (See related article, How a Self-Watering Hydroponic System Works.)

Of all the manufacturers selling hydroponic growing systems, AeroGarden is perhaps the most well known.

AeroGarden hydroponic growing system products are extremely popular and are generally the standard against which products from all other manufacturers are judged. Therefore, all the AeroGarden products are included in the matrix. Products from popular competitors will be included as well.

Let’s Clear Up Some Confusion

Choosing your first hydroponic growing system can be maddeningly confusing. They all look so much alike. Why choose this one over that one? What features matter most and which ones are of little value?

To assist you in making a decision, this article offers you a matrix of products and features. The article explains the meanings of the values in the chart.

Every attempt has been made to present accurate information, but products evolve and features change. Please confirm any information you read here before making your purchase to be sure you’re getting what you wish for.

Garden Environment

The table below describes the three core garden environment properties.
  • Number of plants it can grow
  • Power of the light
  • Highest the plant can grow before it bumps into the light
You’ll probably start your comparison shopping with these three properties.
AeroGarden
Series Model Pods LED
(watts) 		Max
Plant
Height
(inches)
Sprout Sprout 3 10 10
Harvest Harvest 6 20 12
Harvest Elite 6 20 12
Harvest XL 6 25 18
Harvest 360 6 20 12
Harvest Elite 360 6 20 12
Harvest Slim 6 20 12
Harvest Elite Slim 6 20 12
Bounty Bounty Basic 9 30 24
Bounty 9 40 24
Bounty Elite 9 50 24
Farm 12 12 60 24
12XL 12 60 36
24 Basic 24 120 12
24Plus 24 120 24
24XL 24 120 36
iDOO
Series Model Pods LED
(watts) 		Max
Plant
Height
(inches)
10-Pod ID-IG303B 10 24 15
12-Pod ID-IG302S 12 22 14.5

You don’t need to know a bunch of technical information such as exactly how bright the light is per watt. Just pay attention to where a hydroponic growing system LED wattage lands in the range for comparison.

If you find a hydroponic growing system that supports a 24 inch plant like the Bounty but offers a 10 watt LED like the Sprout, you should question whether that unit can grow healthy plants. Why?

The greater the maximum plant height, the more powerful a LED grow light you want. The effect the light has on a plant decreases rapidly as the distance increases between them. You’ll see the correlation between LED wattage and maximum plant height in this chart.

To ensure the light is as close to the plant as possible, the hydroponic growing system you select should allow you to set the light very low against the growing tray and raise it until it reaches its maximum height as the plants grow taller.

The wattage of products in the chart ranges from 10 to 120 watts per garden. The (relatively) meager 10-watt LED in the AeroGarden Sprout hosts 3 plants under 10 inches tall. That’s suitable for small herbs and lettuce. Conversely, the two super-bright 60 watt LEDs on the 24XL support plants up to three feet tall, such as tomatoes, peppers, and squash.

The highlighted hydroponic growing systems stand out against the other units for the properties included on this chart.

Garden User Interface

You want to look for several factors in a user interface on your hydroponic growing system.
  • Ease of use
  • Helpful feedback
  • Control over growing conditions
You’re here to garden, not manage the settings on one or two (or twelve, because you’ll get hooked on growing food in these things!) hydroponic growing systems. The most basic units have little more than a power button. High-end units have touchscreen control panels plus Wi-Fi apps and can synchronize schedules with other units.
AeroGarden
Series Model Interface Wi-Fi App Vacation
Mode
Sprout Sprout Buttons No No
Harvest Harvest Buttons No No
Harvest Elite Digital Display No Yes
Harvest XL Buttons No Yes
Harvest 360 Buttons No No
Harvest Elite 360 Digital Display No Yes
Harvest Slim Buttons No No
Harvest Elite Slim Digital Display No Yes
Bounty Bounty Basic Digital Display No Yes
Bounty Digital Display Yes Yes
Bounty Elite Digital Display Yes Yes
Farm 12 Touchscreen Yes Yes
12XL Touchscreen Yes Yes
24 Basic Touchscreen Yes Yes
24Plus Touchscreen Yes Yes
24XL Touchscreen Yes Yes
iDOO
Series Model Interface Wi-Fi App Vacation
Mode
10-Pod ID-IG303B Buttons No No
12-Pod ID-IG302S Buttons Yes No
Buttons

Devices on the chart with only buttons operate entirely manually, except the iDOO 12-Pod, which has Wi-Fi. The interface is simple and intuitive. The device communicates garden status to you with lights that illuminate, blink, or change color. Some gardens may have an audible alarm.

Digital Display

The digital display enhances the garden device by offering you detailed feedback regarding the state of your garden. Rather than interpret a flashing light, you just read the text or view the icons on the digital display to learn what the garden is attempting to communicate to you.

Touchscreen

The ultimate in interaction with your hydroponic growing system is the touchscreen. The menu system guides you through set-up and offers lots of feedback. The screen is large enough to just explain to you what you need to know.

Wi-Fi

The devices with Wi-Fi communicate with an app you install on your iOS or Android phone. You can manage many settings from your phone using the app. You may be able to synchronize multiple hydroponic growing systems, if they are compatible. Wi-Fi connectivity is a tremendous convenience you don’t want to overlook.

Before you buy a garden with Wi-Fi connectivity, make sure it will work on your wireless router. Is the hydroponic growing system connecting via 2.4GHz or 5GHz? Make sure your wireless router supports that frequency. Most routers handle both frequencies, but things change.

Vacation Mode

Finally, the vacation mode gives you peace of mind knowing your garden is less likely to run dry while you are away on vacation. The device reduces the amount of light it shines on your plants each day, slowing their growth and also their water intake. Somebody was really thinking when they came up with this feature!

Garden Dimensions

Can you fit that hydroponic growing system on your countertop? Or, once you’ve gotten hooked on growing your own food indoors, how many growing systems can you fit?

As you consider the dimensions, picture your hydroponic growing system in various locations within your home. The kitchen counter is a convenient location for a garden, but plants look lovely anywhere you put them. Your hydroponic growing system can add a nice touch to the living room or dining room.

You’ll find below the dimensions of each hydroponic growing system. I highlighted no rows because each model is perfect for you if it fits where you want it.

AeroGarden
Series Model Width
(inches) 		Depth
(inches) 		Height
(inches)
Sprout Sprout 3.5 12 14
Harvest Harvest 10.5 6 17.4
Harvest Elite 10.5 6.25 17.4
Harvest XL 10.5 6.25 24
Harvest 360 9 9 17.4
Harvest Elite 360 9 8 17.4
Harvest Slim 15 5 17.5
Harvest Elite Slim 15 5 17.5
Bounty Bounty Basic 17.25 11.25 34
Bounty 17.25 11.25 34
Bounty Elite 17.25 11.25 34
Farm 12 18 14 34
12XL 18 14 46
24 Basic 36 14 24
24Plus 36 14 34
24XL 36 14 46
iDOO
Series Model Width
(inches) 		Depth
(inches) 		Height
(inches)
10-Pod ID-IG303B 15.75 8.25 20
12-Pod ID-IG302S 13.8 10.25 21
Leave Extra Space

As you compare dimensions you’re probably thinking in terms of placing the garden along a wall. Will it fit between the mixer and the toaster? But remember that plants grow in all directions. Be sure you leave space between the garden and the wall for the plant to fill out.

You also need room to reach behind if you are picking tomatoes or peppers. Reaching through the plant or over the top of the light assembly may not be feasible.

Leave Extra Height

And on the topic of tomatoes and peppers, remember that the plant does not know to stop growing when it reaches the light. It may grow taller than the height of the garden unit. If you place your hydroponic growing system under a kitchen counter or shelf, plant height may become an issue.

Your plant is unharmed by growing beyond the light, although those branches are missing out on the benefits of the light. Just be sure enough of your plant gets that light to make up for the parts that do not. You may consider pruning the plant to keep all its leaves under the light.

Other Lighting

Another factor that may become an issue with a garden under the cabinets is any under-counter lighting system. Your garden simulates night and day with its timer and counter lights may interfere with that schedule. It may not be a big thing, but something to consider as you ponder where to place your indoor garden.

Stacking

The 24XL stands almost four feet tall and it’s taller than that if you set it on a stand to keep it off the floor. Moreover, the Farm series is stackable, so your garden could be six feet tall with a 24 Basic stacked atop a 24XL (or vise versa).

Garden Accessories

You can get more from your hydroponic growing system with some included or optional accessories. These gardens are very versatile!

The table below highlights availability of three garden accessories.

  • Seed starter tray (optional)
  • Microgreens tray (optional)
  • Trellis attachment (optional/included)

A seed starter tray holds more grow plugs than the regular tray. The seed starter tray has specialized built-in pods to hold the grow plugs. You start a seed in each grow plug and transplant the grow plug to soil once the seedling has grown enough. A seed starter tray is not intended to grow plants to maturity.

The microgreens tray provides a flat area for seeds to grow and be harvested as microgreens. The microgreens tray replaces the garden tray.

Finally, the taller AeroGarden gardens include mounts to support a trellis. When growing larger plants such as tomatoes or peppers a trellis helps keep things contained. For plants such as cucumbers, you can wind the vine around the trellis to maximize the plant’s access to the light.

AeroGarden
Series Model Starter
Seeds 		Microgreens Trellis
Available
Sprout Sprout 15 No No
Harvest Harvest 23 Yes No
Harvest Elite 23 Yes No
Harvest XL 23 Yes Yes
Harvest 360 23 Yes No
Harvest Elite 360 23 Yes No
Harvest Slim 23 No No
Harvest Elite Slim 23 No No
Bounty Bounty Basic 50 Yes Yes
Bounty 50 Yes Yes
Bounty Elite 50 Yes Yes
Farm 12 85 No Yes
12XL 85 No Yes
24 Basic 170 No Yes
24Plus 170 No Yes
24XL 170 No Yes
iDOO
Series Model Starter
Seeds 		Microgreens Trellis
Available
10-Pod ID-IG303B 10 No No
12-Pod ID-IG302S 12 No No

The highlighted cells in the chart indicate that accessories are available. The trellis is included with your AeroGarden. The trays are available for separate purchase.

If you have no interest in transplanting seedlings or growing microgreens, the availability of these optional trays should have no effect on your choice of hydroponic growing system.

You don’t need the seed starter tray to start seeds. You can start seeds in the regular tray and just move them when the seedling is ready. The starter tray allows you to start more seeds in the same space and do so without using any drop-in pods. With the seed starting tray, you just drop a grow plug into the build-in pods.

Common and Manufacturer Exclusive Features

Your hydroponic growing system should allow for some form of grow plug and come with a low water indicator and a LED grow light on a timer. These features are what all systems have in common. Certain very low-end kits may lack these features, but arguably those kits cannot be considered a hydroponic growing “system”. Manufacturers include features that make their hydroponic growing systems stand out.
  • The 10-pod and 12-pod iDOO systems have a built-in fan to agitate the plants. This helps self-pollinating plants like tomatoes and peppers grow fruit and can stiffen up leaves on your greens.
  • The AeroGarden Bounty and Farm series gardens offer dimmable lights and a sunrise/sunset light setting.
  • The iDOO models include a feature allowing you to switch your grow light between vegetable and fruit modes.
  • Some countertop models allow you to detach the lighting assembly. You can be a little more DIY with how you set up your device.
  • The AeroGarden Farm series is stackable.
One distinguishing feature not compared above is tub capacity. How much water does the hydroponic garden hold in its reservoir? The more water it holds, the longer you can be away from home without worrying about your plants running out. Compare your prospective gardening system units based upon how many liters of water each holds.

Buying Your Hydroponic Growing System

Hydroponic growing systems are an exciting and ever-evolving tool for growing food indoors. Prices are coming down even as manufacturers add features.

Accessories

Accessories can strengthen your investment in your garden. What accessories are available for the hydroponic growing system you’re considering? For example, a seed starter tray could save you some money if you have outdoor raised beds. Rather than buying seedlings from the nursery for $5 to $10 each, you can buy a $3 package of seeds and grow the seedlings yourself.  Even factoring in the cost of the grow plugs, it’s a deal. The seed starting trays also work well to provide you with seedlings for a full-blown hydroponic system, which lacks the ability to start seeds.

Wi-Fi Connectivity

Watch for connected gardens to become more popular. With a single application on your phone you can manage multiple gardens. You can synchronize the light and feeding schedules. You can track your plant’s progress. Don’t discount how convenient you’ll find this feature as you keep buying more and more gardens. Because you can’t stop at just one!

DC Power Ratings

If you are living off-grid or in an RV, you may want to wire your hydroponic growing system directly to a DC source. Check the voltage of the hydroponic growing system before purchase. Some devices run 12V but others run 24V or something else entirely.  

Ease of Maintenance

Your hydroponic growing system needs your attention for cleaning and keeping the water fresh. When comparing devices, look for features that make maintenance easier and quicker.

  • On devices with a larger water reservoir, does it include a drain plug?
  • How do you drain the water on larger systems that sit on the floor?
  • For countertop devices, does the tub detach from the base?
  • What parts are dishwasher-safe?

Each manufacturer approaches maintenance differently. Some make it easier than others. You may need to dig into product reviews to see how people rate the ease of maintenance of each product.

Key Takeaways

Hydroponic growing systems work. They’re spectacular. And the market offers you so much variety in indoor garden systems. You can have a tiny garden with just a few herbs or a huge garden with multiple plants three feet tall. Manufacturers distinguish their products with innovative new features and conveniences.

This article provided you with a comparison based upon the number of plants a system can grow, the dimensions of the system, the interface you’ll use with the system, and accessories available for the system. You can use the charts to compare hydroponic growing systems from other manufacturers to be sure you’ll get the features you need to make your garden a success.

Once you see how fun and easy growing food indoors can be with your first hydroponic growing system, you’ll be right back here comparing models for the purchase of your second, and third, garden system.

Please check back with this article from time to time. It will evolve as the market grows.

Enjoy your bountiful indoor garden!

What’s next? Get the most from your indoor garden in the companion article, How to Plan Your Indoor Garden.

The post How to Choose Your Hydroponic Growing System first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

]]> How to Plan Your Indoor Garden https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/how-to-plan-your-indoor-garden/ Thu, 12 Oct 2023 23:44:25 +0000 https://bountifulindoorgarden.com/?p=1606 Get more from your indoor garden by gardening with a purpose.

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How to Plan Your Indoor Garden

You’d like to grow your own food, but you don’t have the time or yard for growing food outdoors. Or, a bad back and aching knees prevent you from the even thinking about it. Maybe you just don’t like being outside. Well, you’re in luck. You can grow an indoor garden that can rival a garden grown outdoors.

It takes planning, time, space, and recognition of the difference between growing indoors and outdoors. It can be work sometimes, but it’s indoors, it’s climate controlled, and—if you want—on a countertop.

Your indoor garden can be small, just a few herbs. Or your indoor garden can replace an outdoor garden. How would you do that, though?

Here are some suggestions and questions for you to consider to help you get started on an indoor garden quickly and for the least cost. Hopefully, answering these questions gets you a jump start on the wonderfully satisfying pursuit of a bountiful indoor garden. 

Start A Journal

Ugh. Please, not another reason for a journal! Yes, you should have a journal for tracking your actions and their effects on your garden. There are simply too many variables for you to remember.

Your journal enables you to compare your current crop to past crops. How else will you know whether that seed should have germinated by now, or how many tomatoes you should expect to harvest? 

Your journal can be a simple binder of lined paper or a software application. I love Microsoft OneNote for tracking my scattered random thoughts. It runs on just about any major platform. Experiment until you find something that works for you.

To get the most value, you need to have your journal handy when you are tending your indoor garden. If you have to walk across the room to record each of your actions, you’ll tire of the effort and give up on the journal. 

Information you’ll log in your journal include the items listed below.

  • What you planted and when
  • Where you planted (which pod or container)
  • When you fed and watered
  • When you saw the first evidence of growth
  • When the harvesting began
  • How much you harvested overall
  • When the productive life of the plant ended

It’s optional

Keeping a notebook is optional, of course. It’s your garden, after all. If your interest in a garden ends with a hydroponic growing system and six herbs, you don’t need a journal. Just replace each pod as plants die off.

However, a garden with a purpose requires intent. Keeping a journal proves intent.

Set Your Budget

A budget is just a plan for how you’ll spend a resource. For planning your garden, you’ll set up a budget for your money and your time.

Your budget helps you prioritize where you spend your gardening money and time. Your money and time are finite; they’re limited resources. Make every purchase count and maximize the results of your invested time.

With each plant or component you plan to add to your indoor garden, ask yourself these budgeting questions.

  • Is the money I spend on this item furthering the purpose of my garden?
  • What is the initial cost in dollars?
  • What are the recurring financial costs?
  • Is the time I'll invest in this furthering the purpose of my garden?
  • What is the initial cost in time?
  • What are the recurring costs in time?

Your initial financial cost might be the purchase price of a hydroponic growing system. The recurring financial costs include the electricity, pod kits, and seeds.

Your initial cost in time would be arranging space for the new component to your indoor garden and set-up time. Ongoing time commitments include cleaning, pruning, and harvesting plants, but also cleaning and maintaining the equipment between crops.

And anything you buy or do should further the purpose of your garden. If you are scattered in what you buy and do, you’ll have a collection of expensive, random plants.

Convenience versus savings

You can save a lot of time if you spend more money. You can save a lot of money if you spend more time.

Your indoor garden can consist of ten hydroponic growing systems. At the hypothetical price of $90 each, you’ve spent $900 to grow sixty to ninety plants indoors. (That’s 10 planters multiplied by 6 or 9 pods per planter.) This is choosing time convenience over savings. Your ten little indoor gardens do almost all the work for you.

If you wanted to grow the same sixty to ninety plants indoors, but are severely limited in funds, you can build your own hydroponic growing systems. You design the system; buy the pump, plumbing, water reservoir, and lights; and assemble it yourself. You maintain the equipment and check on your plants often. Perhaps you achieve an equivalent indoor garden for $400. You paid for this cost savings with your time.

(Note that compared to the cost of building, filling, and maintaining outdoor raised beds you can only use half the year, neither indoor garden strategy is outrageous.)

The conflict between convenience and savings matters less for small gardens. If you purchase a single hydroponic growing system and stop there, you’ve maximized convenience and savings. To grow six to nine plants in a hydroponic system, you would likely spend more money and time to buy and assemble all the components than you would to just buy the indoor garden kit.

Timing your purchases to stretch your budget

Once you’ve read this entire article, you’ll have built a shopping list and have the ability to estimate the purchase cost of all the materials. Unless you are in a hurry to buy everything to get started immediately (I understand!), you can stretch your budget by catching sales to save money.

Amazon has in the past held a large sale in July and another in October when you can get gardening equipment on sale. Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals still offer opportunities to save money. Spring-time sales at the big box stores include countless discounted gardening tools, and although the focus is mostly on outdoor gardens, you can get some great deals for your indoor garden.

In the example above, the ten hydroponic growing systems cost a total of $900 at regular price. Would your plans for your indoor garden change if you bought those ten units for $50 each on sale? Or if you collected all the do-it-yourself materials for only $300? The cost penalty for the convenience is much lower here.

List What You Intend To Grow

Make a list of all the plants you think you’d like to plant, even if it’s a ways in the future. Leave room beside each plant to add more information. A spreadsheet might be a convenient tool for this exercise.

What you want to grow affects your decision on what materials you’ll need to grow it.

Why did you list those plants?

Why do you want to grow the plants on your list? You probably aren’t growing lettuce to grab a couple leaves to snack on during the commute to work. That lettuce is part of a greater plan. What is that plan?

Next to each plant on your list, write your reasons for wanting to grow it. You might want to use a plant for salads, a salsa recipe, general seasoning, a snack right off the vine, and so on. Your plants might have more than one reason. And if you’re growing that plant just to see if you can do it, that’s fine. Write that reason with the rest of them.

You defined the purpose of your garden by listing why you want to grow each plant. Growing random herbs and veggies can be fun, but you risk wasting unharvested food if you don’t have a use for it when it ripens.

If you have a salsa recipe that tastes better with fresh ingredients, focus on how to grow cilantro, tomatoes, and peppers. If you are a wonderful (or aspiring) chef who loves customizing your meals, growing a collection of herbs might be your garden’s purpose. For a salad, you should consider a selection of lettuce, kale, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and radishes.

Look at your wish list of plants with the reasons for growing each plant. What stands out as the most appealing purpose for your bountiful indoor garden? Write down, “The purpose of my garden is {insert purpose here}.” Before you start growing any plants, read what you wrote and ask yourself whether that new plant supports the purpose of your indoor garden.

Highlight the rows for the plants that fulfill the purpose of your indoor garden. These are the plants you’ll focus on to the exclusion of all other plants until you have a consistent and continuous harvest of these plants.

Plants

Salad

Snack

Cooking

Cherry Tomatoes

Yes

Yes

No

Bell Peppers

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cucumbers

Yes

No

No

Radishes

Yes

No

No

Carrots

Yes

Yes

Yes

Strawberries

No

Yes

No

Cilantro

No

No

Yes

Lettuce : Black Seeded Simpson

Yes

No

No

Lettuce : Romaine

Yes

No

No

Lettuce : Grand Rapids

Yes

No

No

Lettuce : Salad Bowl

Yes

No

No

Lettuce : Prizehead

Yes

No

No

Spinach

Yes

No

No

Kale

Yes

No

No

Oregano

No

No

Yes

The sample table above illustrates my list of plants for growing indoors. I determined the purpose of my garden will be salads and emphasized the names of plants dedicated to salads.

I can eat cherry tomatoes as snacks, according to my table above, but to do so reduces the number of tomatoes I have available for salads.

Alternatively, I can grow cilantro and oregano for recipes, but this takes away capacity I could use to grow more lettuce. It’s a trade-off if I don’t have capacity to do both.

Consider The Characteristics Of Your Plants

You have a list of the plants you’ll need to grow to fulfill the purpose of your garden. Now you’ll define the characteristics of each plant so you can set up your garden appropriately.

You’ll add columns to the list of plants you wish to grow. Here are ideas for the columns and the information you’ll include in each.

  • Exclusively Soil: Is the plant root-based, as are carrots and radishes?
  • Height: How high can you expect this plant to grow?
  • Width: How wide can you expect this plant to grow?
  • Depth: How deep (if a root crop) can you expect this plant to grow?
  • Volume: How much food do you expect one plant to offer?
  • Assistance: What external assistance (trellis, fan, etc.) benefits the plant?
  • Growth: How quickly does the plant reach maturity?

The information you’re collecting directly affects how you’ll arrange your indoor garden. You may not be able to answer all these questions until you’ve grown the plants yourself. Part of the joy of gardening is the learning.

The height of the plant may exceed the height of the hydroponic growing system. Only the leaves below the LED grow light get the “sunlight”. This is not a show-stopper, however. I’ve had pepper and tomato plants grow beyond the reach of the grow light and happily continue producing fruit.

Now, if your hydroponic growing system is under your kitchen cabinets and you plant peppers, they’ll likely bump into the bottom of your cabinets unless you grow varieties designed to stop growing at a low height.

Width matters because even a dwarf tomato plant will crowd out all other plants if you are growing your plants in a countertop hydroponic growing system. You have six or nine seats for pods, but a healthy tomato plant can block the light to the other pods. 

This brings up an important point about hydroponic growing systems. Just because you can seat six, nine, or twelve pods does not mean you can fit six, nine, or twelve plants under the grow light. One point of this exercise is to determine how far apart you need to space your plants.

Get more specific with the type of plants

You know in general what you want to grow (for example, lettuce). Take a few minutes to name specific types of lettuce you’ll add to your garden.

Iceberg lettuce may be a poor choice for a hydroponics growing system (unless iceberg lettuce really is the purpose of your garden, of course), but Black Seeded Simpson grows well. You want varieties that allow you to clip leaves as you need them rather than waiting for the entire plant to mature to harvest anything.

Buy a variety of lettuce seeds to grow as an experiment, if lettuce is one of your target plants. If you’ve only bought lettuce at the grocery store, you’ve probably only had iceberg, romaine, and one or two other varieties from which to choose. You have many options, now! This applies to tomatoes, peppers, and many other plants.

Is Your Home Garden-Ready?

Yes, your home almost assuredly is garden-ready. Few homes won’t accommodate a hydroponic growing system. It just needs a square foot of counter space and an electrical outlet. But beyond that, what are the physical considerations for an in-home garden?

Electrical demands

Electricity is a must for all but the most primitive indoor gardens. Unless you have a room with glass walls and ceiling—effectively an attached greenhouse—you’ll need artificial light. That requires electricity.

You’ll get fruit from self-pollinating plants like tomatoes and crisper lettuce if you have a fan agitating your plants. That, too, requires electricity.

As you add hydroponic growing systems or grow lights or fans as your garden grows, you’ll need to spread out your electrical devices. In your house, multiple devices connect to a single breaker. That breaker cuts the power to those devices if they exceed the capacity of the breaker.

Distribute your devices across multiple breakers if your electrical demands approach the capacity of your breaker.

Pay attention to the power schedule of your devices. Avoid having every device start at the same time. If you have several hydroponic growing systems, that means staggering times the LED lights turn on. Many devices draw more electricity to start than they do to run. If they all turn on at the same time, with their higher start–up draw, they could trip the breaker.

Remember, multiple outlets connect to a single breaker, and your garden devices might not be the only ones pulling electricity from that one breaker.

Space and location demands

Your garden needs space in your home and the location you choose depends on a few factors.

If you are going old-school, you need a south-facing window and a large window sill. You’ll grow your plants in soil in containers. The space is small, because you’re limited by the available natural sunlight. The location is set, again because you’re limited to natural sunlight.

Thanks to modern technology, natural sunlight no longer holds your indoor garden hostage. Lights designed to mimic sunlight allow you to place your garden anywhere in your house.

You can cram a lot of garden in a small space, especially with a hydroponic system. A hydroponic growing system can grow up to a dozen medium-sized plants at once on your kitchen counter or two dozen large plants on the floor in a unit the size of an end-table. A full-scale hydroponic system (not the hydroponic growing system) can grow a hundred heads of lettuce in very limited space.

So, you can place artificial sunlight on a plant anywhere in your house and can cram many plants into a small surface area. Can this get any better? Yes!

You can grow plants in a vertical garden. This is a column rising anywhere from a couple feet to eight feet in the air with plants growing from openings all the way around and all the way up the column. Read more about vertical gardens in this post, Limited Floor Space? Go Vertical With Your Garden! 

You can grow more plants in containers of soil by arranging the containers on a rack unit. Mount a rectangular LED grow light on the underside of each shelf. The plants on each shelf (except the top shelf) will get enough light to thrive. Plug the lights into a timer to automate the day/night cycles.

On a five–shelf rack, you get four lit shelves, which is like having three extra gardens versus what you’d have floor space for without the rack. Plus, you get the bonus top shelf where you can store garden equipment.

How Much Do You Intend To Grow?

You’ve determined the purpose of your garden, be it a salad, herbs for cooking, or ingredients for your salsa recipe. Now, you’ll calculate how much you have to grow to meet your needs.

When planning how much to grow, you’ll find this article helpful: How To Get A Salad Every Day From Your Indoor Garden. Use the recommendations in that article to set up a routine for growing your plants that ensures you always have the food you want.

How many people are you feeding from your indoor garden? Multiply all your calculations by that number.

Essentially, if you want a continuous supply of a particular food, such as tomatoes, you need to plan to overlap your crops in such a way as to always have one crop producing food while one or two other crops are in earlier stages of growth. Starting one crop only after the current crop dies leaves you with no produce until the next crop matures. You’re looking to avoid that gap between crops.

You may also need more than one of certain types of plants per crop. How quickly will you harvest all the leaves on a single spine of romaine lettuce? How many lettuce plants do you need to grow so you always have a reasonable supply to harvest? If you need six mature lettuce plants to produce enough leaves to fill your daily salad bowl, that’s one six-pod hydroponic growing system right there.

The amount of food you want to grow determines your capacity needs. If you decide you want three varieties of lettuce for two salads a day, maybe you need two six-pod hydroponic growing systems. Twelve pods means two sets of three lettuce plants being harvested and two sets growing to replace them. Once you run that schedule for a while, you adapt based upon your findings. Maybe you need even more capacity. Maybe not.

Is This For Fun Or Maximum Yield?

What is your level of dedication to your indoor garden?

Is your indoor garden a leisurely hobby, meant solely to supply a few herbs to the homemade spaghetti sauce on Tuesday nights?

Or is this a serious endeavor to diversify your food sources without the neighbors finding out?

Or perhaps you have seen how expensive fresh food has become and you want to grow a safe alternative.

If this garden is for fun, meaning you’ll be disappointed if a crop fails, but you’ll just clean out the hydroponic growing system and start over, you need do nothing more right now. Although, if there is the possibility you’ll get more serious later, consider keeping that journal.

If this garden is considered a replacement for the grocery store or for survival readiness, you need to treat it with a high level of seriousness. Meticulously track your actions and their effects on your plants. Increase the capacity of your garden as necessary to meet your objectives. Be scientific in your analysis. Experiment with alternative sources of plant nutrients and feeding schedules. Stock up on plant food so you never run low.

If you are maximizing your yield, study up on how to preserve your harvest. How long can you store peppers in the freezer? Can you grow food you can preserve through canning? Nothing says you cannot grow green beans indoors year-round!

Consider why you want an indoor garden now. If this is a serious project, become an expert on growing food in your own home.

How Hands-On Will You Be?

An indoor garden is certainly more convenient than growing outdoors and the ability to grow food year-round is wonderful. But growing your garden indoors is not effortless. How much effort do you want to put in? 

Probably the indoor garden requiring the least effort from you would be the hydroponic growing system. It’s about as close to plug ’n’ play as an indoor garden gets. There’s nothing wrong with growing your entire garden this way, so long as you have the room and your house can supply the electricity.

The more hands-on you are, the more formal your planning should be. Growing in soil is certainly more hands-on. 

How involved can you get with your indoor garden?

You can build your own hydroponic growing systems. The benefit of doing this is having a large number of plants in a large reservoir or one large plant in a large reservoir. The downside is that this method is utilitarian and less decorative than a store-bought system.

You’ll be more hands-on by purchasing components of your indoor garden individually. For example, you can buy stand-alone LED grow lights for use with container plants or flats of seedlings. You can move a stand-alone LED grow light to a different plant or adjust the angle. Maybe you want more than one supporting a single large plant. You can be flexible if you get your own components.

So, as part of your planning, gauge whether you want to set it and forget it or if you want to manage every nuance of your plants’ growth.

Do You Prefer Soil, Hydroponics, Or A Combination?

You have your list of preferred plants derived from the list of all the plants you wish to grow. One column should be whether the plant can grow in soil, hydroponics, or either. Do you have a preference? 

You may prefer growing plants in soil. Perhaps you’ve had an outdoor garden for years and you’re comfortable with soil-based plants. That’s fine. To grow your plants indoors, you’ll need one or more LED grow lights and containers of the proper size. A shelf unit provides you the ability to fit more plants in a small space. You can mount LED grow lights under each shelf to make for excellent growing areas. If you suspend the lights from the shelves with chains, you can adjust the height of the lights above the plants.

Hydroponic growing systems are certainly an easy soil-less solution. Hydroponics are very popular. You can buy a large-scale hydroponics system or build one. Hydroponics can be done well with PVC pipes and a water pump in a reservoir. You connect the PVC pipes, drill holes for the pods, and set up the pump to push water through the pipes at regular intervals.

Most plants will do well in either environment. Surprisingly, you can grow root plants like carrots in a hydroponic system (with good planning). But realistically, carrots and radishes are soil-based plants. If you’re just starting off, maybe your salad (with ingredients from the sample table above) will include store-bought carrots and radishes so you can focus on the plants growing in the hydroponics growing systems.

If you are serious about growing a varied and bountiful indoor garden, then for each plant determine the best grow medium and implement that. Yield to the best environment for the plant instead of going with the environment most convenient for you.

Let your garden be educational as well as fun. If you’ve planted in soil all your life, get an inexpensive hydroponic growing system and experiment with growing your favorite plants. Or, on the flip side, maybe you can get your hands dirty and grow some radishes in soil indoors. 

How Experienced A Gardener Are You?

In planning your indoor garden, set reasonable expectations. If you’ve never grown anything before in your life, start small and grow your garden over time. Alternatively, if you are an experienced gardener outdoors, you have some unlearning to do. Indoor gardens are not outdoor gardens indoors.

You have your list of plants associated with the desired purpose of your garden. You know those plants grow in soil or hydroponics. The biggest change is seasons no longer matter.

If you are an inexperienced gardener, consider starting with plants that thrive in a hydroponic growing system. You want to keep that “new project” enthusiasm by getting quick results from your garden. Look at herbs, lettuce, or specialty tomato plants early on. If you want to try your hand growing food in soil, consider beginning with radishes. They grow quickly and take very little space.

As a new gardener, you will benefit greatly from keeping your journal. This is especially true if you grow multiple plants starting off. It’s just too much to remember. 

If you’re familiar with growing plants, but new to indoor gardening, expect just a few changes.

Do You Also Garden Outdoors?

If you will be gardening outdoors, too, you’ll find your indoor garden to be a great benefit. Your indoor garden can help you start your outdoor plants much earlier each spring.

Equipment for starting spring seeds early

You may already have a flat for starting seeds indoors. There are three things you’ll find very helpful you may not already have.

First, you can encourage seed growth with a heating pad underneath your flat. The pad gives your seeds a favorable germination temperature.

Second, you can promote healthy seedlings with a grow light. Without enough light, your plants will be weak and spindly. If you are starting your seeds indoors in the spring by setting the pots or tray near a window, you owe it to yourself to investigate LED grow lights. With the dedicated light, your plants should be much stronger when you move them outdoors.

Third, a 24-pod seed-starter tray in an AeroGarden hydroponic growing system gives your seeds a jump start on life. The hydroponic system with the automated watering and bright LED grow light expedites your plants’ growth. Simply move the grow plug from the tray to the soil when the time is right.

Equipment such as these improve your chances of success growing plants outdoors. They can also save you a great deal of money, considering the difference in cost between a packet of seeds and just one seedling bought at a big box store.

Planning to start spring seeds early

Your indoor garden can help you get a huge jump start on planting in the spring with the above suggestions. However, it comes from planning. You need to schedule off time for your indoor garden to free up the AeroGarden, for instance.

Mark the time on the calendar now for when you’ll be starting seeds for an outdoor garden. Set a reminder to not start a garden in your AeroGarden right before that time, if you are using a starter tray.

If you are using trays, set reminders on your calendar now for when to start seeds for each plant.

Count how many plants of each type you want to plant outdoors and make sure you have the capacity to grow that many seeds indoors. Do you have enough flat trays, if that is your preferred technique?

Reserve shelf space on your rack for soil seed starters and a LED light.

Have a plan in case of a very late frost. As the plants outgrow their starter tray, can you move them to larger pots, like a four inch cup? You’ll need more surface space than a flat and at least one more LED light. You’ll also need more soil.

Bringing plants in for winter

You can bring some plants in for the winter. Each plant’s needs are different. However, the time to think of over-wintering plants is during the summertime. You need the soil, the container, a grow light (for some plants), and a favorable place to put them.

Plants don’t always do well being uprooted and moved indoors. If you’ve never done this before, research how. Be sure you have a storage area that remains within the correct temperature range for your plants.

Be practical. Why are you trying to preserve this plant? Can you not just start a new one in the spring? Maybe you can just start a new one from seed and grow it indoors. Could you grow something else over the winter in the space in your home this plant is going to take?

Do You Intend To Reuse Seeds?

If you intend to capture seeds so you don’t need to buy them next season, you’ll want to choose your starter seeds carefully.

When buying seeds, look for these designations.

  • Non-GMO
  • Heirloom

GMO means the plant is genetically modified, so non-GMO means the plant has not been genetically modified. Heirloom means you can use the seeds to grow the next generation of plants.

Each plant has unique steps you’ll follow to save its seeds. As seeds come late in some plants’ lives, you’ll have to allow your plants to continue growing past the point at which you’ll be harvesting food. Keep this in mind if you’re growing plants to eat. You may need to increase your indoor garden capacity to offset the loss in production from the plants still growing for their seeds.

What Are Your Physical Limitations?

Small hydroponic growing systems are fairly easy to move, even when filled with water. A typical hydroponic growing system holds approximately a gallon of water, which weighs about 8 pounds. Even with plants, a countertop hydroponic growing system probably weighs under 20 pounds. You’ll need to be able to rotate, lift, and move a tub of water.

Height is a consideration as well. Some plants grow taller than the LED light at its highest extension. Will this be a problem? Can you set the hydroponic growing system or container lower?

For You Or A Gift?

The article focused on your interest in starting an indoor garden. However, if you know somebody you believe would enjoy growing their own food indoors, you can apply most of the above questions and suggestions to that person as the recipient of your gift of an indoor garden. Simply answer the questions to the best of your ability from the perspective of the gift recipient. Your efforts will assist you in finding quite the thoughtful gift.

Key Takeaways

The technology and techniques for growing food have advanced greatly in recent years. Your indoor garden can take over growing most plants from your outdoor garden. With hydroponics and vertical gardens and artificial sunlight, you can grow more food in less space indoors. And you can distribute your harvest over the course of the entire year rather than getting it all at once.

You can put as little or as much planning as you want into your garden; it’s your garden. However, you’d sink a lot of time and money into setting up and maintaining an outdoor garden, so applying a percentage of that effort toward the success of an indoor garden is to be expected.

You can set up your entire indoor garden using hydroponic growing systems from a variety of manufacturers and you’ll have the means to grow an impressive garden. All you need is the room to do it. Don’t feel obligated to replicate an outdoor garden indoors. And don’t feel like using hydroponic growing systems is cheating. Growing a bountiful indoor garden with little effort is winning.

You can grow your indoor garden all year long. For this reason, your entire strategy changes. You can stagger your crops so you’ll always have a producing plant. There are no seasons indoors; it’s always growing time.

Preparing an environment and scheduling your crops for your indoor garden increases your return on your investment. Whatever the purpose of your garden, with what you’ve learned here, you should be able to achieve you goals. And have fun doing it.

The post How to Plan Your Indoor Garden first appeared on Bountiful Indoor Garden.

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