House plants and vegetable garden on the windowsill
Our site was created specifically to help all lovers to enjoy the products of their own production, all those who can not imagine life without fresh herbs or fragrant cucumbers for dinner. But do not rush to buy it all in supermarkets, because you can arrange a small kitchen garden on your balcony or windowsill. Where to start, what materials and tools are needed for this, learn the technology of cultivation, you can visit our website.
Even if you've never gardened before. Don't be discouraged! There are many useful materials on the site, for example, a home vegetable garden on a windowsill in winter for beginners or growing garlic at home and others. Just look at the corresponding page, and you will find answers to many questions on the choice of seeds, soil, creating optimal lighting organization of watering and many others. If you follow our advice, you will easily be able to use the gifts of your mini-garden all year round.
At home, you can organize the cultivation of a variety of vegetable crops, greens and exotic fruits. This is, of course, not because of economy, but because of the desire to enjoy fresh food, full of many vitamins, all year round. Everyone is able to create a vegetable garden in the window, it only takes desire and diligence.
What's best for growing at home
Balconies and windowsills have a fairly small area, which means that large types of plants are not suitable for growing them at home. Before you start a vegetable garden at home, try to develop a planting project and design a green corner. You can also safely give up the idea of planting root crops at home, because they need considerable space and coolness.
- To create a mini vegetable garden on your windowsill at home, you can sow these vegetable crops: tomatoes dwarf varieties, some small types of carrots, peppers, some varieties of cabbage (Peking and cauliflower), small varieties of cucumbers that do not need pollination.
- Greens ideal for creating the perfect vegetable garden on the balcony. These can be: a variety of salad greens, dill, parsley, green onions, basil, arugula and others.
- The garden on the balcony can be perfectly varied by adding exotic fruits: kiwi, pineapple and various types of citrus. Some enthusiasts even manage to grow bananas at home.
You can make a fun vegetable garden on the windowsill in the nursery, decorating the beds on the windowsill with crafts and pots from ordinary plastic bottles.
Recommendations for a garden on the windowsill and balcony
Vegetable crops and herbs need to be placed correctly to make optimum use of the entire area of the window sill or balcony. Hanging shelves are perfect for leafy plants, cucumbers are best placed on trellises, and perennial vegetable crops are advisable to plant in bottom boxes. To make the task easier, you need to think in advance about the design of your future garden.
To start forming a vegetable garden on the balcony with your own hands, you first need to stock up on the necessary containers, provide optimal lighting and temperature conditions. The humidity in the room and the composition of the soil in which the home vegetable garden will grow play an important role for the plants.
If you make a home vegetable garden on the kitchen windowsill, you can interior of the room will acquire an unusual fun design. You only need to show a little imagination and come up with a suitable project, embodying interesting ideas.
Preparing the container
Containers for growing vegetables and greens at home can be a variety of crates made from conifers. They should be shorter in length than the length of the window sill itself. The bottom of the boxes should certainly be provided with a hole through which the water drains. On the outside of the bottom of the cross bars are nailed, ensuring that the box is loose against the pallet. If plastic crates are chosen, they should be higher than wooden crates. A drainage layer of gravel or sand will have to be placed in them.
To grow a garden on a windowsill, you need a project, clay and plastic pots for vegetable crops, peat pots for growing seedlings. You can enliven the garden project with a fun drawing on the pots.
Creating optimal lighting
During the summer, the vegetable garden on the home balcony, thanks to the sunlight, does not need additional lighting. Thinking about artificial sources of light is necessary with the beginning of autumn cloudy days, before installing equipment, think about the lighting project. The use of fluorescent bulbs of daylight or white light will provide the necessary level of lighting for the garden. It is permissible to place the lamps close to the plants, as they produce a minimum amount of heat. Periodically, the plants should be rotated or swapped to achieve even growth.
A balcony garden requires extra lighting during the winter for crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. In March, you can add artificial light to lettuce sprouts, celery, and cabbage sprouts. Plants need light every day for 6 to 8 hours, but the total time should not exceed 30 days. It is better to make a project of additional lighting in advance, so that then it was easier to navigate which bed with plants on the windowsill will need artificial light.
Observance of temperature regime
Growing vegetables on a balcony in the summer is difficult because during this time the room can overheat considerably. To prevent this, it is necessary to shade the plants using gauze or paper. Water the plants generously and make sure they are sprayed with water from above using a sprayer. Containers with plants can be placed at home in containers with wet sand or sawdust to protect their delicate root system.
When frost arrives, the entire garden on the balcony moves smoothly into the rooms. If the balcony is glazed and located on the sunny side, the tomato harvest occurs almost until November.
Observance of air humidity parameters
To ensure the necessary level of humidity in the house, you can periodically ventilate the rooms where the vegetable garden is located. It is recommended to place dishes filled with water or wet sand near the plants. It is very good to use room humidifiers at home. Also a window sill garden needs to be sprayed with water. In the spring - summer period, this should be done in the morning and at lunchtime, in winter and autumn - exclusively at noon. Thinking about the design of the future garden, you can not ignore such an important parameter as humidity.
Ground selection
For the vegetable garden on the balcony to grow and bring a rich harvest, you need to choose the right soil to initially plant the seeds in it. It should be borne in mind that the soil from the garden plot is not suitable for this, because it may be infested with pests. The presence of toxic substances makes it impossible to use peat to organize a vegetable garden on the balcony.
More information on growing each crop at home can be found on the pages of our website. To do this, just follow the link to the right page and follow the recommendations of experts. And then a rich harvest will please you all year round.