How to Grow Vegetables Indoors Year Round
Vegetables normally grow outdoors, and they primarily grow during summer. However, indoor environments can often mimic warmer spring and summer temperatures, even during different seasons. Most vegetables prefer lots of sunlight, so indoor vegetables need a sunny room full of windows or indoor plant lights. With a few supplies and a little care, vegetables will grow well indoors year round without requiring too much work. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Vegetable seeds or starter plants
- Loamy soil or soilless planting mix with good drainage
- Large pots with good drainage holes
- 10-10-10 Fertilizer
- 5-10-10 Fertilizer (optional depending on vegetable type)
- Water
- Indoor area with lots of sunlight or indoor plant lights
Instructions
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Choose vegetable varieties that grow well in pots. Root vegetables, like carrots and potatoes, are difficult to grow in pots. The National Gardening Association recommends trying eggplants and peppers for compact potted gardens. Tomatoes and lettuce can also grow in potted gardens. Squash and cucumbers grow well in containers, but need very large containers.
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Prepare the potted soil like an outdoor garden. The National Gardening Association recommends planting vegetable gardens with loamy soil that has good drainage. Fill vegetable pots with this type of soil and mix in a little bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer before planting the vegetables. Make sure the pots are much bigger than vegetable starter pots. The pots should allow the same amount of room between plants as vegetable seed packets recommend. Make sure the soil is damp but not overly saturated, as with an outdoor garden.
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Plant the vegetables as you would in an outdoor garden. Space the seeds as far apart in pots as their packages call for in outdoor gardens.
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Provide lighting similar to the light vegetables would need in an outdoor garden. Most areas have less sunlight in winter, but vegetables need as much sunlight as they'd receive in spring and summer to grow year-round. The National Gardening Association recommends at least six hours of daily sunlight for most types of vegetables. For indoor gardens that cannot receive that much sunlight from windows, buy a plant light from a local gardening shop and leave it on for some parts of the day when the plants do not receive natural sunlight.
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Water the vegetables regularly. Since potted vegetables grow in less soil, their soil may dry out faster than it would in an outdoor garden. The National Gardening Association recommends checking plants in containers often and making sure their soil remains damp.
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Fertilize the vegetables regularly. The National Gardening Association recommends fertilizing container plants regularly when watering. Washington State University provides a guide to fertilizing different types of vegetables, many of which require a 10-10-10 fertilizer every month or so (see link in the Reference section).
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