Getting Started with Your Indoor Garden
While gardening is often thought of as an outdoor activity, it totally doesn’t have to be. For those who are social distancing in apartment buildings or just have limited outdoor space, indoor gardening is a great alternative to get your hands dirty while safely staying indoors.
Here are our ideas on how you can get started with your very own indoor garden project!
1. Choosing your seeds: Plenty of seeds can grow easily indoors but beans, radishes, onions, peas, sweet alyssum, nasturtiums and parsley are particularly easy and recommended as a stepping stone for new indoor gardeners.
2. Setting up : When picking a spot to carry out your seed planting, pick a spot in your house that will get at least 6-8 hours of sunlight most preferably on a balcony or next to a window.
3. Picking seedling containers: You can plant a seed in any kind of container you like; get creative with things like buckets, boots, milk cartons, 2-liter pop bottles…anything that could contain the soil! Just ensure there is some drainage on the bottom so that you don’t overwater. If the container you use doesn’t already have holes, simply make some.
4. Planting: After filling the chosen container with soil and choosing your seeds, it’s time to plant them in the soil. Make sure you follow the instructions with your seeds to determine how deep in the soil they should go.
5. Watering: Watering should provide your soil a moist environment, not too dry, not too wet, in order to ensure germination. As part of the fun create a little chart to keep track of the day you last watered your seeds.
6. Progress: When the seed starts to grow make a chart to measure the size of the plant each week to track the progress.
7. Have Fun! Whether alone, with your partner or with your kids, make sure to have lots of fun with this! Don’t forget to share your photos with us online!
At the Nancy Ellen Crooks Foundation our ‘Nancy’s Gardens’ program is aimed at teaching school children how to establish kitchen gardens, giving them the opportunity to develop new skills and knowledge while providing them access to nutritious food.