Mission Endure 73: Indoor Garden Update
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It has been about a month since I gave an update to our attempt to establish an Indoor Garden. In that time we have planted more Lettuce, added Tomatoes, Jalapeno Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Basil, Parsley, and Bush Beans. Our Indoor Garden has been a great project. We planted it at our office in an area that was unused, but had to be heated and lighted anyhow, so it didn’t really cost us anything to put the garden there. We were already paying the electricity and heating for the area, and thought we’d just put the area to use producing things that we like to eat. Today the garden is in full swing. Here is where we are at in the Indoor Garden.
The original Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce (above) that we planted in the middle of October and began harvesting around the beginning of November provided us with fresh, crisp, green, and very flavorful lettuce for two months finally bolted and we have been waiting for it to produce seed for us to use in future Indoor Garden projects. We are in love with the Parris Island Cos. It is the best lettuce we have found so far for growing indoors.
We have been planting fresh lettuce about every 2 weeks. The plants in the above photo were planted on November 1 and are still going strong. This is a flat of our oldest producing lettuce plants. We have a container each of Parris Island Cos, along with Black Seeded Simpson, May Queen Butterhead, and Flashy ButterGem. Black Seeded Simpson, May Queen Butterhead, and Flashy ButterGem are all much more tender and less flavorful than the Parris Island Cos and don’t seem to be quite as productive. But, they make for a good mix of lettuce in our salads and come together well. You can see the Black Seeded Simpson in the back has started to bolt and won’t be producing much longer.
This is what the lettuce looks like that we planted on November 15. They are still going very strong and are our most prolific producers right now. We used the same mixture of 4 different lettuce plants and they have done well. This was the last time we planted the Black Seeded Simpson and the May Queen Butterhead. These two types of lettuce did not produce as much as the Parris island Cos and the Flashy ButterGem, and the lettuce did not have nearly as much flavor. We decided to continue to plant Parris Island Cos and Flash ButterGem as these are our two favorite lettuces.
On November 15 we also thought we would start experimenting with a few other plants. So we planted both Sweet Peppers and Jalapenos. They have both done well and are about to outgrow our Indoor Garden. We may have to move them to sit next to an outside window so they can continue to get sunlight to continue growing. Either that or we will need to remove a shelf in the Indoor Garden so they and the tomatoes can continue to grow taller. So far they are luscious and dark green and look like they are growing well.
We planted our Martino’s Roma Tomatoes (above) in the first week of December and transplanted them on December 20th. They rapidly outgrew our shelf and I am not sure our grow lights are best grow lights for them. After they reached a certain size the leaves have begun to turn yellow. So, this morning I moved them to a desktop under a window to see if this will help them grow. When we transplanted these tomatoes in December we also planted more Martino’s Roma seeds. They are growing well and are about ready to be transplanted in the next week or so.
On December 20th we planted more Parris Island Coz, Flashy ButterGem, and Martino’s Roma Tomatoes. These are shown in the two above photos. They are all doing well and the Martino’s Roma Tomatoes are almost ready to be transplanted into their own containers. We have been harvesting this lettuce for the last week. It is growing fast and these two are our favorites.
The other type of plant we have decided to experiment with are Blue Island Bush Bean’s. We planted them on December 26th, and as you can see above, they are growing quickly. I don’t know how well they will do, but we are looking to see if we can grow some of our own protein in our Indoor Garden.
Here is what we have learned so far:
With only using 1 shelving unit we can grow enough lettuce to get us through the winter. We eat salads for dinner a couple of times per week, and tacos or fajitas at least once per week, and we have trouble keeping up with the production in the garden. We are continually sharing our lettuce with family and friends, or else we will get too far behind.
We love Parris Island Cos and Flashy ButterGem. They mix well together because they are different colors, different textures, they have different flavors, and they just make for a nice mixture
Tomatoes, Peppers, and Beans all seem to grow well indoors, so far
Keeping on a planting schedule of about once per month will keep us in lettuce all winter.
I provided links for each of the seeds we planted so far. Those are not affiliate links. We do not make any commissions off of selling those seeds. We just linked to them because they are the best seeds we have found to grow indoors. We love all the food we have grown so far. We have grown everything organically. We grew the plants in Miracle Grow Potting Soil and have not added anything except for water to them. No fertilizer, no pesticides, just water.
Here are some links to the equipment we use to grow the Indoor Garden. These will take you to Amazon, where we do get a small commission if you order from these links.
Grow Lights: The lights we used are Barina 48” LED Grow Lights. A package of 6 lights ran us about $100. We have tried growing lettuce and tomatoes with other grow lights, and none of them worked well at all until we started using the Barina ones. They have worked better than I ever could have wished for. 6 of the Barina lights will work with 3 each on two large grow shelves. That is how I have our system set up, as you can see in the below photo.
Planting Pots: We ordered 6” Planting Pots from Amazon and they seem to work well for our Indoor Garden
Flat Trays: These are the 20” x 10” Flat Plant Growing Trays that have worked well for us. They are sturdy enough that they can handle up to 10 plants without crumpling