Indoor Vegetable Garden vs Outdoor - Planning And Preparation
Posted: Monday, May 19, 2008
by Moses Chia
Vegetable gardening is a worthwhile project to undertake as the fruits of your labor can end up at your dinner table! However, you must first decide if you want to grow your vegetables indoor or outdoor. Both methods have pros and cons to it and you will need to consider conditions such as lighting and pest control as well. You need to consider your current situation to make a wise choice.
Although less is required, maintaining fertilizer levels can be tricky when gardening indoors. It's easy to accumulate too much. A lot of care must be used when trying to achieve an equilibrium of draining away excess water and keeping needed moisture. Indoor soil will not regulate itself as easily as outdoor. Overwatering is much more dangerous for your plants than underwatering.
When gardening outdoors, setting up an automatic watering system is easy and affordable. It can be harder to do this with indoor gardening. It is possible but it will probably cost a lot and be messy. It might not be worth all the trouble if you have too many containers.
Lighting usually isn't an issue with outdoor gardens if they are planned correctly. You should easily be able to provide your plants with five hours of sunlight per day, depending on the climate you live in. lighting provides another challenge for indoor gardening. If you can't find a windowsill that provides the proper amount of light and heat, you may find yourself having to move your plants around the house all day.
But it can be simpler to dictate the amount of light. If the sun gets too hot, you can easily close the shades or blinds to prevent burning. Automated systems have been designed just for this purpose. Put plants near the windows to help create a greenhouse effect of sorts and it saves you the trouble and money of building an actual greenhouse.
While diseases and insects are found in both situations, it is simpler to deal with indoors. Closer inspection and, usually, more chemicals are required for battling these things outdoors. Fungus is prone to grow due to condensation on the leaves on a cool evening. With outdoor gardens, insects have more opportunity to lay eggs and there will be less checks.
Many of the controls available today, whether chemical or organic, have very unpleasant odors and would not be suitable for indoor use. This is true of most insecticides. Plant-based oils have a more pungent odor and is more expensive than chemical sprays.
You know what suits you the best, so you should be the judge of which method of vegetable gardening to adopt. Each type will present it's own set of challenges, but if you commit to doing it right, your rewards will be great indeed. You'll be enjoying fresh and healthy vegetables in no time.
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Moses Wright loves to help fellow vegetable gardening enthusiast whenever possible. He started this site to share his experience and knowledge on vegetable gardening and vegetable gardening planning.
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