Growing Vegetables and Herbs Indoors

by Lucien Beauley
(Manchester, N.H., U.S.A.)

How to Grow Herbs Indoors

If you live in a northern climate where the growing season is short, it might be to your advantage to move your garden indoors. Obviously, this cannot be accomplished physically, but a small scale version of it is not beyond reason.

Shown above: Lighting Assembly to Grow Indoor Vegetables or Herbs

Construct Your Own Inexpensive Indoor Grow Lamp

Construct Your Own Inexpensive Indoor Grow Lamp

Why would anyone want to even contemplate this approach?

An individual first has to consider their family needs, as far as estimating the amount of vegetables that would be consumed on a weekly basis and what kind of space would be required to supply that given amount. You must first ask yourself: how many people will be consuming the virtually continuous harvest, realizing this makeshift garden of yours will be supplying your family's needs 365 days a year since you are controlling its environment.

Some Advantages Along With a Disadvantage of an Indoor Garden

Advantages:

* Not subject to climate changes, such as rainy or cloudy days.

* Logistics friendly

I can only think of one disadvantage:

* Uses artificial instead of the perfect sunlight supplied by the Creator.

The lighting setup shown above was made up of three simple pine boards two of which were simply screwed and glued to the end of the third and longer one. One which measured about 38". The two vertical pieces were simply clamped to the side of the bench. I simply mounted four plastic standard lamp sockets. You can use porcelin but the plastics are cheaper. The CFL light bulbs I used are 15W60W incandescent equivalent. I chose CFL bulbs with a color temperature of 6500 degrees Kelvin to closely match that of the sun. It is actually a little higher and "warmer" but this will not be a problem. I placed the tomato seedlings about 3" beneath CFL's. I will raise CFL lamp assembly as plants grow taller trying to keep the same distance. Heat from the lamps seems to be at a minimum.

The indoor garden assembly shown above has only recently been started approximately a week ago, in the middle of February of 2009this year and three pots were started with beefsteak tomatoes which are a little ambitious, but it will be o.k. for now. The tomatoes have sprouted and are about an inch tall. Six more pots were seeded with Parsley, Scallions and Garlic...for now. The latter have only been planted a couple of days ago.



Shown at Left is Slightly Lanky Growth of Seedlings after one Week.