Looking to do a little indoor gardening space for my mother for xmas, but I don't know much about how to do inside setups. Any suggestions for good lights/containers/general setups?
A couple questions: What kind of things are you looking to grow? Are you planning to buy a kit, or do you want to put something together yourself? Does she have a sunny spot or will you need full artificial lighting?
The challenges I’ve seen for indoor stuff include adequate light and adequate air circulation, but this is a general observation. Some plants will do better with less light than others, etc.
Thanks for responding. I think she'd get a kick out of growing small amounts of herbs, stuff like mint or basil during warm seasons. I'd like to put something together myself, and it wouldn't need automatic watering or anything like that. Given the state of the house and the lack of window space it will probably need to have full artificial lighting.
So for lights, you can get plant-specific LEDs online. The bar lights will cover more area, but the single bulbs are nice because you can put them into an existing lamp or fixture. Depending on the area the garden will take up, a single bulb could be fine. The closer you can get the light to the plants, the better. The farther it gets from the plants, the more dispersed the light will be and the plants won't be able to capture the light as effectively. I've also seen a few set ups where the light is mounted under the kitchen cabinets and the plants sit under it on the counter; I think that kind of set-up works well if you can swing it and it's a good baseline for plant-to-light distance. Most of the herbs will probably want about 6-7 hours of light a day.
I think growing from seed will be more challenging in these circumstances so I'd either buy small plugs, or start plants from cuttings. A lot of herbs will work from cuttings, this video covers how to do it pretty well. If your grocery store is stocked with the things you want, you could pinch off some sprigs of whatever and not have to buy anything.
Managing water drainage is another aspect, and it'll depend on how you set up the container. I do like those set-ups where the plants are all sitting in a long wooden box or similar. This way the plants can all stay in their own pots and you can pull them out individually if there's a problem or if you want to use one. You can line the bottom of the box with a piece of plastic sheet (pull the edges up and staple it to the box for added security) and any drained water from the plant pots should evaporate. If it's not evaporating, the plants are probably being over-watered, which can be a nice visual indication to adjust watering before you start seeing problems on the plants themselves.
For air circulation, it's only a problem if you start to find mold growing on the plants or soil. A tiny fan (I've used a computer fan) set up nearby can help with this. I have students that grow a container garden for one of our classes, and the ones in dorms almost always have this problem, but in a bigger space like a house or apartment you might not.
I hope this is helpful.
If it's just herbs & leafy greens you can just buy T5's or T8's from Home Depot or the like - go with a K rating closer to the "blue" side of the spectrum for vegetative growth.
No need to get fancy LED's and drop oodles of money, a simple fluorescent fixture will do just fine. Other than that you just want decent fresh air exchange if meemaw is growing inside of something. They make grow tents, those are neat but not necessary.
The LED's do look cool though!
I'd suggest like a sizable wire rack, think industrial style shelving or whatever. Make 5,6,7 shelves on that rack & put fluorescent bulbs along the length of each shelf. Then just some sort of trays.
You can just use the cheap timers because flouros don't induce a huge voltage drop & burn em out like HPS & MH lights do.
Sorry, t5 & t8 are a style of fluorescent bulb - the big long tube bastards. Should have mentioned.
Idk how to attach images but here's one i grabbed from a duckduckgo query of "veg rack fluorescent"
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/24/5e/e1/245ee15f5a4b7543e22b2611aa38447f.jpg
Really, your light level is determined by the space, it's easier not to fight that. And the amount of water is determined by your schedule and habits, so easier to just accept those as well. Which means you just need to find plants that like those conditions. There's a lot of trial and error here, some plants will die after a few weeks/months, but if they still seem healthy after that point they'll probably last for a long time.
