With the weather worsening as climate change progresses, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to successfully garden the traditional way outdoors. In the future, humans may be forced to grow most, if not all, produce indoors, perhaps even leading to periodical food shortages. To avoid a drastic, and forced, change in the future, there are many small things we can do. Why don’t we start now by educating ourselves and the public on varieties of ways to grow gardens successfully indoors with little space and with many rewards?
Climate change isn’t the only reason you should have an indoor garden. Indoor gardening can also be a great therapeutic way to de-stress the mind. A study published in 2015 in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology discovered that interactions with indoor plants can reduce physiological and psychological stress. The study was conducted by giving participants two different tasks to accomplish. One group was given the task of repotting a single houseplant while the other was expected to perform a simple computer-based task.
Participants, after completing the gardening task, were reported to have lower stress levels while the participants who completed the computer task experienced a spike in heart rate and blood pressure even though they were familiar with computer-based work.
In this way, working with plants may help individuals experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, or dementia, but gardening doesn’t only help those suffering from mental illnesses, it can also improve general brain function. A study done in 2019 at a South Korean Elementary school found that students who studied with live plants in the classroom were able to concentrate better than students who lacked contact with indoor plants.
Having indoor plants is associated with many more benefits such as increasing some individuals' productivity, and improving your quality of air, but maintaining an indoor garden can sometimes be a hassle. Perhaps you don’t have enough time to dedicate to the maintenance of your plants or simply aren’t home often enough to even have the chance.
Don’t give up now! Easy gardening systems exist in which you put in hardly any of your time or effort while in return, obtaining the product you want. Here are 4 ways to do it:
1) Create a Mason Jar Hanging Planter
If you are looking to facilitate your access to and cheapen the cost of using herbs in your kitchen, a mason jar hanging planter may be the perfect solution. By using a mason jar hanging planter system you can grow a wide variety of herbs all year round with little effort and little money. All you need for its invention is a mason jar partly filled with a material to act as drainage such as pebbles or marbles, and the rest filled with soil. From there, all you need to do is plant the herb in the soil and hang the jar from anywhere with sufficient sunlight. Just remember to water it.
2) Create a Bottle Garden
A bottle garden system requires very little maintenance as it hardly needs to be watered and can be unbothered for weeks at a time. The reason for the system's success is due to its resemblance to the plant's natural environment. This is done by cutting a clear plastic bottle in half with the bottom end holding the water, and the top containing the soil and plant. The plant and water are completely separated with a string of absorbent material being the only intermediate between the two with the function of transmitting moisture from the water to the roots of the plant in the container above.
3) Sprout Seeds
Yet another way to easily grow food indoors is by sprouting seeds. There are various kinds of seeds that can easily be grown on your kitchen counter and can have a tremendous positive impact on one's health. Such seeds include alfalfa, broccoli, clover, soybean, and pea. The process of sprouting them is simple. First, you need to soak the seeds for the appropriate length of time. This time depends on the seed. Next, you wet a towel with water and place it into a large-sized container. And lastly, you spread the seeds across the damp towel evenly and cover them until they sprout. You may need to spray water in the container occasionally to ensure the seeds stay moist.
4) Create a Deep Water Culture Hydroponic System
A hydroponic system is yet another gardening system that involves water fit for indoors. It's very similar to the bottle garden, only it's usually done on a much larger scale, meaning you can cultivate a lot more plants. To make an easy hydroponic system all you need is to place a plastic sheet with various holes across its surface on a 4-5 gallon tub. In each of these holes, you will need to place a DIY hydroponic cup. These cups can be made by cutting holes into multiple small regular plastic pots to allow water to reach the plants. Once this setup is complete and you have found a place with sufficient sunlight to suit the plant's growing process, you will be able to grow plants such as lettuce, basil, strawberries, tomatoes, and many more.
The biggest difference between a hydroponic system and other gardening systems is that plants grown using this method require the provision of fertilizers. A fertilizer commonly used for hydroponics is seaweed fertilizer, and it's commonly used by pouring 25ml-30ml of the concentrate per 10-20 litre of water. But, if you are looking for a cheaper way to provide your plants with the proper nutrients and you own fish, you can use your dirty fish tank water as a substitute.
As time progresses, the weather conditions of our area may become too extreme to sustain a healthy garden outdoors, forcing us to garden indoors. But, climate change isn’t the only reason you should do so. Having an indoor garden can bring many health related benefits such as improving general brain function and improving your quality of air. The 4 indoor gardening methods mentioned above require very little effort and money to maintain, making them suitable for almost everyone. If you are interested in starting your indoor garden using one of these 4 methods, visit the pamphlet below to have a step by step guide on how to make each one.
Happy Gardening!
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