The ultimate guide to indoor gardening

With so many of us are spending more time at home than usual, we're turning to new hobbies like gardening to keep busy. If you’ve been curious but not sure where to start, we’ve got you covered! Gardening expert Owen Reeves shared great ideas for indoor gardening, from house plants to microgreens and vegetables, and walked us through what products are needed for the process.

HOUSE PLANTS

While adding plants to your indoor space has its aesthetic benefits, there are also many other bonuses that you may not have considered before. Being in an environment filled with thriving plants, from forests to rural areas, can have lots of mental health benefits and this is something you can easily recreate in your own space as seeing the colour green produces a calming effect in humans. Houseplants are especially great for those that are new to gardening. The most important step in choosing a plant that’s right for your light situation:

• Low light areas: Pothos, Cast Iron Plant, English Ivy, Snake Plant, Philodendron, Peperomia
• Medium to bright light: Peace Lily, Parlour Palm, Ficus Alii, Ponytail Palm, Aloe Vera, Jade Plant, Sago Palm

Every year or two, it's recommended to repot your houseplant with fresh soil to add nutrients and make sure it's draining properly. You don't need a new pot for this, but it’s an opportunity to plat in a bigger pot if you want the plant to grow larger. Houseplants can live indefinitely in the same pot if you repot regularly. This can be done any time of year, but late winter and early spring are ideal as that’s when indoor plants do most of their growing.

Steps for repotting houseplants:

1. Water your plant a day or so before you're planning to repot (It tends to make it easier to remove from the pot).
2. Tip the pot over and gently tug the plant out. If it won't slide easily, use a small hand trowel to loosen the soil around the edges.
3. Once the plant is out, gently remove as much soil as you can from the top, sides, and bottom of the roots.
4. Loosen the roots gently with your hands and feel free to trim off large roots if they're growing in a circle around the root ball.
5. Rinse the pot and refill with a thin layer of fresh soil on the bottom (If the drainage holes are big, add a few stones to prevent soil from washing out).
6. Place the plant back in the pot. Make sure it's sitting at the same height it was before and add/take away soil from the bottom if needed.
7. Fill the sides with soil and gently pack, finishing with a light layer of soil on top.
8. Water slowly to moisten the soil but make sure it's not soggy.
9. Add some slow-release organic fertilizer on top for an extra boost, such as the Pro-Mix Fertilizer.

MICROGREENS

Microgreens are very young sprouts of a host of a variety of different leafy greens, herbs and veggies. From peas to beans to broccoli - the list is almost endless! Now is the perfect time to start your outdoor veggies inside to get a jump on the growing season and a longer/earlier harvest period. Typically microgreens are fairly quick germinating seeds that can be grown indoors all year round, with the help of a grow lamp, and on a windowsill inside from spring through early fall. They're extremely high in nutrients for their size, very flavourful, and are a wonderful addition to salads and many other dishes. We recommend growing them in a seeding tray or any shallow rigid plastic packaging. 

Steps for seeding microgreens:

1. Fill your seeding tray with 2-3 inches of high-quality organic-approved soil or soilless mix (PT Veg and Herb soil are perfect here) and level the surface of the soil but do not compress it.
2. Sow the seeds to the depth directed, 2-3x closer than recommended.
3. Mist the soil with a spritzer bottle. The soil should be as wet as a wrung-out sponge at all times, but never soggy.
4. Cover the tray with a plastic cover to keep humidity and heat in. This isn't critical, but it speeds up germination and reduces water needs.
5. Place the tray somewhere consistently warm until seeds germinate.
6. Once the seeds sprout, remove the cover and place them in as much sunlight as possible. Rotate the tray every time you water.
7. Harvest when plants form their first two leaves and they are hardened slightly. Pull the entire plant from the soil and either snip the roots off and compost or wash them thoroughly and eat the whole thing!

For lettuce and many greens, you can snip the top of the plant with scissors and it will regrow. Soil can be reused one or two times, but it's best to use fresh soil with each batch of seeds.

HERBS AND VEGETABLES

Spring is the perfect time to start your outdoor veggies inside to get a jump on the growing season and a longer, earlier harvest period. Long season and/or slow germinating edibles are ideal (sometimes critical) to start inside. These include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, strawberries, fennel, etc.

Some veggies, beans, peas, root veggies, onions and corn are not worth starting inside and should only be direct-sown in the garden or planter once the risk of frost is gone. 

You don't need anything fancy to get your veggies started, just something that will hold soil (ideally with drainage at the bottom), high quality organic bagged soil designed for edibles or seeds, and a spritzer bottle for watering. Keep the soil about as wet as a wrung-out sponge at all times

Seeds don't need light until the germinate, but they do like some heat. Place them in a consistently warm area. Once they germinate, put them in as much light or sunlight as possible and rotate them every time you water.

Herbs are great to start inside, and some herbs, like basil, parsley, chives, mint and cilantro can be grown inside all season if you have a sunny window, or a grow light. 

Soils

No matter what your planting, you're much more likely to have success if you're using high quality soils, fertilizers, and plant foods. PRO-MIX is a Canadian company that offers a huge array of products for all of your growing needs. 

PRO-MIX Organic Vegetable and Herb Mix is perfect for all your vegetable, fruit and herb garden needs, in the ground or in containers. It has exclusive technology builds stronger roots and gives healthier, bigger and plants that produce more fruit or foliage. It also already contains organic fertilizer that gradually feeds plants for up to three months to do a lot of the leg work for you!

PRO-MIX Organic Tomatoes, Vegetable and Fruit Garden Fertilizer 4-4-8 is designed to improve soil nutrition and optimize conditions for healthier plants. With a high potash formula that promotes the max. number of fruits, you're more likely to see a great harvest. And of course with all edibles, you want a fertilzer like this one that's listed for organic use.