I’ve long mentioned my desire to plant a vegetable garden indoors. I’ve grappled with figuring out where and how I would set it up, what sort of mixtures I would use for different plants, how much light I could give them, what types of fertilizer I would need to get, and so forth. The limitations of an indoor apartment vegetable garden combined with the complex needs and desires of such a garden were daunting. I ordered books, I did research, I realized, to my increasing frustration, that the world was patting me on the head and going, “there, there, darling, wouldn’t you like some lovely flowers? Perhaps you won’t kill your next dull potted plant.”

That is, at least, until I remembered that I had done a hydroponic garden as a science experiment in high school (independent study, long story). We’d been given at some point an expensive hydroponic garden, everything included, by someone who’d grown fed up with it and given up. I was able to more than make it work, but in fact make it produce, even without fully understanding nutrients and pH levels, (worse, I didn’t entirely understand the science of which plants needed which nutrients, and as a result, all the plants got too much or too little of what they actually needed).

The benefits of a hydroponic garden are many, but let’s look at how they stack up against the limitations of an indoor container vegetable garden:

Suffice it to say, I discovered that old hydroponic system is still around and fully intact, if unused for about ten years. I’ll be setting up our storage closet in the coming weeks, dusting off the system, replacing necessary parts (presumably a new motor for water filtration), perhaps adapting some new functionality, such as an air stone, getting a sturdy and adjustable stand (and probably some new bulbs) for my light, buying a light timer, seeds, new grow media, pH tester and adjusters, liquid nutrients and a big ol’ floor mat to protect our carpeting.

I’m very excited to start growing a vegetable garden at home! It’s not quite as romantic as I’d originally envisioned, but it will be well-contained and protected, out of harms way, and out of our way, and hopefully we’ll get some wonderful yields!

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”