Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Indoor Growing

Jennifer from Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings made a comment that she is trying to grow things indoors and it is staving off the sadness of the gardens outside winding down. I wish her all the luck, but from me I've grown things indoors before. I have two long shelves that I built along the large SW and large SE windows of my house just for this. Sadly one of the shelves is defunct. Someone thought it would hold up their weight and sat on it (I think my daughter). It didn't. It hasn't been replaced.

I've found over the years that the sunlight I get through these windows in the winter isn't strong enough to grow plants well. We are above 42 degrees latitude here. Our days will be as short nine hours and a few minutes at the time of the solstice. And the sunlight that does hit is very low in the sky. This is not conducive to good plant growth - unless you supplement the light.

Though I'm up to trying to wheedle more growing time out of mother nature in the spring, for the winter it is too much work for me. The few Tiny Tom tomatoes I used to get from my window sill, will not be repeated. Though they were cute.

I was however trying to save my rosemary by taking cuttings, as well as my Thai basil. So far no success. The rosmary cuttings are all brown and dead. The 'Hill Hardy' rosemary will have to try its luck outside. If we have a mild winter it might survive. I'll mulch well and cross my fingers. The Thai basil did put out roots, but only after the folliage had basically died. Maybe I should have planted it anyway, but instead I took some more cuttings of the basil. I'm trying again. If it fails, once again the only plant in my house this winter will be my trusty aloe plant. It never needs watering and fixes me up after I burn myself in the kitchen. It pays me well for the time I put into it, unlike my other indoor growing forays.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, I know that my dream of having success growing indoors may be, for all intents and purposes, a long shot. But as I said, I already had all the seed, so I figured I would try. We are a little farther south than you are (in mid-Missouri), so our days are a little longer, but we are also considering some supplemental light if necessary.

    I think our greens and herbs will do fine inside - but the peppers, squash, and tomatillos are likely to just kind of piddle out.

    I guess the reasons I feel compelled to try despite all the odds is that it didn't cost much, I miss gardening desperately, and people have successfully grown things indoors for ages.

    I already miss summer....

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