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!

When I was a kid, my mom grew all kinds of stuff in our teeny tiny backyard garden. Fat, juicy tomatoes, radishes, tiny little strawberries, and zillions of flowers. Our garden was wonderful. It always amazes me to think how much my mom attempted – and often succeeded at doing – in that tiny little house. She would cook feasts, bake tins of shortbread cookies, assemble furniture, still somehow had time to finish her degree, work long hours, be a mom, and spend time with me just hanging out. In addition to all her home cooking and gardening, we’d hit up our local indie video store and rent a few movies, order a large pizza and a totally junk food salad drenched in oil and vinegar dressing that, to be honest, was mostly oil.

In the giant bookshelves she assembled, she kept books on everything. She tried her hand at canning and preserving, made her own lace, (because it was fun and interesting, not because we really needed lace), and was generally pretty awesome. As I get older, I’m realizing increasingly how much I take after her. It feels spontaneous and unprovoked, like a sudden jolt of cosmic inspiration, but it’s most likely the best parts of my mom coming out.

I’ve decided I want an indoor container garden. I had actually been looking into this for some time, exploring different kitchen herb gardens and other sissy hydroponic systems that were absurdly pricey for what they actually did. In researching, I decided that what I really want to do is create a container vegetable and herb garden. It’s amazing what you can grown in containers. Here’s what I plan to eventually order over time from burpee: