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Ah, summer. You are the most popular season. You’re the time that everyone spends outside on their porches, watching the sun go down. Which is really the only comfortable time to be outside, since daytime consists of 95% humidity and nighttime is a swarm of mosquitos. As a result, gardening can be a bit of a challenge.
Of course, just because July and August may not be the best time to be outside doesn’t mean you need to give up on your gardening dreams. You may need to do a little bit of prep work, of course, but an indoor garden can turn your home into an oasis in the summer, and a tropical wonderland in winter. If you’d like your indoor garden close to where you’ll be cooking, you’ll need quite a bit of light.
Tomatoes
Pretty much any variety of tomato plant will grow well in a container. Of course, tomatoes are heavy, and they’ll need some support, but you’d have to do a trellis outside as well. Cherry tomatoes will spawn the biggest yield as far as sheer numbers go, and they’re wonderful if you have a few smaller helpers. Children are much more likely to enjoy cherry tomatoes, since they’re just their size. Plus, the weight of the fruit is less likely to break the stems.
Carrots
Root vegetables are surprisingly simple to grow inside. Plus, carrots can be used in almost any recipe, so you don’t have to worry about a surplus. Round carrot varieties or a deep window box will allow you to grow your carrots indoors. Most of the time, it’s easiest to find them as seeds (your local grocery store will probably have them). When grown inside, carrots don’t have much of a season. Therefore, if you harvest one crop, you can simply plant the next batch and expect fresh carrots year-round.
Garlic
Another root, garlic has some huge health benefits. However, it also grows with almost no help. Ever gotten too many garlic cloves and seen them sprout? That’s just from sitting around! Imagine how well they can do with a little soil and water to help them out. By simply planting whole cloves of garlic (instead of adding them to the spaghetti sauce), you can end up with a whole plethora! In order to make it edible, the new garlic cloves will need to be dried and stored. Luckily, all that is easily accomplished in a basement or storage shed.
Salad Greens
The only warning I would give with growing salad greens is to keep an eye on the kind you choose. Some of these lettuces can get pretty big, and unless you have a rabbit, you may find that you’ve planted too much to make use of. Greens also need plenty of space in the pot, so once they begin sprouting, pull out all but the healthiest ones. This will ensure that you have a good crop, and that you don’t end up overcrowding them. Then just lop off what you need for salads!
Mushrooms
Pretty much the only plant that you can water and literally toss in a dark closet, mushrooms are ideal for a beginning, or lazy, gardener. You can buy a bag of compost and some spores, water them, and then toss them in a closet or cupboard somewhere. A few weeks later, they’ll be ready to harvest. Since mushrooms are delicious but deadly to get wrong, this is a much safer option than trying to learn how to gather them on your own.
Herbs
Ok, so herbs aren’t technically a vegetable. However, they are excellent to grow indoors, you can use them year-round, and they’ll make your home smell amazing. Mint is a great one for indoor growing. Outside, mint likes to take over, and your herb garden may easily become a mint problem. Keeping them in pots prevents this.
Oregano, thyme, verbena and rosemary also grow well inside. Individual planter boxes are the best ways to keep them separate, but some varieties will do quite well together. Figure out what you’d most like to have first, then decide how to plant them. Ones that like similar amounts of water and sun (and won’t crowd each other out) are best to combine.
If you’ve decided to start an indoor garden, you’ve chosen one hobby that’s sure to get some attention. There's not many people who have fresh vegetables in the middle of winter, or who manage to bring in the harvest without breaking a sweat. So roll up your sleeves, get the brightest areas of the kitchen set, and start looking forward to fresh produce, and a lower grocery bill.
An increasing number of people are moving into urban environments and away from traditional agriculture. As a consequence, those who have a mind for self-sufficiency can find themselves falling short. Storable foods are of course an important part of every emergency prepper's pantry, but storable foods are not a sound long-term solution that contain optimal nutrition.
Even produce from farmers markets and store-bought organic food will lose peak freshness faster than one might imagine. Alanna Ketler from Collective-Evolution explains:
Most people do not realize that vegetables will lose about half of their nutrients within the first week of being picked. The food that you are getting from the supermarket will not be as nutritionally rich as the food you are growing yourself and consuming immediately after harvesting. Imagine how much more fresh and alive this food tastes. If you have or have ever had a garden I’m sure you have certainly noticed a difference. (Source)
Nothing can beat growing your own fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. But it is quite a challenge for those with limited space; not everyone can afford acres of land to become a full-fledged farmer. Then, of course, are the climate considerations that inhibit year-round growing in most places across the planet.
However, several high-tech solutions are becoming available for city dwellers, or those who have a less-than-green thumb. As food prices surge due to climatological and economic factors, there never has been a better time to find ways of becoming self-sufficient at a low cost. It's a movement toward becoming the ultimate locavore.
The following inventions offer an exciting way to have fresh produce year-round ... right in your own kitchen, while also presenting a potential reduction in overall cost.
Urban Cultivator
This is a hydroponic system that is currently in use both professionally and in personal homes. One model, as seen in the short promo below, is roughly the same size as a dishwasher and is set up in a similar manner, according to the site's design specs. By setting the perfect level of humidity and temperature, it's as simple as adding a 100% organic food solution to be able to grow a wide range of pesticide and chemical free produce in your indoor garden. Visit the site here.
For restaurateurs, here is what the commercial model looks like:
GrowCube
Using aeroponics, GrowCubes offer efficient indoor growing for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, using 95 percent less water, with an added built-in resistance to diseases and pests. A software program underpins the system, offering a detailed Internet-connected analysis and customization platform to obtain and fulfill the optimal level of nutrients and maintenance. A coming Kickstarter program will focus on bringing this system to market later in the year.
Click and Grow Smart Farm
This is a another concept that is heavily invested in the ideas surrounding the Internet of Farming. The Click and Grow system is actually an expandable series of "smart pots" that can grow produce, as well as flowers. It begins by providing soil that remains in proper nutrient and pH balance throughout the growth of the plant. As they point out, the constant watering in traditional potted plants actually leaches away nutrients, so the addition of proper water management increases efficiency and production. This demo shows the process.
Kitchen Nano Garden
This is a concept being developed by Hyundai. It is roughly the size of a refrigerator and employs a similar method of hydroponic growing as seen in the Urban Cultivator. It controls the amount of light, nutrient supply and water to create the optimal efficiency for growing. The prototype won the 2010 Fast Company Idea Award and also doubles as a natural air purifier. While still only a concept, it is exciting to see a company with the resources of Hyundai working on this technology.
UrbGarden
While the four items above appeal to modern sensibilities, some of us still would like to retain a bit of the natural even if we can't get our hands dirty on a traditional farm. The UrbGarden is designed to be a vertical herb garden with an integrated worm farm for easy composting. The system produces a natural fertilizer which is then fed back through a drip system. Its open-window design offers an element of harvesting, as the grow trays are removed and re-potted as needed.
It is worth mentioning that in a grid-down situation, the four "high-tech solutions" offered here will become virtually useless as they rely on a power source, unless you of course have solar. And none of these systems should be seen as direct replacements for developing a solid relationship with your local farmer, farmers market, or development of community gardens. However, these solutions do enable people to get away from commercial food and the toxic packaging that its often wrapped in, while making the act of farming as easy and hassle free for as many people as possible.
