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High-tech systems, tips and ideasfor indoor gardening

Click & Grow

In a world where you don’t know what you are eating is organic and chemical free or not, indoor gardening could make you self-reliable. If you practice it mindfully, it could also prove to be an extremely valuable hobby. Such practices are much more common in highly advanced countries like Japan. However, since most of the countries follow a similar development plan, sooner or later, you are bound to see indoor gardening in your city as well. Nevertheless, you can always be the one who sets the trend for others. If you think that it’s something too difficult for you, you can put your money of any of these high-tech systems. We assure you that these would make your task much easier. 

Indoor gardening has been made all the easier with the help of smart, cost-effective indoor gardening systems that automate nearly all the processes needed for proper plant growth. These systems will allow individuals to grow their favorite plants in their homes without putting too much effort into the process.

A lot of us love to grow plants but do not have the necessary space or time to take care of them in the proper manner. Well, it’s high time we stopped worrying about all these hindrances and started developing our green thumb. Given here are 7 hi-tech indoor gardening systems. These will literally redefine the way you grow and take care of your plants.

1. OPCOM Interactive Cloud Farm System

OPCOM Interactive Cloud Farm System

This smart hydroponic indoor gardening system comes with a plug and play feature which allows you to grow indoor plants with minimum hassles. The fully automated garden is also expandable and features 3 models to suit different growing needs. The system’s inbuilt camera and sensors monitor the crops on a continuous basis. Furthermore, they take care of them from seed to harvest via a blend of agricultural technology and photonics.

The manual control allows you to have a say in your plants growth. Moreover, while you can control the system remotely via an Android and iPhone app. Some of the other salient features of the OPCOM Interactive Cloud Farm and System include customized shipping containers. Furthermore, it also has 2000 plant capacity database, UV water sterilization, automated nutrient delivery system, automated pH adjustment, LED lighting arrays, sound and video cameras, etc.

2. Sprouts IO

Sprouts IO

Developed by a team at Cambridge, SproutsIO is an all-in-one indoor gardening system. It helps you grow your favorite plants as easily and efficiently as possible. The system is fully automated and comes with a unique hybrid hydroculture system which combines aeroponics and hydroponics. This system allows your plants to grow sans any soil. Therefore, it saves you the trouble of cleaning up after your plants. The hydroculture system does a clean job of sensing your plants’ needs in terms of water, light or nutrients. In addition, it provides the same to them in the right time. It also tracks their growth on a continuous basis, thus leaving you with literally no work to do in growing an indoor garden.

3. Boskke Sky Planter

Boskke Sky Planter

Don’t have enough shelf space in your home to grow a garden? Get yourself the Boskke Sky Planter, a garden which true to its name, hangs down from the ceiling. That’s right; the Boskke Sky Planter is a suspended indoor gardening system that makes use of the Slo-Flo irrigation system to minimize loss of moisture as well as evaporation. This means you get to enjoy growing your favorite plants without setting aside a dedicated space for the same or watering them day and night.

4. Click & Grow

Click & Grow

The Click & Grow planter is an indoor kitchen herb garden that comes with a kit containing seed cartridges, nutrients and a plant light for proper growth. All you need to do is fill the water reservoir at the bottom of the planter. Furthermore, the planter will take it from there and grow your garden without any additional help from your side.

5. Connect a Pot

Connect a Pot indoor garden

The Connect a Pot is a highly efficient and flexible indoor garden pot that prides itself on being a very low maintenance option for growing indoor plants. The system comes with a self-watering feature and is compact enough to be placed anywhere in your home. In addition, you can also connect the individual pots via magnets to create interesting designs, with the pots needing water only once in about 2 weeks or so.

6. WindowsFarms

WindowsFarms

This automated indoor vertical gardening system comes with a tower that provides the necessary nutrients and water to the plants whenever needed. The tower also cycles nutrient rich water from plant to plant via reservoir located at the base of the system. An electric timer indicates when the plants need water, thus ensuring that your plants get proper water at the right intervals.

7. CounterCrop

CounterCrop is a smart indoor gardening system

CounterCrop is a smart indoor gardening system that comes with a self-contained feature which uses LED lights to mimic the essential conditions needed for plants to grow, including sunrise, sunset and even changes in season. The system has over 50 dirt free growing pods where the seeds need to be planted in. Plant food and water needs to be added to the base. A remote control then allows you to program appropriate settings for the water and light cycles for optimum growth.

Innovative ideas to create an indoor garden

If you like gardening but lack of space is stopping you from pursuing your hobby, then we have some indoor gardening ideas lined up for you to experiment. These are not expensive to implement and yet make the place look unique. Let us look at them in the next few sections.

1. Turn it upside down:

Boskke Sky Planters,Known as Boskke Sky Planters, these look like just about any other hanging pot but if you look closely, you will find that these are hanging upside down. These are ceramic planters which defy gravity and consists of built in irrigation system as well as locking discs that properly secure soil as well as your plant, so you need not worry about the plant falling down.

2. Cultivating Mushrooms:

Cultivating MushroomsThere is good news for people who love mushrooms. Now they can cultivate them inside their house. Buildings that do not receive direct sunlight or wind are ideal for growing mushrooms as such humid conditions are best for mushrooms. There are now mushroom logs Called the Shiitake mushroom logs; available that can be easily colonized for three to four months and then they start providing output.

3. Vertical Garden:

Vertical GardenKnown as Wooly Pocket Vertical Garden; These are created from water bottles, which are hundred percent recyclable plastic, and each of the pockets in the garden kit can be used for growing succulents, herbs or any tropical plants.

4. Hanging Terrariums:

Hanging TerrariumsYou can now create your own mini garden that is full of small plants you like and hang them in glass spheres. You can hang them at different heights to utilize space properly and get a classy look. Each of these glass spheres are priced $29.95 and called Assorted Rogue Spheres.

5. Stacking Wall:

Stacking WallThe stacking wall planters are unique and allow you to stack up to any desired height based upon your requirements. Using these, you can from catching visual interest inside any room in the house.

Best Fruits you can grow in your indoor garden

You can have a delightful indoor fruit garden in an airy sunroom or conservatory or a glazed porch. Growing vegetables and herbs indoors is usually the norm, but some fruits can also thrive indoors. You can use organic fertilizers thus ensuring that your homegrown fruits are pesticide free. You’ll need containers of at least 30 cm (1 foot) diameter and a bit more in depth. As the plants grow in size, you can move them into small tubs of larger pots. Annual pruning can keep the size convenient. When the plants mature, you just have to remove the top soil and replace it with compost every spring. Here’s a list of some fruits you can grow indoors to create your very own fruit garden:

1. Apricots

Semi-St.Julien, Goldcot and Shipley varieties of apricot are compact and highly productive, when grown in pots, especially if you stand them against the sunny wall of your conservatory. You can hand pollinate the flowers with a paintbrush in order to ensure fruits.

2. Mulberry

Mulberry is extremely slow growing, and if you start from a seed, it might take up to ten years to produce fruit. Buy an organically grown dwarf or semi-dwarf variety, which will bear fruit that ripen in summer. 13-21 degrees Celsius temperature is ideal for this plant. It can be kept indoors in a warm and sunny place. 

3. Grapes


A grapevine provides shade, looks ornamental and can climb walls or the roof of your conservatory. It needs plenty of ventilation or else mildew might spoil the fruit. The vines must be shortened to two buds every winter.

4. Nectarines and peaches

You can grow nectarines and peaches, natural dwarf varieties that can produce fruit on short 75 cm / 30 inch stems. They need a temperature of 10-13 degrees Celsius until the fruit sets, after which higher temperature of 18-21 degrees Celsius is required by the plant. The plants do well in good ventilation and warm and sunny location.

5. Dwarf pomegranate

The small variety of pomegranate is ideal for your indoor garden. It grows only up to 3 feet in height and its bright, scarlet flowers look beautiful. Miniature fruits can be seen in autumn and it does well in sunlight and good ventilation.

6. Strawberries

Enjoy strawberries and cream with strawberries from your indoor fruit garden. Plant alpine strawberries in colourful pots and place them on sunny windowsills. The fruits can be enjoyed from early summer days until the middle of autumn. Large sized strawberries also do well, and to force them to bear fruit early, plant them in autumn in 5-6 inch size pots and place them in a well lit room.

7. Pineapple

Pineapples can also be grown in pots, giving your fruit garden a nice, tropical touch.

8. Figs

All varieties of the fruit thrive indoors if their roots have enough room to grow, and the Negro Largo variety does extremely well as an indoor plant. 13-18 degrees Celsius is the best temperature for fig plant. The plant does not require direct sun. It needs organic fertilizer two to three times in its growth season. Prune it in both winter and summer to control the exuberant growth.

9. Cape gooseberries

Ground cherry and Cape Gooseberry are bushy plants which have small white flowers and cherry sized small red or yellow fruits. They look gorgeous when they are grown in large pots (1 foot diameter) near windows in direct sunlight.

Indoor gardening tips you can try out for the winter

In winters there’s usually no real way to get outside into the garden to grow fresh greens. If you’re seeking an alternative, consider growing greens (plants and vegetables) indoors. In the winters, plants will not just clean the air inside the house, but will also provide you and your family some healthy, organic foods grown yourself.

1. Using recycled wine bottles vertically

Using recycled wine bottles verticallyEmpty wine bottles don’t find a lot of reuse purpose at home. But products likeBioCity’s indoor vertical veggie garden can help. Developed by designers at BioCity, Montreal, the beautiful installation uses reclaimed wine bottles which can be filled with soil to grow anything from cherry tomatoes to strawberries. Ideal for growing all types of veggies indoors, the contraptions is even more exciting since it’s cost effective and does not require a lot of space.

2. Pod garden system

Pod garden systemDesigned by a group of students, who call themselves Greenfingers, the Pod garden system is a compact gardening system for the indoors. The system developed at the University of Auckland uses Fogponics for growing greens indoors. Fogponics is a subset of hydroponics, which employs nutrition rich solution to transfer nutrition to suspended plant roots through vaporization. Interestingly, one can join a couple of pod’s together (depending on the space available) to grow additional plants.

3. Mason jar garden

Mason jar gardenDeveloped by Summer Rayne Oakes, the creative DIY gardening project is a wonderful herb garden that can be placed anywhere in the house. The amazingly nifty creation has areclaimed wood strips mounted onto the wall. The strips have inexpensive plumbing parts attached to it, which can be used to fasten jars used for gardening. The indoor vertical garden is completely eco-friendly and easy to make, in case you want to try your hands at building one.

4. Vertical Fogponic garden

Vertical Fogponic gardenGrowing food indoor is generally dependent on the kind of space you have available. When space is a crunch, a vertical gardening system indoor can be a viable alternative. Similar to the Pod garden system, this vertical garden (Fogponic Unit) also uses Fogponics for growing veggies and plants indoors. The vertical planting system allows nutrition to reach the suspending plant roots through vapors. All kinds of veggies and plants can be grown in this Fogponic Unit.

5. Creative folding window gardening system

Creative folding window gardening systemLiving in an apartment without a garden or balcony can have their own advantage, but they leave you with no place to grow plants and vegetables in case you’re interested. If you too live in a small apartment deprived of an outdoor space, try this DIY project to grow a garden indoors.

The folding window garden is brainchild of French designers Barreau&Charbonnet. The pivoting window garden dubbed VoletVégétal lets you maximize the space available. It allows you to place your garden on the window, which can either be laid out flat in open view or kept upright in closed position. In case you’re interested, you can create your own pivoting window frame which can hold planters.

Summary

There are endless ways you can transform everyday household items into clever gardening systems for indoor gardening. It’s only about willingness to have a garden that you can use to grow your own organic veggies or beautiful flowers.Gardening is a hobby for many of us, but many times space constraints hold us from expressing our passion. Now there are options available for you to make your own indoor garden and fill it up, as you like. These ideas for creation of indoor garden are worth trying out at home and are quite affordable as well so that most people can implement them in their homes.Having an indoor fruit garden can save you money and you can have the satisfaction of watching your fruits grow. You can enjoy seasonal fruits fresh from your garden, which are both organic and healthy.

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