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.
