Growing indoors only

[Uncle Berty]

Hi, We live in an old stone built house with really deep window sills. Due to the amount of rain we had last year, that killed just about everything in the garden, I've decided to grow mainly inside this year.

My question is, what have you successfully grown indoors only?

I had chillies and a tomato plant last year. The chillies were great but the tomato died quite early on. I've since heard that tomato plants are very sensitive to cigarette smoke, and I had the plant in the open window above where we smoke outside.

This year I have;
Chillies - birds eye and apache F1.
Peppers - Orange Baby, Yellow Bell and Sweet long pointed red.
Strawberries - Elsanta & another that I cant remember.
Carrots - Purple Haze & Tendersnax F1 Hybrid
Radish - French Breakfast
Tomatoes - Roma, Gardeners Delight & Cherry Falls
Chinese Broccoli
Sweetcorn - Minipop F1
Lettuce - all sorts of mixed.
Garlic
Melon - can't remember what they were, but they're F1 hybrids and not doing much.

I think that's all

I've got so addicted I'm always trying to find something new to try. Does anyone else grow indoors to this extent? If so what do you grow? Can anyone give me any helpful advice to get the best from what I've got?

Thanks everyone,
Berty.

Edit: I meant to say, I've just set up a way of collecting rain in the garden as so far I've been using tap water that I leave on the side for a few hours before watering.

[garden5]

We actually have a container gardening sub-form [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21&sid=164375f9c81dfd9c7d6261c41957b973]here[/url]. You can find a lot of good info on growing in containers and indoors (although some folks grow in containers outdoors).

One big tip is to use potting soil in your containers and not regular old garden-soil or compost. The reason-being is that the potting soil will allow good drainage whereas garden soil and compost don't drain as well when used in pots.

What kind of soil did you have in the containers last year?

[Uncle Berty]

Thanks for the reply

We had been using cheap multipupose bags from the local garden centre. Once I got some seeds started sprouting this year I was planting them up in the soil from these bags but found everything either stopped growing or started to die.

I bought a bag of some really good John Innes and re-potted everything, suddenly it all took off again and it's all looking great, the problem is I lost over a months worth of growth from using the poor quality soil.

I've since bought several bags of some B&G grow your own veg stuff. It's quite cheap but really goods quality and the seeds are coming up very quick in it.

Now that I've finally used up just about every space I can find, I've taken a few photos....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/berty_smalls/5836372698/in/set-72157626968225236

https://www.flickr.com/photos/berty_smalls/5835825909/in/set-72157626968225236

https://www.flickr.com/photos/berty_smalls/5835826707/in/set-72157626968225236

There are more photos in that set that show what we've got in the garden.

[veteran]

I live in an apartment and grow everything indoors. This year only peppers though. Currently my list is:

> Bhut Jolokia
> Cajamarca
> White Habanero
> Chocolate Habanero
> Black Prince
> Habanero (Regular)

and >Lavender (For the wife)

There is a large 'indoor' growing community in the United States and a lot of great resources online. One of the best benefits to growing indoors is when the weather get's too cold outside I still have peppers growing.

Just make sure you have adequate light (I use CFL's), temperatures (reptile heating pad from Petsmart), water (or lack of), and lastly... wind. I use a fan that's set on a timer to create wind, the wind will help to pollinate, otherwise you have to do it all by hand (which I still mostly have to do..... *reconsiders fan*)

[Uncle Berty]

Thanks Veteran

My growing addiction started with chillies and peppers, I got fed up with buying them all the time.

I know lights and heating will really help, but I'm really keen to do everything as naturally (and more importantly as cheap) as possible. I live at one of the most southerly points of the UK, ok not the warmest place in the world, but we do get a fair share of sunlight