Growing Things Indoors: Green Without A Garden

Gardening is a way to calm stress and to ensure fresh, healthy treats. Here are 4 types of indoor garden worth trying, from decorative to functional.

11:30 14 May 2020

Tending to plants for a few minutes per day as a hobby is a simple way to calm your mind and lower stress levels. If you tend edible plants, a bonus is tasty treats to supplement your diet.

Not everyone has the space for an outdoor garden. Many people live in apartments or private rooms in shared houses, but they can still create soothing indoor gardens. There are at least four types of garden to grow indoors, depending on your circumstances.

Tiny Terrariums

We’re not talking succulents in an open bowl here, although those have their place in window gardens. A true terrarium is a closed system in which plants constantly recycle air, nutrients and water. It is very humid inside the sealed system, so instead of succulents, it needs plants that tolerate extremely moist air.

Jungle undergrowth qualifies; plants that also thrive at low light levels. Which makes a terrarium a perfect no-fuss indoor plant system, provided you have a spherical glass jar or oblong tank measuring at least 30 X 30 X 30cm to house it. Set down the required layers of drainage pebbles, activated charcoal, sphagnum moss and triple-mix topsoil, add plants and enough moisture to keep the system going, then seal and enjoy at will.

Window Gardens

If you have a bit more space and at least one large window that faces the sun where you’d sit to play the online Bingo NZ offers, a window garden is feasible. Use open pots and jars arranged on tables, shelves, stepladders or hanging planters to create a mix of plants at different heights. If the only available windows are smaller and higher, use smaller pots on the windowsills.

This is the sort of garden that can include succulents in open jars, or rubber and yucca plants. Or you can mix in fruit and vegetables and make it practical: tomatoes, salad and microgreens, carrots, scallions, garlic, ginger, and dwarf varieties of orange, lemon and avocado all grow well in window gardens; not to mention a range of herbs.

Grow Lights Give Consistency

If you want to grow food or flower plants more reliably indoors, grow lights are an idea. They require power, though, so they add costs to your gardening. Whether you grow only for your own needs or you want to sell your produce, you would be wise to investigate a solar or wind system to power grow lights, instead of using grid power.

By controlling how much light your plants get and for how long each day, you can grow fruit, flowers, vegetables and herbs commercially indoors. Several types are made to suit different budgets, but the most efficient grow lights, and priciest, are High Intensity Discharge bulbs.

Hydroponic Systems

To turn an indoor garden into a serious agribusiness, combine grow lights with hydroponics. You can grow several tasty treats with no sun and soil at all; just a sequence of lights, pipes, substrates and nutrient-rich liquid.

Learning the ins and outs of hydroponics, or aquaponics if you add fish to the mix, is quite an undertaking, however. It takes indoor gardening from the category of stress-relief hobby into the realm of serious business with overheads.