As temperatures dip and the days shorten, winter is imminent and gardening is put on the back burner until spring or is it? Why not try winter gardening indoors?
An indoor winter garden won’t provide you with all the produce you need but can flesh out the produce you purchase from the store. Plus, growing winter indoor plants allows you to keep your thumbs green, so to speak. Read on to learn how to grow food inside during winter.
Can You Garden Inside During Winter?
Yes, you can garden inside during winter and it’s a great way to beat back the winter blues while providing your family with fresh produce and herbs. You can enlist the help of the kids with planting seeds and keeping up with watering, move plants already growing outside indoors, or start seeds indoors to be planted outdoors in the spring.
About Winter Gardening Indoors
Of course, you can’t expect to grow sprawling squash or towering corn when winter gardening indoors, but there are plenty of other crops that succeed beautifully as winter indoor plants.
In order to grow food inside during winter, you will need either a southern exposure window and/or some supplemental lighting in the form of grow lights. Full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs are commonly available and are the most cost-effective.
Beyond these requirements, you will need medium and containers or a hydroponics system or aerogarden.
Winter Indoor Plants
Many people grow herbs in a sunny windowsill and that is a great place to start, but in your indoor winter garden (if you keep things warm enough) you can also grow:
A dwarf citrus tree is a great way to have fresh vitamin C juice on hand or try growing ginger. Ginger, however, will need some assistance in the form of humidity. A heated house tends to be too dry for ginger, but it can be grown in a terrarium or an old fish tank.
Just remember that different crops have different needs. Do some research regarding the ideal temperatures for germination (a warming mat helps) and how many hours of light and water the crop needs and be sure to use a good organic fertilizer to keep the plants happy while growing in your indoor winter garden.
