Getting started with your indoor vegetable garden

introduction

If you are a vegetable garden freak and can hardly wait to start your 2022 growing season, then this article might be something for you. However, if you are happy that things are quiet for a while and your pantry and freezer are full of goodies for the winter, then this article might not be something for you. I will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of starting your indoor vegetable garden earlier. I will also discuss how you can start earlier and for which crops it is useful. An example: Certain crops benefit from pollination by bees in June. But the flowers that you sow in your garden to attract bees often only come into bloom in July or August. Another example: Southern plants or crops with a very long growing season such as peppers , can be harvested in June or July if you start earlier. This does not work in the same way as you would normally do if you only harvest your peppers from August. In this article I try to outline the needs of a plant in a simple way. To outline different needs during the different stages of a plant's growth cycle.

Growing your own vegetables

On this site you will find a detailed crop file for over 50 crops in the crop index. In addition to the sowing depth, the planting distances, the good and bad neighbours, you will also find the different crops per crop. In it you can see when you can sow, the moment you have to plant out if you are not sowing directly and when you can harvest. The files provide logos where you can start the cultivation. Indoors , under glass or outside .

These sheets assume that you have a home with a room temperature between 18°C ​​and 24°C and that you have a windowsill or porch with natural light from outside. But what if you could create an environment where you could create the conditions that would allow the plant to grow optimally? Let’s first look at what it takes for a seed to become a plant.

What do vegetable garden plants need?

Before you put your first seed in the ground, you need to know the basic needs of vegetable garden plants.

light, oxygen, heat, water and food

A seed becomes a plant with the help of light, oxygen, heat, water and nutrients. Oxygen, water and nutrients are elements that we can always use. Both indoors, outdoors and under glass we can water, administer nutrients and oxygen can always be given to the soil and plant. We can do that ourselves. For light and heat we are in most cases dependent on the sun. And as we all know, the intensity of the sun and the hours that our plants can look at the sun, differ according to the season. We adjust our crops to the exposure of the sun. That is why there are no palm trees on the large market in Brussels or Amsterdam and there are on the Placa Reyal in Barcelona. To better explain indoor growing, I will first tell you a bit more about the sun and the growth cycle of a plant. On this site you will find a propagator that was chosen as the best propagator according to BBC Gardeners World, grow lights are available separately

The sun gives warmth to our vegetable garden plants

The sun is a large fireball that is 1 million times, yes you read that right, 1 million times bigger than planet earth. The sun gives light and heat to all the planets in our solar system. Depending on the distance and the angle of refraction of the sun, we need a t-shirt or a woolen coat in the different seasons. We express the heat in Celsius and everyone knows it.

The sun also provides heat to our plants

Light, that's a different story. To make it easier, we can speak of light intensity and light colour. Light intensity is expressed in lumens , light heat in kelvins . A small candle gives few lumens, a searchlight in the courtyard of a prison gives many lumens. The light colour is something else. The light at the dentist is blue light and the light in a cosy brasserie will be redder light. How this comes about technically is not really important to know in the vegetable garden. What is interesting to know is that plants have different needs for light colour in their growth phase, fruiting phase and flowering phase. In the growth phase they need bluer light, in the flowering phase redder light. With the sun we have one big advantage. Sunlight contains the entire spectrum of light colour. At sunrise or sunset you often have very red light. On a cloudy winter day you have bluer light. Depending on the season and the time of day, our plants get all the light colour they need to become a mature plant.

The growth cycle of vegetable garden plants

To successfully start your indoor vegetable garden, you need to know a little more about how a plant grows and what its needs are in the different stages of growth:

The conditions for seed germination

Our seed germinates through water, warmth and light.

• Water: In order to germinate, the germ must be able to come out of the seed. The seed has a seed coat to protect the seed. Water softens the seed coat and allows the germ to come out.
• Heat: Only water and no heat would rot many seeds . The heat from the sun or from indoors is the starting signal for the plant to start growing. Many weed seeds will not germinate outside in the winter either. But when the first rays of sunshine warm the soil in the spring, your vegetable garden can transform into a jungle within 3 weeks. Nature then gives the starting signal that it is the moment for those plants to start.
• Light: Light on cotyledons ensures photosynthesis, a difficult word for the conversion of light into glucose. Glucose is the baby milk for our plant. In the first phase of a plant's growth, it also does not need any further nutrients. There is often also food in the seed for the young plant. Cold light is optimal here: +/- 6000 to 6500 Kelvin. If the young plant does not get enough light, the seedlings will stretch. A thin, long stem looking for light.

Young plants or plants with at least two true leaves

• A young plant develops its roots, stem, twigs, leaves and the sap flows well.
  • Nutrition: Only 20% of the nutrition a young plant gets from the soil. What the plant gets from the soil in this phase is mainly nitrogen for leaf growth and to a lesser extent phosphorus for root development and later also the formation of flowers. Potassium is there for the metabolic processes in growth, to put it simply: the chemistry in the plant. Later, potassium also helps with fruit formation.
  • Light: The plant gets 80% of its nutrition from light, from blue light, +/- 6000 to 6500 Kelvin is ideal. With a good soil but no light, most plants have no chance of survival. Growing early without light gives spindly plants that anxiously search for light.
  • Water: A plant, just like humans, consists largely of water, so it is logical that water is essential for young plants.
  • Oxygen: Here too, a plant needs oxygen to live. The chemical processes in a plant need oxygen. The leaves take it from the air, the roots take it from the soil. In caked soil, little will grow.
  • Heat: Heat is less important for the growth of a young plant than for germination. It is still important but a pepper plant that germinates in 5 days at 28°C will develop perfectly as a young plant at 18°C, as long as it gets enough light.

Needs of mature vegetable garden plants

• When the plant matures . And in the case of flowers or fruit crops, flowers and/or fruits form
  • Nutrition: Root and leguminous plants hardly need any nutrition. If you do crop rotation, there is usually enough nutrition left over from the previous crop to let the plants grow. For leafy vegetables, you can maintain the nutrition pattern of young plants. Nitrogen is the most important, phosphorus and potassium can be administered in low doses. We do not eat the root or the foliage of fruit crops, cabbage crops, but the fruit. And potatoes are tubers, but they are also big eaters. We give these plants a lot of phosphorus and potassium in the phase towards maturity. Check the instructions carefully to see how much and in which phase you use the nutrients. Another solution is to make comfrey manure , which is free and very nutritious for cabbages, fruit crops and potatoes .
  • Light: During fruiting, the plant can use slightly warmer light than during germination or as a young plant. The Kelvin value that stimulates flower formation is 3000 to 3500. Personally, I make sure that the plants can go into the greenhouse or conservatory around flower formation. The sun then gives them all the light they need. During fruiting, the plants benefit from even warmer light that has values ​​of 2500 to 3000 Kelvin. Here again, the outdoor sun is your best friend. It has a full spectrum of light colours.
  • Water: same as for young plants. Note that a mature plant has a deeper root system and needs less water. With its roots it can search very deep for water. If you grow in pots and the roots are limited, you do have to give more water.
  • Oxygen: same as in young plants.
  • Heat: Every plant has its own temperature at which it grows optimally. For most fruit crops, this is above 15 degrees. That is why we only plant these in the greenhouse or glasshouse after mid-May. If you do this earlier, they will not grow anyway or they may suffer frost damage. Unless you can add heat.

On this site you will find a propagator that was voted best propagator according to BBC Gardeners World , grow lights are available separately

Winter time and still pre-cultivating with aids

Now you know what the needs of plants are and also know what they need in which growth phase. It will not surprise you that we cannot start growing plants in the winter. Unless you use some tools. For example, you can start earlier in the vegetable garden. Note that it is not advisable to sow certain crops indoors with tools. Root vegetables, for example. These do not like to be transplanted (I do it with Red beet and fennel ).

Heat and light / a propagator and grow lights

Any plant can be grown in an artificial environment. Just watch on TV when they bust an illegal 'weed' plantation. The entire cycle of the weed plant is done indoors. Heating and lamps imitate the sun. Often the lamps have to be changed from bluer light to redder light as growth and flowering progresses. If you ever have the chance to talk to someone who grows weed, you can learn a lot. Not that I want to promote the cultivation of illegal things, far from it. There is a lot less money to be made with the vegetable garden. You can grow a cauliflower indoors under lamps, but it will be very expensive. What you can do is continue your hobby on a smaller scale in the winter. Of the three phases (germination, young plant and adult plant) that I describe above, I do the first two phases of some crops indoors. I give an example of my cultivation of peppers . I also germinate flowers, my tomatoes, lettuce, beets, fennel, onions, ... for indoors until the young plants can go outside.

• Germination : I use a propagator for germination. This is a closed growing cabinet in which you can regulate the heat and light (6400 Kelvin growth lamps ). I germinate my pepper seeds in a modular tray at 28°C, the plants emerge in 4 days. In a spot in front of the window you can wait a long time, in the propagator it goes very quickly. In the beginning I leave the oxygen grids in the lid closed. As soon as I see something coming up I open the oxygen grids. The germination process is the foundation of a good plant. I let the seeds pre-germinate from the end of December. It doesn't take a week.

• Young plants : Once the seeds have germinated and the cotyledons have opened (10 to 20 days later depending on the plants), I remove the plants from the propagator . Now that the plants are standing upright, warmth is less important than light. I place the plants in a cooler place but keep them under the grow lights at 6400 Kelvin for 15 hours a day, do you remember baby milk ...? I also transplant the plants into 9 cm pots with potting soil for vegetable gardens, their first nutrition via the roots. There is enough nutrition in that potting soil for 6 weeks. I regularly pour water into the tray in which the 9 cm pots are placed. After those six weeks we are in the second half of February and I transplant the plants into 15 cm pots with extra potting soil and nutrients. The pepper plants remain under the lights, 15 hours a day. That is from when I get up in the morning until just before bedtime. When flowers form, I cut them out. I want to invest in a sturdy plant first, the fruits come later. The first longer days come at the end of March, beginning of April. In those days the plants move to the windowsill. There they get a broader spectrum of light and I can give the flowers free rein.

• Growing up : Only after mid-May do I plant the peppers in full, rich soil in the greenhouse or hothouse where they produce fruit very quickly. The leaves of these plants become a beautiful deep green. The experiment where I grew a surplus of seedlings on the windowsill last year resulted in pale green plants that later had a lot of problems with flower formation and fruit formation. The plants that received a lot of light in their youth, I got a lot of harvest from. I also had to prune them regularly, unlike the windowsill plants that remained small and gave small fruits.

On this site you will find a propagator that was voted best propagator according to BBC Gardeners World, grow lights are available separately

when does it go wrong

The growth of plants must be in balance. We ourselves cannot live optimally if we do not get food for 5 days and then eat a 7-course meal on day six. We would get sick from it. Sprouted plants must get light. Plants that beg to be put outside must also be able to go outside. I was in a nursery of plants last year. All uniform plants, radiating health. I thought: "Yes, chemical rubbish, F1 varieties that grow like cabbage, it is not that difficult." After a conversation with the manager I found out that they worked 100% organically and on the cards I read the same types of lettuce as I had in my bags at home. He explained to me that the seed, the sowing soil, the temperature, the light in the greenhouses, the varieties according to season, ... Everything was coordinated. Do not invest in a propagator without professional grow lights . The grow lights that are intended for growing vegetables are not the same as a regular T5 6400 Kelvin TL tube from the DIY store. They also help, but the light intensity is often much lower than the grow lights that you can buy in our webshop . Think about your cultivation. I start peppers 12 to 14 weeks before they can go into the ground, if I do that with lettuce , the plant will die. I start lettuce 4 to 6 weeks before they can go under glass at the beginning of March. In heat it often goes so fast that your young plant is ready too soon and has a growth stop in its too small pot or tray . Below is an overview of some vegetables that you can pre-grow in your propagator with the number of weeks before planting out. The planting out dates can be found per crop in the crop files from the crop index and depend on the crop you choose. Not all crops are equally useful to pre-grow in a propagator and under lights. Crops with a long growth cycle until planting out benefit more from it than crops with a short growth cycle. peppers : 12-16 weeks before planting (cut off the flowers inside) Tomato: 6-10 weeks before planting (do not cut off the flowers inside) eggplant : 10-14 weeks Courgette and pumpkin : 4-6 weeks Leaf vegetables: 4-6 weeks Flowers: 10-12 weeks Cabbages: 6 - 8 weeks Legumes: 4-6 weeks (they quickly develop a root system, so put them in a larger pot in time) Root vegetables: it is best to sow them directly, they do not like transplanting. There you go, I hope I have inspired you. I will be back at the end of December and would like to give you another assignment. Inspire your friends and acquaintances to start a vegetable garden. You can read why on the homepage 'Everyone to the vegetable garden!' If you find this information valuable, share it via the Social media buttons. You also support the site by ordering your vegetable garden supplies in our webshop here. Tom Deseyn On this site you will find a propagator that was voted best propagator according to BBC Gardeners World , grow lights are available separately