Growing indoor food help

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

anticuchos

Assistant Cook
Joined
Sep 22, 2005
Messages
48
Hello,

I would like to grow some plants indoor for cooking.

The products from the local market are lousy. They are chemical-sprayed, scarred/rashed, contain pale patches, mushy, and expensive!

Not to mention the numberous hands that have touched it before I put it in the shopping bag!

I plan to grow something in my room. Yes, it has to be my room since its not my house. I rent, so this is the only place I can keep my stuff.

So, I plan to grow something indoors. Like tomatoes. Here is where I need some help: I am a newbie. :( Hopefully, some of you friendly fellows will help me out.

1. If I introduce a plant(s) into my room, would that invite critters? I don't want to things crawling up my bed!

2. Umm... Just water, light and fertiliser is all I need to nourish it?

3. Can I grow with fluorescent light? At night, I would leave the lights on for the plant(s).

The thing is, I work night shifts. So in the day time, I sleep with the blinds down.
 
This would be a fun challenge for you. I do this through the cold MI winters in my house. I like peppers, spices, garlic, ginger and tomatoes! I would invest in a good grow light though. I have one with a goose neck light that I can clamp onto anything and aim it where I want! I have a bird of paradise and pineapples from my son's graduation party three years ago still growing. I do have to mist them frequently as the furnace and fireplace take the moisture out of the air. I have tried water trays beneath but never saw much difference! I have never had unwanted crawlies inside the house. In fact I'm going to grow my tomatoes in the glasshouse next year as I cannot stand those tomato worms! Grow light, fertilizer, water and love will make them grow! Have fun and experiment. Will keep track of this thread and see how you are doing!
 
meow, i never thought about growing garlic inside...how's that work? i have several tomato plants and jalepeno pepper plants inside right now. everything is doing great - i have picked lots of tomatoes already! i LOVE garlic though and would like to try that, too. suggestions?
 
Callie......I love fresh garlic and always have several bulbs around. When they are older and the cloves start growing through the outer skin I will break the clove off and stick it in dirt. It continues to grow. I plant the green growing side up! I have never grown bulbs that look like the store-bought, they are small but really pack a punch with the flavor. They look like onions growing! I also have used the green stalks in cooking, kind of the same flavor but milder. I use one of those long plastic planters for porches and such, prolly 8 inches deep and it seems to do fine. I just love growing things! When I buy ginger root I look for one with lots of buds and cut them in sections and plant them the same way. They are really an exotic looking plant! I started doing this a while back because I didn't want to waste or for them to rot. Google "growing garlic" and see what comes up! Have fun.
 
Thanks so much for the info, meow! I've got one of those planters...I don't think it's quite that deep. I'm gonna give it a try! :)
 
Um... what tomato worms!? I really don't like pests.

How tall does a tomato plant grow to?

Also, something just came to mind. I heard having a plant in the room is bad because at night (or dark), the plant uses oxygen, and during the day it converts carbon dioxide to oxygen. Is it going to be a big problem!? I don't want to die with a blue face as my tomatoes live with a red face.

EDIT: How tall can a green and red pepper plant grow up to?
 
Last edited:
Anticochos.....Tomato worms are 3 to 4 inches long when mature and about 3/4 inch around. They are the larva of the sphinx moth. They eat the leaves of the plants. I have always had them when the plants are in the garden. I don't spray pesticides as my 6 cats are always out in the garden with me. I've had heirloom tomatoes in a very large pot grow 9 feet tall. Had to tie them up! The larger the pot, the larger the plant. You want to try and fool the plant into believing that it is growing in mother earth and has enough room for a good root system. I had to hand pollinate them as there were no bees and such around. I've never heard about plants being lethal as far as oxygen intake. I had 92 indoor plants last winter, the kids were home for the holidays and said it looked like a jungle. I just can't refuse those plants at the store that are dying, I buy them at half price and bring them home to nurse them back to health! Just google search tomato worm and see what comes up. Before you destroy the worm make sure it is a tomato worm and not the luna moth larva. Where do you live? Here in Michigan if one plants tomatoes the worms are a given! yuk!
 
I live about the same latitude as Michigan. It's autumn now for me, the price of live-food is starting to increase.

Another reason why I might think about growing my own food indoors as winter is coming and the price of live-food will be more expensive.

When you say your tomatoes always comes with these tomato hornworms, you mean in the garden, right?

Does this tomato hornworm survive indoors? Where does it even come from!? Moths laying eggs on the leaves? If so, what are the chances of me getting one indoors?

Any other critters that might crawl around my plants and have a chance of making its way to the bed of my clothes?

9 feet tall!!!? Is this one of those exaggerating that farmers do all the time!? :p

If not, how can I keep it around 3 or 4 feet tall and still have great tomatoes? My lamp does reach that high.
 
Anticuchos....The worms are an outside garden thing! I guess it's the moth laying eggs....I really don't know. I cut back the tomatoes to 5 feet tall and pollinated them with a small paintbrush. When the blossoms appeared I touched the center of each one with the paintbrush and kept spreading the pollen around. I read that somewhere. It did work. I also knew someone that owned a greenhouse and he would use a leaf blower to spread the pollen, he suggested that I use a blow dryer as my room is smaller. It seemed kinda rough to blow the plants with a dryer so I used the paint brush method. If you have time, do a google search for container gardening, the sites have a lot of info. I'm still basically learning but do enjoy the challenge. We are supposed to be in the Fall mode too but today was high 80's and humid! I want Fall, crunching leaves when I walk and the smell of winter approaching! I like your name, Anti=against and cuchos=?
 
You can try growing mushrooms from one of those kits. They don't need light so you could grow them in a closet if you wanted to. You'll just have to get over having a big hunk of rotting wood with fungus growing all over it next to your clothes! :LOL:
 
Thanks a lot, Silent Meow.

silentmeow said:
I like your name, Anti=against and cuchos=?
It is nothing like that. Anticuchos is a dish native to Peru and some parts of Ecuador. The origin of the word is probably Incan rather than Latin.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Anticuchos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_cuisine#Some_typical_main_dishes_of_Peruvian_cuisine

Some people cannot stomach it because of what it is made from. But I am fine with it since I don't recognise it when I eat it. It is BBQ'ed beyond recognition, very tasty, and the aroma is very strong. And the juicy and spicy taste of it just makes me reach for another stick rather than a glass of water.
 
anticuchos....that actually sounds great. I tried cooking beef heart once but since I didn't cook it for anywhere near 10 hours, that was prolly why it didn't turn out! That is definently a long slow cook but I'll bet it's tender. I like things on skewers! Made chicken satay a lot when our exchange student was here. My Thomas, unfortunately is a meat, taters and gravy type of guy. The look on his face when served something "different" is priceless!
 
Anau said:
You can try growing mushrooms from one of those kits. They don't need light so you could grow them in a closet if you wanted to. You'll just have to get over having a big hunk of rotting wood with fungus growing all over it next to your clothes! :LOL:

Can't be much worse than Tom's work boots stuffed with dirty socks! Have you grown mushrooms? I have always wanted to try but it seemed like a lot of work and I can get portabellos anytime at the store. I do wish I could grow the morels but alas they are strictly wild and must be hunted and collected!
 
It might be pretty hard to find tomato plants this time of year and growing from seed is a bit of a job in itself. You can grow Patio tomatos or shrub tomatos indoors OK both of these need no support and will produce a lot of tomatos. Don't try any vine ones and Use a good potting soil. do not use garden soil. You can get potting soils for veggies that are vary balanced. If you want to fertalize you can use any tomatos fertalizer but you can go organic as well and use an organic fertalizer I prefer organic myself. I grow ginger indoors only and have not tried garlic but might just give that a try as when ever I put it in the garden its never any good for me. I have my lemon thyme in the house I need that all winter. Its great for respetory problems. I am bringing in my Lavendar this year. I grow everything in 12 to 14 " pots or 15 litre buckets. I am not sure what a 15litre bucket would be in gallons likely about 8 gallons but a 5 gallon would do as well. This is rather long but if you have any questions about container growing or growing indoors please as I used to run a container gardening email list.
 
silentmeow said:
Can't be much worse than Tom's work boots stuffed with dirty socks! Have you grown mushrooms? I have always wanted to try but it seemed like a lot of work and I can get portabellos anytime at the store. I do wish I could grow the morels but alas they are strictly wild and must be hunted and collected!

lol, no I haven't tried growing them before. They have so many kinds available now like shiitake, oyster and portabello.
 
Back
Top Bottom