If you’re like many home vegetable gardeners, cold and snowy winter days can leave you longing for the taste of fresh, homegrown vegetables grown the previous summer.
What most people don’t know is that a number of vegetables can be grown successfully indoors during the winter months.
While you may not be able to grow larger vegetables such as beans, corn, cucumbers squash, or pumpkins, smaller vegetables such as cherry or patio tomatoes, green peppers, miniature eggplant and especially salad greens will perform quite well and provide a sizable harvest if taken care of correctly.
The key to any indoor winter vegetables garden is location and lighting. Place your vegetables in a southern facing window that gets at least 8-12 hours of sunlight per day.
If that is not possible, you will need to hang a grow light 6-9 inches above each plant and monitor the space between the plant and the light, moving the light up as your plants grow taller.
If relying on natural window light, make sure to also rotate your containers at least once per week in order to help your plants grow evenly.
Start your plants in seed trays and then transplant them to window boxes or other larger containers once the plants become rooted. Use a good quality potting soil and make sure the containers you use have drainage holes. If you use water trays under your pots, make sure to check them after watering and drain any standing water in them.
Maintain a room temperature between 55 and 70 degrees. Feed with a water soluble plant food every 2 weeks, so that your plants will get the nutrients they need to produce. Wait to water until the soil surface becomes dry. Overwatering kills more plants than underwatering.
Most vegetables are pollinated by wind, so the use of a small fan will help move the pollen around from branch to branch and also help your plants survive the stuffy air conditions that can occur indoors in winter. If no pollination takes place, use a tiny paint brush (a watercolor brush works well) and dust the individual flowers weekly until they set fruit.