Let’s start discussing on Indoor Farming or Indoor Gardening in simple Q and A format to keep this episode interesting.
- What is Indoor Gardening or Indoor Plantation?
It simply means growing plants indoors. This might be at a residential home or an office building or any other enclosed area.
- What are the Types of Indoor Gardening?
Indoor gardening can be
a. Container gardening which is the most common and the simplest type,
b. Hydroponic gardening which is growing plants in water using various techniques,
c. environment agriculture,
d. vertical farming and more. We will discuss these later in various posts of this series.
- What are the basic components of Indoor Gardening?
The Three basic components or requirements are:
a. Water or moisture,
b. Growing Medium like potting mix for container gardening.
b. Light Source which can be natural light or a Plant Grow lights like LED grow lights.
c. Plant Support as they grow. We will discuss these in detail in next post.
- What are the benefits of Indoor Gardening?
- Grow anything anytime! Yes, you can grow anything at anytime of the year using indoor gardening. This is really important for those countries and zones which receive very less hours of sunlight. Owing to recent technological advancements, especially the usage of LED grow lights, indoor gardening has become pretty convenient and you can grow any type of flower, food and any ornamental plant, regardless of the weather and the time of the year.
- Air Purifying Plants: As we all know, plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, while the human body does exactly complete opposite. Having plants in and around your house will drastically improve the quality of air you breathe. Many air purifier plants filter the air around the plants and absorb toxic gases such as benzene and formaldehyde. You can check a detailed video on NASA recommended air purifying plant list from HERE.
- Grow Fresh Herbs and Vegetables organically for you Kitchen. This I feel, is the most important benefit. I understand, this may not be so easy practically as it sounds. Though not indoors, I have always recommended organic vegetable gardening in your home or terrace in containers.
In our next post, we will discuss on the principles of indoor gardening and things you need to set up a basic indoor garden.
Happy Gardening!
Scientifically, this happens through Crassulasian Acid Metabolism (CAM) type of photosynthesis can produces oxygen in night. Normally for Oxygen to be release there has to be photosynthesis which occurs only in the presense of light whether natural light or your indoor lights. Here is the list of these plants:
- The Areca Palm: Its an indoor plant and does well in filtered light or bright indirect light. It needs to be watered often. For One Person, Keeping 4 such plants of about 3-4 feet height in your room can provide best results.
- Snake Plant also known as Mother-In-Law’s Tongue or Sanseviera plant: This plant is very hardy plant and can tolerate any light conditions and also requires less watering like weekly once or max twice. For One person, 6 to 8 plants are recommended for best results.
- Money Plant: This am sure all of us are aware of its care tips. It prefers indirect light and needs to be watered once a week or twice a week. For one person, three plants of atleast 18 inches are recommended.
- Gerbera Daisy or Orange Gerbera (Gerbera Jamesonii): This is a beautiful flowering plant unique for its ability to release lots of oxygen at night. Particularly very beneficial for those suffering from sleep apnea and breathing disorders like kids with adenoids and other similar disorders. The only drawback is it’s a flowering plant and needs sunlight specially in its flowering season that’s spring and summer. Also it needs daily watering. What you can do is, shift the plant to sunlight daily or alternate days for best results.
- Neem Tree: This is a good option if you have your garden just across your bedroom window and keeping a neem tree close to the window can be a good option.
- Aloe Vera: This can be easily kept indoors in your bedroom. They are easy to care and require very less watering and do well in direct light or shade. You can keep about 4-6 plants in your room for best results.
- Christmas Cactus: This is a succulent and easy to care plant which needs less frequent watering and does well in indirect bright light.
- Peepal Tree – that’s Ficus Religiosa or the sacred fig where the great Gautam Buddha achieved enlightenment according to buddhism: This tree has really interesting facts and myths. People often believe sleeping at night under this tree, you will be found dead in the morning. Sounds funny. Some say this is the tree which release loads of oxygen during day and loads of carbondioxide at night and hence sleeping under this tree will kill the person due to suffocation from excess carbondioxide. Actually this is not true. The peepal tree releases oxygen in the night too, though in smaller amounts.
- Orchids also release oxygen during the night time though in small amounts.
- Tulsi / Holy Basil– like similar to neem tree – you can plant these just outside your bedroom window.