Gardening ensures that you have a fresh supply of your best veggies and herbs all around the year. This saves you numerous trips to the grocery store and money in the long run. In addition, gardening is a great hobby to cultivate especially if you spend most of your time at home. It refocuses your mind from life’s happenings, providing a perfect escape from stress and other negative emotions. Besides, being around plants makes you smile more as it elevates your moods and calms the mind. This goes a long way in improving your mental health.
The good thing is that you don’t need to have a backyard space to enjoy gardening. You can easily start a garden indoors and still reap all that it has to offer. Here are four tips to get your indoor garden into action.
1. Plan your garden
As much as you are excited to start gardening, it is important that you pause and take your time to plan how to go about it. Assess your home to decide the best spot to start your garden. To do this, you need to consider things such as areas that are airy and let in enough sunlight. If you have a slightly shady home, you should plan to grow your plants using artificial grow lights. You also need to consider how much room you have to use as a garden. This will determine how many plants you can grow in your garden. In addition, decide the plants that you want to grow in your garden. Here, you can be guided by the veggies and herbs that you mostly use in your kitchen. But if you have enough room to add more, consider those that are easy to grow.
2. Ensure you have everything that your plants need
You need to have the necessary requirements to set up an indoor garden. For starters, you need pots or growing containers. Most veggies and herbs do well in pots that are 4-inches deep. If you plan to plant carrots, however, you need 6-inches deep containers. You can buy some from the store or recycle what you have at home. Just ensure that these pots have drainage holes at the bottom to avoid water sitting at the bottom of the plants as it can cause root rot. This means that you need trays to place the pots so that the drained water can sit there. Next, you need soil; go for an organic potting mix that is ideal to grow most plants. You also need a watering can for watering your plants. In addition, it is good to be equipped with the necessary information about growing your plants of choice.
3. Start planting
The most exciting part of gardening is growing plants and seeing them give life to your indoor garden. Some plants are started from seeds while others need a cutting. If starting from seed, you need to follow the instructions provided on the back of the packet. Most packets will explain on how to prepare the soil
Most importantly, you need to ensure that your plants have conducive conditions to germinate and thrive. If your home is proving to have limitations in this area, consider growing your plants in a grow tent. The climate conditions inside can be controlled by an indoor grow tent that helps your plants to grow with the most favorable conditions. You are also able to keep odors locked in and protect your crops from pest infestation.
4. Taking care of your plants
Your plants need tender love and care for healthy growth. If you want to enjoy a bountiful harvest of your hard work, you need to get down to dirt and attend to your crops daily. This includes watering your plants as required. If you are growing plants that require humidity to grow, you have to mist them once or twice a day or run a humidifier in the room. Certain plants require pruning; you need to do this regularly to avoid the plants from growing out of control.
Conclusion
Springing your indoor garden into action calls for a level of dedication on your part. But when you do it successfully, you find that it is a satisfying task packed with many benefits. Whether you had stopped gardening for some reason and want to get back, or you are starting from scratch, the above tips give you a guide on how to get your indoor garden going.