If you just need to flex that green thumb despite the winter or the COVID-19 quarantine, a grow room within your home is a great way to do that. However, growing plants indoors can be a bit tricky, as you must figure out how to create the optimal conditions without the natural advantages of gardening outside. To help you get the best results out of your plants, here are three ways to improve your indoor garden.
Optimize Your Lighting
Not all lights are equal, and your plants may not be getting the same UV rays that they typically get from the sun. To remedy this, look for lights made specifically for grow rooms, such as LED lights. These LED lights are ideal because they are programmable, meaning you can adjust the intensity to the best specification for whatever plant you’re growing. Furthermore, LED lights don’t emanate as much heat.
Better Soil Quality
Perhaps your soil isn’t rich enough. In that case, you’ll want to look into getting soil that has been specifically made to be nutrient-rich in order to compensate. Bacteria and fungi are key ingredients to quality soil that provides necessary chemical components such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.
If you’d rather try to make your own nutrient-rich soil, a good method is to create a compost. This not only allows you to make use of any food waste in your home but will cut costs if you can produce it on your own. Dead leaves, grass clippings, and wood ash are also good ways to add nutrients to your soil.
Temperature and Humidity
As different species of plants thrive in different environments, it’s important you tailor your indoor garden to reflect the necessary environment. The two ways to improve your indoor garden and recreate environments are through temperature and humidity. Most plants thrive in humid environments—even if they don’t require much watering. A quick solution to replicate humidity is using a spray bottle to coat your plants with moisture without the risk of over-watering them. If you think to use a humidifier, be sure you use it in controlled amounts, otherwise you’ll risk mold forming in your grow room.
Temperature is also conducive to plant growth, so you’ll want to find out what works best for your specific plants. An indication of a plant being too cold is their leaves beginning to turn yellow. If this happens, the temperature should be raised.
