Indoor garden seeds need four things:
-
Good soil
-
Adequate water
-
Room to grow
-
Sufficient Light.
See our earlier post to learn all about soil, water and space requirements: https://www.Barefoot Farm » Starting Vegetable Seeds Indoors (barefootfarmok.com)
In this post we will discuss lighting options for different budgets, space and sunlight orientation all the way up to but not including a full-scale greenhouse.
Most seedlings need at least 12 hours of direct sunlight every day. Check out the daylight hours in the latitude where you live at the time you intend to start your indoor seedlings? You can type in your zipcode in the farmer’s almanac online to get length of daylight in your location here: Sunrise and Sunset Times Today | The Old Farmer's Almanac. You can also play with the date to see at what date will you get close to 12 hours. Bear in mind that the seedlings will take at least a week to sprout, and don’t need any sunlight until they do.
In order to capture all of this sunlight, you need a south-facing window that doesn't have roof overhang which blocks the light. If you don’t have a south-facing window, the next best choice is west-facing, followed by east-facing. Don’t bother with a north-facing window as the light will not be adequate. Keep watch on an east or west oriented window and count how many hours an object placed in the window is in the sun on a fully sunny day.
The easiest way to set-up seeds is to place seedling trays on a counter just inside a south-facing window. Here the biggest issue is mess from over-watering. You’ll want to place your seedling trays on some type of reservoir – a cookie sheet or a shallow plastic tub, even a thick towel.
If you use seedling trays with 1.5x2” cells, you can fit six 6-packs, or 36 seedlings in front of a 20” wide window! These also extend 10” back, so you likely need to rotate to ensure all the plants get time in the sun. Alternatively, you could settle for half as many- 18 seedlings will only be 5” wide. Hopefully you have more than one south-facing window. Or a door – keep reading!
You can also employ a low-powered LED grow light. A two-foot full spectrum grow light at Lowes costs just under $20! With this you could start 72-84 seedlings anywhere – including over your bathtub (to catch excess water run-off). Then again, you’ll be moving the plants every time you want to take a shower...
If you’re like me, you prefer to utilize the sun’s energy. This reduces one’s carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels and the grid. We get our worst storms in the spring, and power outages are not uncommon here in northeastern Oklahoma. If my seedlings are kept warm with the heat from our woodstove, and receive all their light from the sun, then power outages won’t put their delicate lives in jeopardy. And I get another boost of satisfaction knowing my seedlings are all taken care of. Plus, there are no ongoing costs after the initial set-up.
If you want to get more use out of a south-facing window, turn it into a year-round green house by converting it to a garden-window. This is basically a bay window with openable parts to let out excess heat in the summer. These extend beyond the the exterior of your house and have a transparent glass top to capture more sunlight. These are great in fall, winter, and spring, and can house herbs when you aren’t starting seedlings. You’ll likely want to employ a shade in addition to opening vents to prevent it from overheating your home in the summer.
If you happen to have a back door that faces south (or west or even east), you could build a larger, temporary backdoor attached greenhouse!
We unhinged our back-door and built a 4x4x8’ tall greenhouse with a clear roof, heated by our home for about $300. When we were done starting seeds, we took it off and put our door back on and stored the lumber and panels until the following spring. This worked for us for years. As you can see, we had 3 shelves each with 4 seedling trays. We could start over 400 seedlings and have room for larger potted plants on the floor.
Remember our seed-staring math?
One dollar will buy you:
- 1 tomato at the grocery store, or
- A share of a tomato seedling, or maybe 5-10 tomatoes
- Enough seed to plant 50 plants, or 1000 tomatoes!
A thousand tomatoes!?! Yes. This is one reason to start plants from seed. That, and the amazing variety of plants you have to choose from. So the more seedlings, the better!
We constructed our backdoor green house with:
- two treated 2x4s attached to the house
- two treated 4x4s across from the 2x4s – sunk in the ground (without concrete) The height should be shorter than the 2x4s to allow for a pitched roof for water run-off
- a treated 2x4 frame for the roof and 2 more 2x4s for cross braces (See photo)
- 3 4x8’ Polycarbonate twin-wall corrugated plastic greenhouse panels.
- These come in 4, 6 or 8mm thickness. At Lowes, a 4mm 2’x8’ sheet costs $27.
- At Growerssupply and other suppliers you can by a 6mm 4x8’ sheet for about $75.
- 1 sheet of corrugated clear fiberglass for the roof (or more of the polycarbonate sheeting for better roof R-value)
The bottom was the formerly outdoors and allowed us to water at will without affecting the floor of our house. This was attached to our mudroom, which had a concrete floor, but we never had spill-over. And ours faces west, which has worked just fine for us.
We eventually expanded when we had to complete repairs on this section of the house after we suffered tornado damage. We built a larger greenhouse with a year-round garden bed and a tub for us for a tropical-feeling treat in the winter. But the backdoor greenhouse accommodated more seedlings!
The savings in groceries from all the plants you grow will pay for the greenhouse in the very first year of use!