Indoor Vegetable Garden: Let’s invent a universe together

The seed has sprouted!

Repotting a zuchini seedling in hydroponics

All around the planet, pioneers are searching, experimenting…
There are various motivations; food quality, the desire to free oneself from the food industry, consumption of hard to find varieties or willing to grow stawberries in the winter  …
With the help of mass media, guerilla gardening, community gardens, vegetables gardens on balconies and terraces,  this movement is growing in popularity especially these past years.

Young chili peppers plants growing in hydroponics under fluorescents

But few urbanites have a balcony or access to a community garden. The remaining territory to conquer is indoors, indoor gardening!!!

This blog is mainly dedicated to the indoor vegetable garden …

will the  the indoor vegetable garden be a smaller replica of the traditional home garden?

To me this doesn’t seem like the trail to follow. The constraint of space encourages creativity with invention of new ways to grow!

The return will be key, but what kind of return? Pounds of potatoes?

No! With pleasure and better health …

Close-up of rau ram and thaï basil, zucchini in the background

In my opinion, edible indoor garden should mainly bring pleasure, health and well-being.

This criterium is the basis of the questioning about what I want to grow in my Lab.

Let’s go from the more obvious selection (for an hydroponist like I am) to the more extraordinary:

While inventoring what to grow, I offer you a sneak peak of the Lab.

• In the kitchen as well the garden, it’s inconceivable to grow without aromatic  herbs. They are the queen plants of indoor garden; not so bulky, fast growing, and a couple of  leaves are enough to complement a recipe, to make a salad come alive. A well managed small space is ample to allow self-sufficiency.

Genovese Basil growing aero-bioponics (aerotop and Biosevia)

Indoor growing suits very well to tropical herbs such as thaï basil, rau ram or tulsi and also allows to grow more temperate climate plants such as anise hyssop, italian basil, coriander and parsley. Aromatic, they bear a proper name, strong flavors and virtues.

Aero-bioponics grown thaï basil and rauram (aerotop system and biosevia fert)

Aquaponic thaï basil

Fun, flavour and colour full, tomatoes are also a very good candidate. The joy of munching a ripe tomatoe you just harvested… Cherry tomatoes are the most interesting for indoor growing.

Our 6 tomatoe plants in hydroponics (aeroflo and floraserie). Black cherry, green cherry, pink of Berne and banana legs

• Chili peppers, for those who like it caliente, grows very well indoors and thrive in hydroponics. Two jalapeno fruits (strong stuff) are enough for me for one month. I make a sauce mixing them with coco oil, ginger, garlic and lemon zest. I store it in the fridge and iI use it when I feel like putting a little fire in a meal.
• And here comes the lemon trees, the perfect fruit tree for indoor. The plant is beautiful and its fruits are amazingly rich of flavour and health benefits.

Black hugarian, jalapeno and jamaican chilies in hydroponics (aquafarm and floraserie) and behind, a meyer lemon tree

• I am interested in salads, especially gathering lettuces, as you can harvest few leaves and let the plant continue growing. Crispyness, freshness…

They grow fast in hydro and can grow really well in close proximity to each other:

Young gathering lettuces in the biofilter of our aquaponic system

15 days of growth…

• Spirulina, 70% proteins, huge concentrations of vitamins A and B, loves growing in warm water with good light is easy to achieve indoors.

Spirulina is gaining popularity as food complement, let’s rediscover it as food, what it was for Aztec inhabitants of Texcoco Lake area, which became Mexico City and what it is still nowadays for the Kanembou tribe living near Chad Lake in Africa. And then be able to experiment eating fresh Spirulina…

• 

  microscopic photo of our first Spirulina, a Paracas from Peru
  RIP

   

Our Spirulina Lonar from India in growing phase (FloraSerie)
Harvest soon!!!

• Fish! In an aquaponic system, you can raise Tilapias, soft water fish from the Nile area in Egypt. Delicious homegrown catch! We are waiting for ours to come…

• Sprouts, energetic and tastefull food,  for most of them are easy to grow. Very soon I will write an article about our hydroponic sprouter, Easygreen …

• Mushrooms, kits are now available , allowing easy homegrowing …

I share with you part of my vision of what could be an indoor edible garden and I walked you through your first visit to the Lab.

The aim of this blog is to share my knowledge and the fruit of my experiences.

Follow the Lab…

Your ideas and proposals are more than welcome, all is to be invented, the great adventure of co-creation…

Stay tuned…