Indoor Greenhouse 101

The indoor greenhouse is mainly used for planting seedlings in preparation of the planting season as you can control the environment better indoors where it's unaffected by weather. The temperature indoors will keep the temperature of the miniature greenhouse under control. It's also renowned for the ability to grow plants that you wouldn't normally find in your area or to extend the period of growth throughout the year as well as really being able to plan your garden in advance and even for the growth of herbs and other more difficult plant growth.

Another unique feature of these smaller versions is the fact that they are easily constructed and can be as small as a cd cover or as large as an entire wall depending on what you intend to do with it.

The benefits of the indoor greenhouse are that you can adapt it to suit your needs and move it around the house as you see fit. A great feature of these little greenhouses is the functionality around the house as a decorative object as you can build it, or have it build in just about any shape or size regarding you can still open it up somehow in order to attend to the plants. They can also be build in a variant of different styles in order to make it look more appealing, styles that can be compared to a glass display cupboard, a bookshelf or even a corner cupboard for that empty corner in the living room.

It doesn't stop there though as there are several designs that just look like shelving with sheets covering what's inside. These are however the most common too as it is convenient to keep it in the garage or basement if the sole purpose is to promote growth. In some areas of the house, extra precautions should be taken to ensure that the immediate environment doesn't affect growth as rooms seem to vary in temperature, the worst of which is the basement which is normally considerably colder than the rest of the house, in such a room it's advised to place an extra layer of plastic sheeting around the greenhouse in order to keep the natural warmth generated by the plants inside.

The idea of an indoor greenhouse originated from growing racks on mushroom farms which are similar but more like a normal greenhouse. Strangely though, the guys who did it first kept the original name of growing racks and some people still refer to it in the same way, especially since some of the bookshelf designs still resemble the original thing and is still the most popular, these growing racks can contain up to 4 shelves that stand on the floor or it could be 1 shelf and stand on a table or be mounted to a wall, but remember that concrete is cold and this will definitely affect the plants growing nearest to it.

The idea is to place it where you have the most control over the changes in moisture levels and temperature. If it is possible however to expose these racks to sunlight, it should be done, but not if it means moving it around too much as some of the plants might be more frail than the one growing in the garden, this is after all why you would put it in there.

The key to making an indoor greenhouse work properly is situated in the lighting as all plants grow towards light and need light to grow, which means that it is imperative that every shelf should have its own lighting and there should be sufficient light throughout the entire growing rack. The best way to achieve this is to install fluorescent tube lighting stretched over the length of the shelf. But lighting is not the only factor to be taken into consideration as plants also need air and water to grow.

Therefore you must keep the air on the inside of the greenhouse as moist as possible, especially with seedlings. Be careful that you don't wet the plants too much as this will lead to decaying which will destroy everything. There is however a much lower risk of floral disease as there isn't any external contact with other flowers and plants. Removing weeds will also no longer be a problem if the soil is correctly treated beforehand.