#Indoor gardening

[littlepawz]

Begonia 'Moonlight Butterfly A captivating display of dark, almost blackpurple leaves adorned with intricate white veins, resembling the wings of a butterfly.

Most likely cleverly enhanced, but still, so beautiful

[velveteengreen]

omg this lil guy came out of one of the houseplants while I was watering 🥹

[slothyollama101]

Seedlings :>

I've been growing Dwarf Sunflowers for around the past month (? I think?)

I'm not a professional gardener in any way but I'm trying my best :,3

It's been a while since I took any pictures with Sans, so I thought this was a cute lil' idea

If anyone has any tips or anything for growing plants (indoors), feel free to let me know :>

[succulent-little-dudes]

LITTLE GREEN! YOU BLOOMED!!!

[anipgarden]

Cheaply Starting Seeds

This is my fourth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 

Having a high-quality seed-starting setup can feel like an ultimate but distant dream. An entire shelf--an entire room, even, filled with grow lights and plant trays in the optimal setup to make tons of plants? Tons of garden tools, each with a diverse and dedicated purpose? That’s just not an option for some of us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started at a low cost!

Seed Starting Set-Ups

Speaking from a somewhat biased Floridian perspective, I’ve had great success starting seeds outside! My usual set-up is on a rarely-used outdoor patio table that’s moved to a sunny spot in the yard, but I’ve even grown seeds in solo cups on sidewalks, or directly in the ground, with great results! 

Some seeds grow best when they go through a cold period before germinating, while other seeds aren’t affected much by it and just wait for warm weather. As such, a viable option is to sow your seeds in late fall, let winter roll by, and wait until the seeds sprout on their own come spring! I would try and mark off where you planted said seeds, so you don’t lose track of them and accidentally dig them up.

Alternatively, if you want to get started while it's cold outside, a popular option I've seen is to grow in milk jugs! There's a lot of different ways to do it--everyone has their preference--but if you're already drinking things like milk or juice or sweet tea, and you're going to get jugs at some point in time--why not use them for gardening?

An easy way to clear up a section of lawn to create open gardening space is by using a sheet mulching or lasagna gardening method (though I like to call it the Cardboard Snuff-Out). Place cardboard or newspaper down in fall/winter to mark out where you want to garden. Layer compostable materials like grass clippings and wood chips on top of it, or potting soil/bagged compost. It’ll decompose over Winter into an organically rich bed that’ll have killed the grass and weeds underneath it. You don’t have to break out any tools and sweat over it come spring, and the cardboard itself will slowly decompose as well!

Though it's often recommended to plant things directly into the ground to decrease watering needs and increase nutritional independence, there’s plenty of reasons you may not be able to. Whether you’re renting, living in a place without a yard, or even just can’t or don’t want to break ground in a yard, you can still help biodiversity by growing in pots. Some plants have rather extensive root systems and aren’t well suited for pots, but there are still plenty of options available for plants that’ll boost biodiversity, be beautiful to look at, and grow just fine in pots! A recommendation is to get a larger pot, if you’re able, as it’ll hold onto more water and need watering less often. Not only are potted plants great for providing food for insects, but they can be shelter for other creatures too--there’s been a good few times I’ve moved a pot and found a frog or toad living underneath it.

If you don’t have room for pots on the ground, you could consider using hanging pots or window boxes! These can be great and easily-maintained options to provide food and habitat for insects and birds in an urban living situation like apartments or townhouses, but they can also be a fun way to add even more habitat to an already-robust home garden. You can even make an entire mini habitat in a window box or pot! I can personally say I’ve seen tons of pollinators visit my yearly hanging basket garden that consists of about five to seven plants, and I’ve always loved the idea of having a window box for blooms right out my window. Just make sure that it’s safe--make sure they’re securely fixed, and that whatever they’re hanging from can handle their weight when they’re freshly watered and loaded with plants. 

If you want to start indoors, you don’t necessarily need grow lights or heat mats (though it will make things a bit easier.) I’ve successfully grown milkweed, peppers, tomatoes, zucchinis, and even sprouted lemon seeds in college dorm rooms, and kept tomato and pepper plants in a dorm room on a sunny windowsill. For the most part, you need a nice and sunny window, some kind of container, and a source of heat (in my case, I used anything from a space heater to the warmth of my laptop running nearby. If you don’t have any sunny windows, or enough windowsill space to start plants on, its possible to obtain cheaper grow lights. One year, my mom bought me some gooseneck grow lights that could clip onto things for cheap off of Amazon. (Fair warning, though, they did light up my entire room in purple. I lived alone that year (covid year, my roomies bailed), so it was fine, but it was kind of trippy,)

Another year, when I was in an apartment on my own, I bought a grow light modeled like a normal light bulb from the lightbulb aisle in Lowe’s and put it in my desk lamp. Growing seeds indoors can make them grow fast and leggy, so it’ll help if you can keep a desk fan on them so they focus on growing strong instead of tall and fast.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a friend with a nice set up, you could see if they’re willing to let you borrow some of their space to start your own plants as well! My set-up in college was by no means High Class, but I was still more than willing to start seeds for my friends who asked!

Containers for Seed Starting

So now that we’ve talked starting seeds indoors and out, we need to address what to start them in. It’s important that whatever you’re using has drainage holes, and be large enough to support your plant (starting something like milkweed or a squash in a tiny little pot won’t yield great results). Fortunately, there are options here!

If you’re looking to buy pots, Dollar Tree will sell some small plastic pots for cheap in the spring! They’re kind of thin, and won’t last forever, but they’re great for a few uses and don’t cost a lot of money. Something that’s a bit more pricey but are longer-lasting, in my experience, are the Burpee SuperSeed trays. They come in different sizes, but I’m fond of the 16-cell trays--they have silicone bottoms and are made of a nice solid plastic with a tray to hold water, so they hold up for a long time and are easy to clean and reuse!

Burpee seed tray, my beloved.

What’s better than a cheap pot? Free ones, and there’s plenty of options there! I’ve seen people use toilet paper or paper towel rolls as pots by folding the bottoms in and have it work well for them! I think this method would work best if you had some kind of tray to keep them moist, because mine dried out fast last time I tried this method. I’ve also seen people make pots out of newspaper with a few different methods, and the people who use this method love it--apparently, the roots pass through the paper easier and it decomposes faster when buried, so you can just transplant the whole pot and avoid any kind of transplanting shock. If you don’t have any newspaper on hand, you can likely ask your friends or neighbors! 

I’ve gotten lots of mileage from reusing old containers by poking a few holes in the bottom with knives or scissors--just be careful while you’re doing it! I, personally, am more likely to use an already-used solo cup for it--they’re a nice size, so they hold a good amount of soil and moisture and give the seedling a good amount of root space. I tend to write the plant information on the side of the cup in sharpie marker, or on an index card in pen. I’ve also heard of people making use of egg cartons, fruit containers, yogurt cups, milk cartons, soda bottles--the more you start thinking about what you could easily poke a hole in, the more options start coming around!

This photo may be from 2018, but I'll still regularly reuse cups like this! They're also great for cuttings!

As you start planning to move your seedlings into the ground and preparing planting sites, you’ll likely need a few tools to do it! How do you get these? You may be able to borrow some tools from a neighbor! As long as you make sure to return them in good condition, depending on how friendly your neighbors are, they might be totally fine with you borrowing their tools for awhile. If you don’t want to take that route, there may be a tool library you can borrow from, or a mutual aid group that can loan you tools for awhile. Either way, borrowing tools is cheaper than buying them--though, if you do have to buy tools, cheap hand-tools from Walmart or the dollar store work just fine. They’ll even last a good while if they’re taken care of when not in use! I've even seen places like Ross sell some tools and pots in spring!

Spotted in a Walmart gardening section by the registers, 2023.

Of course, your mileage may vary with these. I genuinely cannot think of the last time my house got a newspaper, and as I've mentioned I don't have to worry about snow. Similarly, maybe you don't use plastic cups when you can help it, or don't have a particular affinity for eggs and yogurt. Maybe there isn't a tool library in your area--I sure don't know if there is in mine--but it could still be worth poking around and asking a neighbor!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to support your plants for cheap--we're gonna be talking compost, mulch, and trellises. Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

[chaosandorder46]

My favorite plant is dying!

I got this guy back in 2020 and because I was not a crazy plant lady back then, I almost killed it. It was part of a mixed succulent basket and i um...put it on a shelf and totally forgot about it.

Luckily, I remembered it before it completely died. But it did at one point, get down to two leaves. Pic on the left is how it came to me. Right pic is part of the original rehab process.

Fast forward 4 years and he was looking like this:

So pretty!

I noticed when we came back from vacation that there were several leaves on the ground. Not a huge deal, but day by day, more leaves dropped.

This is how he looked this morning...time to take action.

I cut this back to the main stalk and pulled it out of the pot. Lots of root rot. 😭😭😭. So, all of the dirt had to go, then it got a hydrogen peroxide spa treatment, new dirt, and a new (much smaller) pot.

I am going to try to propagate what I chopped off. Now it's just waiting to see if the OG plant pulls through. 🤞🤞🤞

Let's not talk about the jellybean succulent on the right. I suck at succs, OK?🥺

[xofemeraldstars]

first indoor tomatoes 🫶🥺

[dunyun-rings]

I need to get bigger pots for most of these soon, but this is my attempt at indoor gardening so far. If anyone knows how I can fix the parsleys please tell me. They seem to hate life

[wiley-treehouse-gardens]

This was a project and a half! But the bucket has holes in the bottom and the monsteras are split and repotted.

[turtlesandfrogs]

It occurred to me that I hadn't talked about my malabar spinach on here, or at least I don't think I did.

So, basically, I wanted to try out a kind of hydroponics called the kratky method, and I found out I liked malabar spinach, so I stripped the leaves off a few stems and put them in an aquarium that I'd picked up from a free pile, and

They seem to be doing pretty well! Along with the Thai basil I also started from stems. Still learning how to do it well, but it's been a fun project so far. I haven't harvested any leaves yet, and I have a feeling I should figure out a better plan for the vines than "let them dangle".

[6hoursofsunlight]

Looks like it is time to propagate the basil.

After a week or so, the basil cuttings have grown a lot of healthy roots.

I bought another IKEA Kallax shelf for the second tier of the garden, along with another set of Feit Electric LED grow lights. I used adhesive velcro strips to stick the lights to the top of the shelf, which has worked for the most part. One side of the top tier light got unstuck so I've had to secure it with string instead. We'll see how long the rest of them last.

Cat tried to supervise my gardening efforts, but then he fell asleep.

The top tier of the garden. The front planter has the strawberry plant and mint cuttings I've transplanted from the balcony. The back planter has trellises for the Sugar Ann snap peas and Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes I've seeded.

The bottom tier is the same as before, primarily herbs. The basil cuttings have been planted at the back, and the front space will be for experimenting with cilantro.

The 2-tier garden completed.

[closetgardener]

My big begonia is flowering 🥰

[gardeningprincess]

Tomato Progress. 🍅 (19 Sep 2024)

Only 2 survived from the initial 4 seeds, but they’re already starting to grow true leaves.

[thedenofravenpuff]

My lil indoor garden going well. My lil pine trees be growing well, so they all get their own pots now. My "magic bean" also growing ever so nicely!

These all from cheap grow kits for kids bought in Tiger Copenhagen, I'm just having fun to see how far I can keep it all growing.

[arwenkenobi48]

After a little trial and error, I’ve found two different ways of making flatbreads using mostly self raising flour and water (I tend to add a little salt and sunflower oil to mine)

The first method is to knead the flour and water/salt/sunflower oil together into a smooth paste and continually add more flour until it becomes a stretchy dough, then heat it up in a frying pan while continuously turning it over with a spatula. It’ll eventually puff up and develop some golden brown spots and it’s absolutely lovely.

The second method is to turn the flour and water into a wet, sticky dough and add more sunflower oil until it no longer sticks to your hands. That way, when you heat it in the pan, it goes all crispy and you can dip it in salsa and stuff.

When I’ve got my own SmartGarden, I’m going to grow a crop of cherry tomatoes and basil and use them to make a salad. Having that with these flatbreads would be absolutely fabulous.

But for now, I’ll stick to making the breads and dipping them in soups.

[oh-he-grows]

Operation Winter Ginger

because my adhd brain bought a big box of ginger without thinking to look up when it should be planted (and then forgot about it for a month (possibly two)), I am attempting to grow ginger in my garage over winter. Hopefully some are still alive come spring.