Growing veges indoors

[AtHomeInQld]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has experience growing veges indoor. My wife is allergic to (most!) creatures that are outdoors so we want to attempt an indoor "gardening room" mainly for veges, to avoid the bities. But I haven't found much (or anything really) that is about having an indoor growing area that is NOT a hothouse. We are in Qld so the environment is already hot and humid enough. Any advice? Thanks.

 

[nao57]

By hot house, do you mean a greenhouse?

Greenhouse outside is the way to go with nets and closed in plastic IF that's possible.

Growing inside is tricky. Your house lights aren't the same lights that plants need, so what would happen is that they'd never get anywhere and you couldn't be able to produce actual vegetables.

BUT those grow lights can work for producing light that plants can eat. But you'd need a lot of them and you'd need really good fertilizer also to grow inside. You'd be watering according to a table and need stuff to catch the run off or put it in a bathroom with a floor drain if you didn't have that.

Now... here's something kind of interesting to think about... in Eastern Europe when they had the Chernobyl fall out, many countries had to have all their produce grown inside greenhouses. That was the only way they could tell it'd be safe from radiation and fallout. They did this in Austria around that time for a few years until it was safe to grow outside again. The greenhouse plastic can keep the dust from fallout out (to a point).

If you do the grow lamps method, they don't use too much electricity if they are LEDs. Most are. But you'd need quite a few of them.

...

Now ... there's another trick where some people will start everything INSIDE and then transfer it out when it warms up in the spring. That can work too but you have to be very careful because if you don't acclimate stuff from transplant shock you'll lose a ton of plnts. You have to go slowly and get them used to being outside a few hours at a time (Usually when your question about growing inside gets asked this comes up sooner or later...)

You could also do this idea with your wife while she's getting up to speed. Let her grow the seedlings and stuff inside for awhile. And then you transfer it out into the yard by degrees, and then just let her keep growing new stuff all year as you move it out. That way you can let her get used to gardening while you still get some outside plant benefits. And then just keep doing seedlings grown inside all year. (This is an option...)

 

[AtHomeInQld]

By hot house, do you mean a greenhouse?

Greenhouse outside is the way to go with nets and closed in plastic IF that's possible.

Growing inside is tricky. Your house lights aren't the same lights that plants need, so what would happen is that they'd never get anywhere and you couldn't be able to produce actual vegetables.

BUT those grow lights can work for producing light that plants can eat. But you'd need a lot of them and you'd need really good fertilizer also to grow inside. You'd be watering according to a table and need stuff to catch the run off or put it in a bathroom with a floor drain if you didn't have that.

Now... here's something kind of interesting to think about... in Eastern Europe when they had the Chernobyl fall out, many countries had to have all their produce grown inside greenhouses. That was the only way they could tell it'd be safe from radiation and fallout. They did this in Austria around that time for a few years until it was safe to grow outside again. The greenhouse plastic can keep the dust from fallout out (to a point).

If you do the grow lamps method, they don't use too much electricity if they are LEDs. Most are. But you'd need quite a few of them.

...

Now ... there's another trick where some people will start everything INSIDE and then transfer it out when it warms up in the spring. That can work too but you have to be very careful because if you don't acclimate stuff from transplant shock you'll lose a ton of plnts. You have to go slowly and get them used to being outside a few hours at a time (Usually when your question about growing inside gets asked this comes up sooner or later...)

You could also do this idea with your wife while she's getting up to speed. Let her grow the seedlings and stuff inside for awhile. And then you transfer it out into the yard by degrees, and then just let her keep growing new stuff all year as you move it out. That way you can let her get used to gardening while you still get some outside plant benefits. And then just keep doing seedlings grown inside all year. (This is an option...)

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[nao57]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Glad I could help.

 

[DECEMBER]

I'm growing indoors in an apartment. Using LED grow bulbs, mostly the larger ones from FEIT Electric. I bought a couple 5-bulb stand fixtures from the hardware store and have collected a bunch of discarded lamps (mostly tall Ikea types). There's gotta be over 20 bulbs in there now. The dining room area has become the garden, the table now covered in planter pots and surrounded by lamps, with several hung from the ceiling with string.
It's hard to get plants started. They tend to grow really long sprouts and don't get well-rooted. You gotta get the lights very close for the seedlings. But the ones that make it do well. I get mostly swiss chard, beets, spinich, and parsley. Sometimes broccoli, but you mostly get greens, not flowers. Mustard greens do well. Had some fennel.
Have some basil, sage, and summer savory growing now.
There's also a 3 year old avocado tree growing in here. It's been touching the roof for over a year. It doesn't fruit and it's already too big for its pot and the space. I need to find someone who has a backyard to plant it in.

 

[nao57]

Wow. Thanks for the pictures. That was nice of you to do.

Also, I'm curious about the grow lights life expectancy rates? Do those turn out as stated, or how accurate are those? I remember when we got a few, they stated how many hours they think they'll last or something. But I don't know if people are able to know that right away unless they'd played with them for a few years.

 

[DECEMBER]

Wow. Thanks for the pictures. That was nice of you to do.

Also, I'm curious about the grow lights life expectancy rates? Do those turn out as stated, or how accurate are those? I remember when we got a few, they stated how many hours they think they'll last or something. But I don't know if people are able to know that right away unless they'd played with them for a few years.

https://www.hardwareworld.com/pc4494k/Gn-Bul
these work the best and last the longest out of their 3 sizes. I've had some going for 16 hours a day for 3 years. The ones that are the size of regular light bulbs don't cost much less and they don't last long. All the small ones I got have already burned out.
There are other types that I haven't tried, like rectangular slabs of small LEDs. Mine are almost all the kind in the link now. There's been no significant change to the electric bill.