An Indoor Vegetable Garden The Organic Way

An indoor vegetable garden may be the perfect answer for anybody who wants to grow their own organic vegetables without having any outdoor space. There are plenty of vegetables that you can grow in containers indoors.

You may think that you can only grow certain vegetables inside the house, but that is not necessarily true. Of course, if you only have a very small space, there will be limits to your indoor vegetable garden. You probably do not want a room full of giant pumpkins, for example. But you could grow one or two pumpkins, or maybe a smaller variety of squash.

There are even some advantages to having an indoor vegetable garden. The main one is that your plants are less likely to suffer from disease and pest damage. Provided you are careful not to introduce pests into your home, most of them will probably stay outside.

It is worth taking a little time to plan your indoor vegetable garden before you start. If you make a list of planting and harvesting dates for a lot of different vegetables, you will see that you may be able to have two plants growing in a pot in the same year, by planning for a second vegetable crop that you can plant after harvesting the first. This is a great way to make the most of limited space.

Another option is to have hanging pots, either outside on walls or inside, near the window. The indoor option may block light. If you choose to have hanging pots outside, it will need to be in a place that you can easily reach. This could be from a window if you live in an apartment.

You will need to use organic soil, compost and fertilizer if you want to grow organic vegetables. It is not so easy to produce your own compost if you do not have a garden, but you may have a friendly neighbor who would share. Most gardens produce more compost than they need.

If you are just starting out with indoor garden or if you have never grown vegetables before, it is probably better to start with those that are easy to grow. Radishes and carrots do not require much care and can be delicious. Lettuce grows quickly and you probably do not need more than one ready at a time, so you can make the most of a container and have them growing one after another.

Most herbs grow very well indoors and do not require much space. You can create a herb garden on one or two windowsills and it will produce enough for the fresh herb needs of most small households.

Some plants do require a certain amount of sunlight, so some research and planning is needed before you start out. Fruit needs sun, and many plants that people think of as vegetables are actually fruit in botanical terms.

Tomatoes, for example, grow well in pots with a trellis, but they will ripen best in sun. So you may need to think about which plants are placed near windows. Of course, you may have roof lights or even a conservatory that will allow a lot of sunlight in. That is the ideal situation for an indoor vegetable garden, but not everybody is that lucky.