Indoor food growing advice

[refaelsh]

Hello all,

I need advice please. I live in Israel, and land here is very expansive. To buy land and build Your own house (with a garden) is extremity expansive.
So I have a flat. But I do want to grow My own food, but I don't have a garden.
Google is full of posts/sites/blogs on how to grow food in a small garden behind You house.
Can somebody suggests a good book/site/blog on how to grow food indoors?

Thanks.

[Larabeth]

http://greatist.com/health/best-plants-to-grow-indoors

[ahoy]

Do you have a patio or balcony? You can always grow herbs in a sunny window.

I have a garden, but I also love to grow in pots.

[refaelsh]

http://greatist.com/health/best-plants-to-grow-indoors

Thank You! This is actually quite a good site with lots of info.

[refaelsh]

Do you have a patio or balcony? You can always grow herbs in a sunny window.

I have a garden, but I also love to grow in pots.

No patio/balcony. I do have one sunny window (its very large - floor to ceiling, 3 meters wide).

[Mongoose]

I have a very detailed book called The Edible Indoor Garden by Peggy Hardigee. It has a copyright date of 1980 and I got it used. It has a lot of information about growing food indoors and the requirements of different plants.

Given your window, Google window gardens. There are hydroponic systems (the coolest made from recycled 2 liter plastic bottles. You don't have to buy a system...try hacking one from Internet plans (I believe there are some blogs/posts on how to do this on the cheap). You can go vertical and get quite a few planters in that kind of space. Even if you don't go for hydroponic, vertical is definitely your friend.

If you are new to all this, my advice would be to start with salad greens (very forgiving) and move on as you develop your system.

[The_path_less_taken]

Lemon trees are very forgiving. Can you put a big pot (5 gallon size?) on a porch? In Israel I imagine it could be outdoors 10+ months of the year. I'm at 4500ft elevation in the western USA and I can keep them out for most of the year, although they're inside now.

Sprouting mung beans is easy/cheap. You can buy a 50lb sack that will probably last you 10 years....delicious on pita bread with some cheese and salsa on top.

[Goldielocks]

If you install grow lights (flourescent tubes in cool and warm) about five inches above your plants, you can grow food inside, away from your window too.  Hang them on chains and move them up as the plants grow.

The best success will be leafy greens or fast growing items like peas.  Many fruiting plants like a lot of sun or take quite a while -- those should be near the window if you try them.     I have only grown herbs and lettuce/ spinach this way, the rest of the plants I used to grow were flowers for planting outside when it warmed up.

[Axecleaver]

Second the grow lights. One nice benefit of grow lights is that you can pick the light spectrum for what you're growing - tomatoes like slightly redder light, for example. You can also hack the fruiting cycle by changing the hours of "daylight" with a timer. Use florescent or LED lights, you can get the lamps much closer to the plants without heat damage, and you'll save on electric costs. The energy from a light is equal to the inverse square of the distance, so closer=better.

You may also be interested in hydroponic fish farms. Easy DIY project that uses fish to fertilize plants, the plants filter out the ammonia and turn it into nitrogen. You'll get delicious indoor food and low-cost protein. http://hydroponicsgrower.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Aquaponics.jpg

[refaelsh]

I have a very detailed book called The Edible Indoor Garden by Peggy Hardigee. It has a copyright date of 1980 and I got it used. It has a lot of information about growing food indoors and the requirements of different plants.

An excellent suggestions. I will try and get this book second hand (there are no English books at the local library). Thanks :-)

Google window gardens

Nice keyword. I tried a lots of different keywords, but they were all bad - this one is good. Thanks :-)

[Goldielocks]

Try "Vertical Window Garden"  and "Windowfarm"

http://our.windowfarms.org/

I want to try this, but we do not get enough sun in the winter here (Oct through April).  I bet you do, though!
The best part is that, compared to my table with plants on it, vertical growing frames take up little space.

[refaelsh]

Try "Vertical Window Garden"  and "Windowfarm"

I will try. Thanks.

http://our.windowfarms.org/

Cool site. I will definitely use it. Thank You very much :-)