Basic Planting Guide: Things You Need to Know to Start Your Indoor Garden

If you are looking for some tips in building your first indoor garden, then this planting guide is what you will need.

Beautiful, uplifting indoor garden that resonate with the energy of nature has lifted peoples’ spirits for long. In this garden planting guide, we will help you have a overall understanding of the things you will need to start your first garden, including:

What plants need

Seed selection

Where to grow

Things you will need before starting

How to care for your garden

What plants need

Basically, the below elements are all you need to know to start your garden:

• Soil: soil is the foundation for plants to take roots. It also contains a certain amount of nutrients for plants to grow. Soil type is also important. There are mostly three types of soil: silt, sand and clay. Some plants need loam but some need clay to hold them stably.

• Light: light as an environment signal, has a great effect on plants’ It is a necessity for all plants, even though they are shade-loving plants. Because almost all plants need light in photosynthetic reaction where plant generate nutrients for their growth. They will just differ in the time they will need to be exposed to light. For plants prefer a shady position, for example, chlorophytum comosum, they can live in interior place where there is no direct sunlight but is still lit up. While for sun-loving plants, like roses need long time and strong light intensity to thrive.

• Fertilizer: but there are some nutrients that plants can not create themselves. This is why we often need to feed plants with fertilizers to boost their growth. Plants need 17 essential elements to grow healthily, including the most popular nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and Micro-elements.

Nitrogen will boost stems and growing more leaves, and it is mostly used in seedling stage and vegetation stage. While in flowering stage, plants will need more phosphorus. And when a plant is bearing fruits, it will need more potassium for higher yields. Micro-elements is somewhat important. It is not necessary for all plants. You will only need it if the plants lack of MgO or iron to produce chlorophyll.

Seed selection

Growers need to think twice on seed selection. As it may be a little bit hard for new growers to have a comprehensive understanding of what plants need in different growing stages. So it is more advisable to choose small, regionally based varieties that are known to thrive in the climate where you are living. Growing requirements of plants vary greatly, so starting with plants that is easy to care and diseases resistant will easy to get a good yield and inspire you in return. To name a few, orchids and succulents are plants that won’t bother you too much but will surprise you when they bloom.

Where to grow

Not all people have a large space for a garden, especially in big cities where people mostly live in apartments. Even so, we can create a lovely indoor garden in anywhere there is a spare space to locate one or two pots. For example, your south-facing windowsill will be perfect for growing small size leafy greens or kitchen herbs. If you have a balcony, big or small, it will be a dream place to build a medium scale garden. How come if there is no light reaching in interior home? A simple full spectrum grow light for indoor plants will fix this problem. With an indoor grow light, you can even grow your plants in the basement.

Things you will need before starting

As mentioned above, to get started, you will need to prepare

• Seeds, choosing seeds first, and get to know what they need in different growing stages. Selecting seeds first will help to ease other preparation work, and prevent you from planting sun-loving plants in the shade or shade-loving plants in the sun.
• Choose soil according to the plants variety. The best soil for most plants is a dark and rick, sandy loam.
• And prepare containers with drainage hole. If plants need big space to develop roots, then you need to prepare a big container or transplant them in a bigger pots when they grow bigger. For leafy greens or small ornamental plants, a 1 gallon pots will work fine. For citrus, a 5 gallon pot will enough for the first 3 years, but still need to transplant again if they stop growing.
• Grow light is also needed if no light reaches in interior spaces where you are going to build an indoor garden. Red and blue grow lights and full spectrum sun-like grow lights for plants are among the most popular for all growing stages.

Tips to care for your garden

A beautiful and uplifting indoor garden requires regular maintenance. And you need to pay attention to each plant’s condition everyday and adjust the elements for them accordingly. These are some important tips for you to care for your first indoor garden:

In germination or seed starting, plants require a warm and moist environment and don’t need fertilizers.

In seedling stage, you may need to feed plants with fertilizers containing a good amount if nitrogen. It will help them to take roots faster. Water in seedling stage and vegetation stage mostly has the same requirement. But one thing is important to know is that we should not water them base on the days. Only when the soil is dry but still moist will you need to water them.

In flowering stage, plants require more light exposure and nutrients than that in the first two stages. If you are using a grow light, set a greater brightness and keep the light on for one or two hours longer.

In fruit stage, if any, plants consume a large amounts of nutrients, water and light to ensure a good yield. So it’s important to provide plants with a balanced nutrients and an extra potassium.

Just because you are new in gardening doesn’t mean that you can’t maintain a stunning garden. With this garden planting guide in your mind, you can build your own indoor garden with confidence. Just give it a shot!

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Lars Tov