Growing plants without a garden

I was thinking about this not so much because of food but because I an thinking about making scented pillows and they need scented flowers and I don't have a garden. But I think it would be quite the same to grow food.

I was wondering what you would do if you wanted to grow something but do not have a garden.

It would be great if you all could give suggestions about the best way to grow plants out of a box.

reply to post by ThinkingMe


I would go with hydroponics. A lot of the stuff you see online can easily be built for a lot less money.

This is quite a hard subject to discuss because most techniques that are used to grow plants indoors are mainly used in the cultivation of illegal substances and so it become hard to provide links without breaking the T&C's

But hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral rich water instead of soil, as it's indoors you also need special lights that will replicate sunlight.

You can buy kits for doing this in a number of places like

here If you are in the UK and many other places

This technique can put a serious strain on your electricity bill however!!

reply to post by ThinkingMe


You can grow most anything you'd grow in a garden, in containers.. Ive personally tested this with beans and lettuce.. as a experiment for a apartment dweller.. keep in mind items like potatos will require a very large container.. generally think of how much space they take up in a garden and you should be able to get buy with that amount of space in a container.. however added fertilizer of some sort would be good to keep the soil fertile.

Walter Reeves

This guy has a very good site. I listen to him when I can on the weekends. He is a plethora of information and makes things real easy.

reply to post by Rhadamanthus

Thanks for telling me. I think that is quite a good idea. And that website is full of good infomation. =)

reply to post by davespanners


I was thinking of putting them on a table near the window for sunlight so I would not need so much artificial light.

reply to post by E-ville


I was thinking of doing that too. But just in case there are other better ways to do it so I asked this question

I remember my granny going hard core when moving from the country side to the city. She actually grew one potato plant in a bucket on the balcony! So at mid-summer she had one meal of home grown potato..in the bucket.

I have chilis, lettuce, tobacco, coffee, different spices and what not on my window sill. I grow potatoes in summer (outdoors), enough for the winter, I fish..but all the "extras" I grow indoors in pots, all around the year. Check the local library for books on how to cultivate food/plants indoors.
The bigger the plant, the bigger the pot.

reply to post by ThinkingMe


I have the touch of death when it comes to plants unfortunately.
I cultivated a Bonsai on my window seal for 3 years, tying it, trimming it, only to have it die mysteriously over the course of a week

reply to post by DogFin


Coffee would be quite nice to try out. Do you know how long it takes to grow new beans? And do I use coffee beans to grow them? Cause I don't know if those that I buy from a store that helps you to grind them will grow.

reply to post by davespanners

I'm sure you can do it. The plant was probably not very healthy.

You need green coffee beans as fresh as possible to be able to grow them, even better is to get a "cherry" right from a coffee plant, but thats not so easy.

If coffee cherries are not readily available, green coffee can be purchased from a green coffee supplier, but it is essential that the bean is of a recent crop and recent shipment. I would recommend ordering green coffee from Sweet Maria's and asking for the most recent crop. Sweet Maria's also provides tips for growing coffeea arabica at home.

site

Check out "windowfarming" on google





Also check out aquaponics with Fish and plants in an almost closed system.

I would go with hydroponics and actually there are some really nice LED grow lights now that use almost no power at all.

I did a bucket garden this year. The place I was going to put in a regular garden turned out to have cab'e, gas and telephone lines running under it. I decided to get several 5 gallon buckets and make a portable garden. I had a couple green pepper plants, several tomato plants and strawberries. It was a good learning experience and I did get some veggies out of it.
One of the things I learned was that you can not over water plants in a bucket as long as you drill sufficient drain holes in the bottom. All excess water just drains out.
Another thing I learned was that because the excess water drains out the bottom you have to feed and fertilize on a regular basis. All that water draining out is taking the good stuff in the soil right out with it.
Next year the garden goes in the ground and I want to grow enough to do some canning.

Originally posted by ThinkingMe
reply to post by davespanners

 

I was thinking of putting them on a table near the window for sunlight so I would not need so much artificial light.

Do that. I have acres of land but I grow some plants on my windowsill, they grow just fine and where I live we have pretty much forgotten what the sun looks like.

Ok, heres my experince with growing indoors, your good for any spices and some veggies depending on your grow space. Things like taters will need a deep rooting system, but the biggest and most important thing is "LIGHT" unless you have a room with a skylight then your going to be using bulbs. Today you have two great choices in bulb systems, no longer are there the HP bulbs that throw out tons of heat and make that electrical bill spin out of control, and the cost of one of those set ups.
Ive used both LED's and High Output Floresent in a combination, very low electric bill and I mean "Very" low compaired to HP systems. You need to use a combination of white & orange Floresent set above your plants, with the lack of heat from the bulbs, you dont have to worry about the bulbs burning your plants. You can find a good HO Floresent panel for about $400.00
I use LED 3" round lights with a mix of red/blue/orange/white around the plants and under them, this is a suplimental light thats needed for bigger growth of any plant, make sure you keep a strict light schedual.

As for my planter, I spent $78.00 on a 3'x6'x1' and use pearlite for my growing material, a 5gal tub feeds my plants with a fish tank water pump, the table is put at a very slight tilt and the water gravity feeds to one end of the table to drain out of a sink drain back into the 5 gal tub, I have one main feeder tube that branches out to 3 so it gives even flow across the table.
I have a fan mounted on the wall set on a low setting to move the air around, plants need fresh Carbon around them for ma growth, I mix mu fertilizer in with my water and put it on a feeding cycle, dont forget to flush every forth week to keep root buildup fromhappening, once the week is over, go back to current feeding.
I have a monitor for PH & PPM mounted on the wall.
This type of setup will cost you about $800 for all thats needed by going to the store, practice your scavaging skills and go #heel some stuff that will work for you and cut down on your overhead as well as "RECYCLE"

Hahahahaha Im so Green

Im able to keep fresh herbs and spices around all the time, its help with my bills as well since Im working on oil extract and drying spices for storage, if something goes wrong, Im not out alot of pocket cost. Once the garden is completed at the remote site, then everything will move outdoors and only be put to use during the winter,they have had great success in growing veggies in colder climits like Bethel AK. No worries about pests which means no pesticieds, as well as how the food is alot sweeter due to the long hours of summer light.

Hope this helps out a bit.

Originally posted by ThinkingMe

reply to post by DogFin

 

Coffee would be quite nice to try out. Do you know how long it takes to grow new beans? And do I use coffee beans to grow them? Cause I don't know if those that I buy from a store that helps you to grind them will grow.

I never had the chance to start from beans. I got a plant almost 2 years ago (10-15cm tall) and it's now about 40cm. Very slow-growing, but I'm no expert in coffee growing. I read it takes years before it starts producing beans. I've understood that 1 plant gives you about 500g grinded coffee, so what I'd grow in years, I'd consume in a week..

Originally posted by DogFin
I never had the chance to start from beans. I got a plant almost 2 years ago (10-15cm tall) and it's now about 40cm. Very slow-growing, but I'm no expert in coffee growing. I read it takes years before it starts producing beans. I've understood that 1 plant gives you about 500g grinded coffee, so what I'd grow in years, I'd consume in a week..

Ahh well then I won't try that, I thought that most food growing plants (if they are not trees) grow fairly fast, something like a few months. I did not know coffee takes a long time to grow. Maybe I can take seeds from fruit like strawberries.

reply to post by ThinkingMe


I think the best way for you to grow plants is to grow them using aeroponics. It's a clean process, meaning that you don't really have to clean the dirt off of them and bugs would be very minimal; growth is fast.

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