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Showing posts with label apartment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartment. Show all posts

6 vegetables to grow inside your apartment and how

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indoor gardenLet’s face it, not all of us have a lawn we can turn into food. Sometimes we just have to make do with what we can. Did you know that you can grow many different vegetables indoors? There are certain varieties that tend to flourish on windowsills or conservatories. So next time you may feel a bit defeated because you live in an apartment and cannot grow your own food, fret not, for there is a virtual cornucopia waiting to be grown right in your living room!
Even if you have a yard, the benefit to growing vegetables indoors is that some varieties can be cultivated year round. Also if you live in a cooler climate, there is no need to construct a greenhouse because you basically already live in one.
Tomatoes: There are plenty of varieties of tomato that can be grown indoors. Some do very well in hanging baskets. Varieties to plant in your indoor garden are, ‘Hundreds and Thousands,’ ‘Tumbler,’ ‘Maskotka,’ and ‘Garden Pearl.’ All of these varieties do very well in hanging baskets and can easily be hung in front of a window.
Radishes: While some root vegetables need too much depth to feasibly grow indoors, round radishes do not. They will work in most any container. Repurposed milk cartons do well for just a few seeds, just make sure to wash the container thoroughly prior to planting. Varieties that tend to do well inside are the fast-growing ones such as ‘Early Scarlet Globe,’ ‘Cherry Belle,’ and ‘Pink Beauty.’
Potatoes: Potatoes are especially easy to grow indoors. You can spout roots from any potato, but be sure to choose one with a lot of eyes. Place a few toothpicks in the potato to hold it up at the top of a container filled with water. Then place the container on the windowsill making sure the eyes are covered in water. It should sprout in about a week. You’ll want to choose a pot that is at least 12 inches deep. Place some pea gravel at the bottom of the pot for drainage and then fill the pot up about 1/3 of the way with soil. Place the potatoes root side down about 6 inches apart. As the plant grows you’ll need to add more soil. When the potato vine reaches the top of the pot, train them to go toward the window. Water them deeply. When small tubers begin to form on the vines your indoor harvest is ready for picking!

Mushrooms: You can grow a myriad of mushroom species indoors. In fact you can buy organic mushroom kits, with mycelium already spawned, online, and simply place them on your windowsill and water daily. But for the mushroom enthusiast, you need to start with a good sterile spawning medium and some spores. Organic rye seed works best for spawning shrooms, just make sure you are in a sterile environment to inject the grow bags with the spores. Place in a dark closest and make sure to maintain proper moisture. When the white mycelium starts to grow, usually around 2-4 weeks, you are ready to transfer to compost and grow your mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms do particularly well indoors and are a delightful treat.

Beans: Dwarf French Beans or one of the many other types of running beans are great for indoors. You can plant the beans in a relatively small pot on the windowsill or just below. When the beans sprout make sure you have fashioned a small trellis for them to climb into the window frame. The beauty of growing beans indoors is that not only will you get food, but the vines running up the window are aesthetically pleasing too!
Salad Greens: There are many different salad greens and leaf lettuce varieties that are great for indoors. Your indoor micro-green garden will also provide a beautiful sight. An important step to take is making sure that your pot has holes in it at the bottom for drainage, as greens are particularly susceptible to root rot. Make sure to keep the soil moist to the touch too. When the plants start to appear pinch off the new sprouts to keep the large healthy shoots growing. When they are tender enough, you can pick your salad right from the plant, one leaf at a time.

Source: Matt Agorist,  RealFarmacy.com 

Tips for Starting an Apartment Garden

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Whether you’ve got a certified green thumb and are lamenting your move to a yard-less apartment or you’re a longtime apartment dweller looking for a nature-friendly hobby, apartment gardening can be a rewarding way to spend some time, decorate your home, and maybe even grow something edible. This article shares a few tips for getting an apartment garden started.

Location is a primary concern for an apartment garden. Perhaps you have a small—or, if you’re lucky, medium-sized—patio or balcony. If so, that’s a great place to put some pots. Getting down and dirty won’t be as much of a problem outside, and the plants will also be able to absorb more sunlight. If you don’t have any outdoor space to speak of, putting some plants by your windows or growing highly shade-tolerant varieties are also good options.

The Aesthetic
Just because you don’t have a garden plot to plant in doesn’t mean you can’t grow something beautiful or beneficial. Container gardening presents many options for growing a variety of plants, from asparagus to zinnias. It’s also a great opportunity to be creative. Almost anything can serve as a receptacle for soil with a modification or two. From overturned football helmets to watering cans to old boots, you can create a patio- or window-full of eclectic containers holding exciting plants. Even if you’re just using plain ol’ terra cotta pots, consider painting them in interesting ways to help liven up your balcony. Drainage holes are the main necessity for any container being used for plants. If you can’t or don’t want to put holes in a particular pot, think about how to fit a smaller container already equipped with drainage holes inside the pot in question. This can be a good way to hide the not-so-pretty plastic containers you might buy your plants in. You may have to empty the larger containers of water and clean them every so often, but it’s a small price to pay for having better-looking pots.

Consider style
And much as you planned a decorating scheme for your apartment itself, you’ll want to plan a decorating scheme for your garden. Should it be country? Cutesy? Modern and austere? Make sure your containers match each other, as well as your balcony’s general construction and the atmosphere of the rest of your house. If you have a colorful house with eclectic decoration, a dull garden with terra cotta pots will seem out of place. Likewise, if your house overflows with Victorian decor, a set of bright, funky flowerpots painted like cartoon characters might seem a bit out of place next to your Chippendale cabinet.


Eschew clutter
The multitude of exciting plant container possibilities might send you overboard, prompting a shopping spree at the nursery and quickly cluttering up your balcony. Before getting too involved, think realistically about what you can handle, both in terms of time and money. At the same time, you’ll want to remain conscious of any clutter that might develop in your small garden scheme. You may get very gung-ho about the container gardening thing, but that doesn’t mean your patio will look attractive or organized with 1000 tiny plants on it. Consider having a few larger “core” plants around which you can arrange some smaller ones. Larger plants are trickier to grow in smaller pots, but some, like the ever-popular Japanese maple, come in smaller or dwarf varieties and can be very happy in container situations.


Experiment
In addition to being practical for small spaces, container gardening is also convenient and beneficial in other ways. It allows for a lot of experimentation without a lot of investment. Instead of trying to purchase and cultivate enough of an interesting ornamental grass to cover a quarter of your backyard, you can just fill a medium-size container. You can also easily move your plants around to see what looks best, or which plants can provide shade (or thrive in it), all without the mess and uncertainty of constant transplanting. Come winter, you probably won’t need to cover, trim or transplant your entire garden—instead, you’ll just be able to lug some containers inside to brighten up your home.


Get wild
Keep in mind that, depending on their size, your containers by no means need to hold only one type of plant. Many plants thrive in symbiotic relationships with one another in nature, and you can replicate these beneficial pairings in containers. Furthermore, you can create beautiful arrays of color by joining different types of flowers in the same pot or window box. Your neighbors will gasp in envy over the rainbow of hues on your porch!

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