Indoor gardening is a great resource for city dwellers: besides cleansing your household air, plants can truly make a difference in your interior decor, not to mention the opportunity of growing fresh vegetables indoors throughout the winter.
Either you choose classic container gardening or hydroponics – i.e. a subset of hydroculture which consists in growing plants in a soil less medium, or an aquatic based environment – there are plenty of creative ways to design and build your own DIY indoor garden, provided that you first take into account a few preconditions that are quite essential.
First and foremost, the light: some plants need many hours of light, and that can be a problem during the winter months, even if your house is bright and your plants are close to the windows - simply because, well, winter days are short. So, either go for plants that do not need too much light, or get grow lights tailored to the specific needs of your own plants.
While space is not an issue – you can basically grow plants and vegetables even in very confined spaces – the room’s temperature and humidity are crucial; for this reason, we recommend making sure that the temperature stays between 65 and 75 °F, and that the room does not get too dry, especially in winter with the heat running.
Once you are all set with these preliminary aspects, you can start designing your indoor plant or vegetable garden. Here are a few ideas to help you get inspired.
Vertical Hydroponic Salad Garden
Besides being the best option for indoor vegetable gardening, hydroponics has plenty of advantages, the first one being that you will actually need approximately 10% of the amount of water generally used for growing veggies in soil. To build your own vertical hydroponic salad garden you will need creativity, good manual skills, and some of very specific equipment, including pumps and reservoirs for holding, supplying, and recycling water, hydroponic nutrients, and more. Alternatively, there are plenty of kits on the market, some of them very beautifully designed.