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Indoor vegetable gardening can be very rewarding and fun. I would suggest that you combine indoor vegetable gardening with some plants that you are eventually going to put outside on the deck or front porch. Deciding what to grow will depend on how much light you have. Plants such as tomatoes, need alot of heat when they are in the major part of their growth, so that would be an example of something you would eventually want to put outside, perhaps on the side of the driveway, or at the corner of the porch. Even if you don’t have a lot of room outside, try to think of some creative spots outside that you could sneak a plant in, without taking up alot of room. Take into account, that you will need some larger containers to replant the vegetables to take outside.
Most people start out with herbs for their indoor gardening. Oregano and basil are all time favorites. Let’s try to branch out a little bit more. Let’s go for some peppers, lettuce, carrots, garlic and tomatoes. These should be fairly easy for a beginner. Your garlic would go in during the fall, about October. Peppers take along time to grow, so don’t get discouraged. Plant the seeds for germination in January, but the peppers will most likely not have much size on it, till late March, early April.
Go ahead and start the lettuce in a big pot. Lettuce should sprout rather easily, and you would want the pot to be large enough that you could pick off of it several times a week. If you have 3 or 4 large rectangular containers, that would be a great small crop to move outside onto the front or back porch, then you would maybe get enough lettuce for a small family to have salads 2-3 times a week.
The carrots are a root crop, so they like colder temperatures. You can grow the carrots indoors about 9 months out of the year. Don’t forget carrots are going to have the large green fluffy tops, so you probably wouldn’t want in the living room. A sun room, or the right kind of dining room that has some sun would be better. Some houses have a mud room, where people come in and take off their boots. If that room has some sun, you could put these in there.
This is a little to spark your interest and get you thinking. If you’re going to look at the library for books, check for books on container gardening.
Remember, that the temperature inside your house. perhaps, 68 degrees, is not the same as the temperature of the soil that your seeds need to germinate. The soil is running cooler than the temp in your house, so putting some heat on from above or below (such as a seed temp mat) would be beneficial.
This year I am really pushing everyone to learn a little about container gardening. With food prices as high as they are, having something of your own, or starting to learn about plants, and growing your own food is a good idea. Buying and eating local produce is always the best. Knowing where your food supply comes from is getting to be more and more important. The last time I bought garlic at the store, it came from China. Now how sad is that.
Container gardening vegetable is not as restrictive as you think. There are alot of vegetables you can grow that you probably never thought of.
You should start with some greens of course, lettuce, spinach, and maybe something like Italian Salad Mix. How about some Swiss Chard?
Everyone knows beans and tomatoes but lets branch out a little(no pun intended). Let’s do some cucumbers, onions, green peppers, hot peppers, eggplants, okra, and some peas. That would be a good start for the first year.
You will want to use potting mix, not potting soil as that carries rock in it. Some of your pots will go in a shady area, or a spot that does not get full sun all day. Cool weather crops like lettuce and salad greens, will be planted first, and when it gets too hot, they will bolt, so give them some shade part of the day. Don’t leave them out in the sun and heat the way you would tomatoes.
The cucumbers, eggplants, beans, and peas will need stakes and alot more room. I would do those in the long, rectangular containers that you could put up against the side of the house, or near a walkway.
Don’t forget garlic, and herbs also. Usually, it would be best if you planted your garlic and onions late in the season, and let them winter over. You can probably still put some onions in and get something but come October or November, replant. Get the herbs going now, tho. These take little pots, that you can place anywhere, and will enrich your visual landscape.
I would love for you to have a lovely salad from your own hands, so even if you don’t have a garden space, or live in an apt. it’s time to take a little responsiblity for your own food sources. Container garden vegetables will still make your heart and smile light up when you get home after a long day at the office, to see fresh vegetables waiting for you. I will add more information about container gardening soon.
Everyone is talking about growing tomatoes this year. With the bad weather they had in Florida, the prices of tomatoes has gone sky high. At Lowe’s building supply the price for one tomato plant today in my region was 5.98. Can you believe that? For one, tomato plant? I checked at another place, in a small country town and they also were selling their basic plants starting at 3.75 for a tomato plant but if you bought 10 or more, it brought the price down to 3.00 each. The larger tomato plants were still about 4.78 for one. So we better get going with starting from seed.
Decide on potting mix and how many plants you’re going to need first. Do you want to have the earliest tomatoes possible? Then you’ll want to go with a type of Early Bird Seed. The homesteads, German Johnsons, and Beefsteaks will take a little longer. Be sure to think about some cherry tomatoes, roma’s and maybe an heirloom type also. With heirlooms, you’ll be able to save some of your seeds from this years crop, to plant again next year.
Tomato seeds should germinate in about 7 to 10 days if under the right conditions and with fresh up to date seed. We usually start ours indoors. Start the seeds about 6-7 weeks before the last frost.
Try to get some advice from local growers, as to how they feel about when the last frost will happen. You will plant one tomato seed to one cell, or container hole. Tomato seeds do not need to be under light at this point. Some people believe that, but ours come up great without light during germination and we plant at least 15 500-yd rows of tomato plants each year. Heat is more important, they enjoy 65 degrees. Try to keep them under 70-80 degree temperatures if at all possible. I actually had a blanket over mine for a few days, in a spare room. Don’t bury them too deep. Barely put any soil over top. If you are planting one, to a cell, you can place one on top, and then just poke it barely under the soil with tweezers, or a pencil eraser. If you plan on planting tons, and tons of tomatoes, some people gently sprinkle several seeds, over each cell, but realize that you would need to go back and thin them out and replant again later. This would be for a large greenhouse operation, or if you have a small amount of space for seed starting but you want to give tomato plants to your friends to start in their garden. Two of our local greenhouse operations do theirs that way, and they usually have alot more plants than us, in a quicker amount of time. We spend less time, separating all of them, and replanting in larger cells, multiple times.
As soon as the seedlings start to emerge, then you can start to think about giving them more light. You will need a south facing window, or some grow lights or fluorescent lights. Tomato seedlings grow best at about 65 degrees with lots of light and good air circulation. Another reason for having them under lights, is it provides warmth, which the tomato plants like. Once they get a couple of leaves on them, you want to move them up to the next container size. You’ll want to water well and then leave them alone until the soil is almost dry again.
Full size tomato plants can be had in 6-8 weeks, so you must time your growth accordingly. Try to get some advice from local growers, as to how they feel about when the last frost will happen. Do not move your plants outside until the soil reaches at least 60 degrees.
Don’t let your tomato seedlings get leggy. This usually happens because of insufficient light, too much heat, or too much fertilizer. If they start to get “leggy” then repot in a larger container, and plant the seedling deep to shorten it’s height, and develop a strong root system.
If you want to put your plants under florescent lights, then the bulb needs to be about two inches from the plant for about 16-18 hours a day. No more than 18 hours a day. This will cost about 8.00 per month but you won’t be keeping them under this kind of light for very long. Remember, don’t put the lights under them, until after they have already sprouted and two leaves have come up.
Remember, you can’t just take them from indoors and plant immediately outside in the soil. You’ll need to “harden them off” first. Let them get used to the outdoors a little more each day, and again, wait until the last frost is over before you plant in the ground.
Growing tomatoes is fun. Your friends will be bugging you so they can have a tomato sandwich, which they will say, reminds them of the old days. Enjoy your tomato garden.
Now is the time of year for seed starting. The sun is spending more time in the sky each day, and we’re hoping the frost will not appear too many more times. Our produce season starts the last week of March and we have had a couple unexpected nights when the temperatures went lower than we wanted. Yet, what we have in the field is coming along pretty well considering. We will have baby carrots, lettuce, beets, turnips (a few that made it all the way thru the winter from last year) and potatoes to start the season with.
It’s what’s in the greenhouse tho, that’s making us really happy. Growing from seed is very rewarding and one of my favorite parts of planting a vegetable garden.
Here is a list for seed germination:
Asparagus 10-12 weeks
Broccoli 6-8 weeks
Cabbage 6-8 weeks
Cauliflower 6-8 weeks
Collards 6-8 weeks
Eggplant 6-8 weeks
Kale 6-8 weeks
Lettuce 4-6 weeks
Onions 8-10 weeks
Peppers 6-8 weeks
Swiss Chard 4 weeks
Tomatoes 6-10 weeks
This is not the time it takes for the seed to germinate, but this gives you more of an idea of how long the plant would grow indoors before replanting it outside. The above chart tells you how long before the last frost to germinate your seeds and get them started.
Fill your cell packs with sterile potting soil almost to the top. Place one seed on each. With a pencil, plant seeds just a little into the soil, barely covering with soil. Do not plant too far down, they need some air, moisture and light to grow. Alot of books tell you to plant the seed 1/2 to inch down in the soil, but most seeds really don’t like it down that far. Especially the smaller seeds. Something like a squash seed which is larger, or a melon seed, you can plant a little deeper. The thing the you should remember, is the seed is going to be searching for light, and when it sees some light, it pushes out to try to make it to the light. Therefore, that’s why you don’t push it down and pack the soil, so tight, that no light shines down and hits the seed. Keep your soil most at all times, using a spray bottle filled with lukewarm water. If the soil appears to be drying out too quickly each day, then you can cover with a blanket at night to give them more heat. You can also cover with plastic wrap, but makes sure they are not baking, just keeping warm. Sometimes, if you have a stubborn seed, you can germinate the seed by placing on a wet paper towel, folding it over and keeping it wet, and then force it to germinate. This would be for seeds that are perhaps older and you don’t know if they will germinate or not.
If you have lights, then place them on a schedule of 16 hours on, and eight hours off. When the plants have 3-4 leaves on them then start to fertilize. Keep lights as least 2 inches away from the plants.
You want a nice, healthy plant with some width to it, to plant in the ground. You will want to harden them off by setting outside a little each day, gradually leaving them outside longer and longer. By now the weather should be warming up, and when you know there will be no more frost, you can start looking to plant into your garden. In the south, April 20th is considered a good date that is about two weeks after an average frost date. Several farmers will try to plant some tomatoes outside earlier than that, taking a 50/50 chance that we might have a frost. Only place your tomatoes outside earlier if you have more as backup. If you are only growing tomatoes for your family, than it is best to wait until the last week of April or early May to put your tomatoes outside.
May 13, 2010
We did have frost at our farm in NC (zone 7) two nights ago. All the tomato plants and peppers that had been hardening off outside the greenhouse had to be covered with row covers. The plants were a little confused for two days because our temperatures have been going up and down. We have moved most of the tomatoes down to a place on our farm called shady glenn (which is a spot underneath a pretty good stand of trees, that has lots of pine needles blanketing it and a pond). The plants like the cooler weather, and have indirect sunlight, for the hardening off period. Someone asked thru google search, if they should plant more seeds, in the cells packs, if the first batch does not come up. It mainly depends on timing, for tomatoes, there’s lots of time left, so go ahead and try another seed, perhaps the first ones, were not fresh enough. Peppers for instance, take longer to grow. We have three types of peppers growing, but I wish I had more. We were not able to get any bannana peppers or red cherry hot peppers started in time. I really don’t have enough time to start from seed on pepper plants, but I’m going to try anyway because I have some orange hot habanero peppers, that I’ll try to get by September or Oct. It will take 2-3 months for these seedlings to get any real size to them tho. The crows ate half of our corn that sprouted in the field, so yes, we did have to go back and fill in those holes. We made little brackets around the seeds, so that the crows, could not easily get their beaks down to the seed. Coating the corn with grape kool-aid probably came in 2nd runner up, as a fix for deterring the crows from eating it. For some reason, crows don’t like the taste of grape kool-aid.
