It’s that time of year. The long summer days are almost over and there’s a crispness in the air. I’m going to miss my garden. Although I enjoy the cooler Fall temperatures, it won’t be long before the snow will fly and the days will get noticeably shorter. So now is the time to start bringing the garden indoors. Admittedly, it’s an odd concept, to start an indoor garden; but why not? Why can’t I have a variety of fresh greens, pungent herbs, and even some juicy tomatoes throughout the cold winter months? You can, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do here. We’re going to set up an indoor garden so we can keep our garden joy going throughout the year. We’ll look at what the master gardeners are recommending for plant variety selection, soil analysis, nutrient control, and lighting requirements, as well as sharing our own tips and tricks that we’ve discovered and perfected over the years. I know some of you are seasoned growers, and you’ve got some really good ideas that you’d love to share our readers, so let’s chat!
What exactly is an Indoor Garden?
An indoor garden is your creation of beauty. It’s a place to go where you can recall and also look forward to more warm, sunny days of summer. The best part is, you can choose to grow almost anything: greens, vegetables, herbs, even mushrooms and sprouts in a controlled indoor environment. You don’t have to worry about the last frost date because you can keep your production going all year long if you choose to. All you need is a location with electricity, adequate lighting, a water source, fairly good ventilation, and fairly consistent temperatures. We’ll look at other gardening supplies and equipment that can help boost your production and ultimately your harvests, but they can be minimal. You can keep your indoor garden a simple project, or you can expand your operation into a full-blown grow room which could include hydroponics or even aquaponics. There’re many options to scale up your grow operation. Once we get rolling, we’re going to look into automating our indoor grow system so we can optimize our harvests and never have to worry about having someone come over to “take care of the plants” while you’re away on vacation. The really nice part of automation is that you can monitor the progress of your grow right from your smart phone. Now that’s pretty exciting!
What are the benefits of having an indoor vegetable garden?
An indoor garden can actually be maintained indoors all year long. It doesn’t have to be limited to only the winter months. An indoor garden is an ideal way to protect plants from outdoor temperature extremes, excessive wind, hail, pests, and unwelcome critters. There’s nothing worse than going outdoors to the garden and seeing your newly formed broccoli covered in aphids. With an indoor garden, you can eliminate virtually all pests from your prized grows and if you do get a stray pest, they can be controlled quickly without harsh or toxic chemicals. You’ll always know exactly what type of fertilizer was used, the quality of the water that was used, the growing medium that was used, and most importantly you’ll know that no toxic or harmful sprays or chemicals were used on your prized cultivars.
High Quality Produce = High Quality Nutrition
You’ll be able to grow high quality produce during the winter when many of the local grocery stores have low quality offerings. High quality produce means high quality nutrition which is always a healthy plus during the winter months. 
You can also focus on growing the varieties that you enjoy the most instead of having to accept the bland, wilted, under-ripe, picked over produce in the local stores. You’ll know that your harvest will be as fresh as it gets, and has an excellent vitamin and mineral content because you were able to let it ripen to perfection instead of being picked “green” so it could withstand long shipping and storage times. Why not try a few new varieties that you’ve never tried before, or some of those over-priced exotic varieties that you’ve seen in the health food markets? You can grow your own cultivars for a fraction of the cost of what the health food stores charge.
Chase Away the Winter Blahs
And indoor gardening is just plain old good therapy. Gardening is known to reduce stress and to help promote a sense of purpose, which all helps to 
improve the immune system. It’s always uplifting to step into your indoor garden area and enjoy the bright lights and colorful varieties of your different grows, especially when they are flowering. And the air just seems like it’s full of oxygen, which it is!
Start Your Own Grows From Seed
As you pass through the winter months tending to your little produce factories, Spring will be back before you know it because you’ve been so focused on tending to your compact little gems. But if the call of the great outdoors compels you to plant your garden outdoors again in the Spring, then you can start your own seedlings indoors for mid to late spring planting outdoors. Why not save some money by starting your own little plantlets from seed rather than paying inflated prices at a nursery or greenhouse? I did 
notice this past Spring, that there were so many people buying up small plants at the grocery store and garden centers, that I couldn’t find some of the unusual varieties that were usually there in the past. Even the seed kiosks with the dozens and dozens of different packets were mostly bare. And forget about finding a good quality compost. It just flew off the pallets at the local stores. That’s when I decided I wanted to start my own indoor garden so I could make sure I had an adequate supply of homegrown, high quality produce. I can’t wait to get started! Let’s begin!