Fall has come to an end. What was once a brilliant arboreal display of yellows, oranges and reds has been replaced by an absence of anything, save some snow or slush. The winter months have taken hold of places like Stouffville, Ontario, and the residents of these now freezing towns have been stricken with something possibly even worse than the cold- boredom.
With winter comes, yes, some new activities- snowboarding, skiing, snowmobiling, (some may even be brave enough to try snow shoeing) but for those who do not know how (or more likely, cannot afford) these amenities it is a time where not much can happen. They are relegated to their homes, especially in unprecedented times such as a, say, global pandemic.
The people who are hit the hardest by the lack of stuff to do in the winter are the gardeners. These men and women once had days filled with activities, bustling and hustling around their precious garden, allowing it to grow and thrive. However, in the winter, when the residents of the garden have all died down, they are left with not much to do at all.
However, there is one thing they can do. Besides maintaining their winter plants, they can take to the indoors, where they can do some indoor gardening. This may seem silly to some, but it is a practice that can scratch the itch of any homeowner, landscaper and especially gardener who wishes to continue using their green thumb.
This article is going to be a basic introduction on how to get started doing this noble practice, and it will hope to get people into the world of indoor gardening.
Getting Started
The getting started part of the gardening indoors may seem like a daunting task and in many ways, it is. There is a lot of prep to be done, but it is very rewarding at the end of the day. While plants require a lot to actually grow, the things needed for them to do so are fairly easily required.
If one is apprehensive about this whole process, there are a litany of local landscapers willing to help with the process. It may not be the cheaper option, but it will ensure that the plants chosen will not just grow, but thrive.
Space
Now this is one of the most integral parts of indoor gardening but luckily, it may be one of the easiest. This may be news to some gardeners (but it probably won’t be) but plants actually need some space to grow. So, before one starts to indoor garden, one most create space for these plants to, well, grow.
Shelves are an indoor gardeners best friend. They allow a lot of different plants to go into a lot of different places, while taking up a minimal amount of space. Some gardeners should consider getting some shelving should the plants they want to grow fit onto those shelves.
Shelves, however, aren’t for every plant. Some of the bigger indoor plants may not fit onto the small confines of a shelf. This is where tables, or flat, open topped, surfaces come into play. Make sure however that these surfaces are sturdy enough to handle the weight of the plant that is placed upon this table. The last thing any gardener would want is a messy floor, or even worse- a dead plant.
Light
One might think that one can just prop a plant up against a windowsill and it will grow just fine. “Surely the plant will get enough sun on that aforementioned windowsill” one may say. Well, this may surprise the average homeowner, gardener or landscaper, but that isn’t true at all.
Yes, sunlight is great for plants. In fact, it may be the only thing that’s really good for them, so regular bulbs aren’t going to work. Also, the light needs to be as close as possible to the plant without burning any of the leaves, so that the plant can absorb as much light as possible.
So what should one do when choosing a grow light? Well, there are a couple of different options that one can choose when trying to pick a grow light.
Incandescent lights are an okay choice, as they can be cheap for indoor gardening, but they are not the best option. Honestly, the best option for indoor gardening is also probably the most expensive one- the high intensity discharge bulbs. These are the brightest and probably the best lights on the market, as they produce the most amount of light and will be the best for any gardener, homeowner or landscapers plants.
It all depends on the yield one wishes for their plants. Do they want the plants to grow tall and strong, but have to spend more money, or do they want to go a cheaper route but take the risk of losing all their hard work? Yes, the choice between lights can be a tough one, and frankly, we only covered a couple of them. There are many more than a gardener to choose, we just thought it would be most prudent to choose the cheapest, yet least effective and the most expensive, yet the most effective options. In our minds, the choice is going to be either one or the other.
And so, this article about gardening indoors must unfortunately come to an end. We haven’t covered everything involved with indoor gardening, but the rest should be covered in future segments of this article. We first learned about the space one needs to have for indoor gardening, and we were surprised that it may take more space than one would think. Then we learned about the different lights one can choose in order to make their plants prosper, and all the things one should avoid when choosing lights for those aforementioned plants. We spoke about how while incandescent lights may be cheaper, they may actually be detrimental to plants in the long run. Also, while the high intensity discharge bulbs may be a little more on the expensive side, they are going to be the things that help ones plants grow at the end of the day. Again, it all comes down to the preference of the homeowner, gardener or landscaper, and how much they want their plants to thrive.
Today was the day that gardeners, homeowners and landscapers learned the beginnings of home gardening. Now all one has to do is start and their journey to gardening year round can begin.
