It is not uncommon to find apartment buildings that do not have balconies and patios, and that can create a bit of a dilemma for the occupants if they want to have a container garden with something like tomatoes and peppers. Unless the building manager lets the occupants place containers on an outside walkway — assuming the building has outside walkways for the upper floors — the tenants are left with basically no option if they want to grow some vegetables or fruit at home. Some apartments are blessed with sunny windows with lots of space, but for those that are not, any plants in the apartment are not going to get the sunlight they need to thrive. This is where LED growlights come in. The lights, focused on the plants, provide the extra light wavelengths the plants need to flower and fruit properly.
Systems for growing fruit and vegetables indoors require watering systems and light systems. LED growlights come in single-wavelength colors like blue and red in addition to multiwavelength white. This lets people provide selective lighting to encourage the growth of leaves, such as on herbs, and flowers, such as on plants like strawberries. LED growlights have a great advantage in that they do not use much energy and do not give off a lot of heat, so they will not cause water to evaporate more quickly, which would dry out the plant, not will they add heat to the interior environment in summer. That does mean people growing plants inside have to be careful not to get the leaves wet because they might not dry off very quickly, which is an invitation to a lot of plant diseases. However, with careful watering and attentive care, anyone trying to grow plants with LEDs as a light source can succeed.
Being able to grow their own vegetables and fruit means people know exactly what they are ingesting. The only pesticides are those that they applied themselves, so if they have decided not to use anything or to use only organic pest control methods that are not toxic to humans, they can have relatively clean food. People who can grow their own food are also not beholden to market prices unless seedlings suddenly become expensive. With the number of fruits and vegetables that one plant can produce, though — some varieties of cherry tomato plants can produce more tomatoes than anyone knows what to do with — the cost of the seedling quickly dwindles in comparison, especially if it is something that traditionally costs a lot, like organic strawberries. Having a home garden also encourages people to eat more fruits and vegetables as they are right there and, other than washing, do not need preparation in many cases. So many older stories have children picking berries off bushes, only to eat half of them before the berries hit the basket; fruit grown indoors with LED growlights can be just as fun to pick and eat.
Growing food indoors has another couple of advantages; the grower controls the weather, in a way, and kids can see how plants grow and transition from seedling to fruiting stage. They can see just how quickly zucchini grows — some might say how it grows out of control — and while this is something they could technically do with an outside garden, it is much easier to walk over to a plant that is indoors at any time of day or night. Waking up to see what happens to plants in the dark in the middle of the night is not going to happen as often unless the kids are really dedicated.
This entry was posted in Home & Garden by Jim Boogie. Bookmark the permalink.	
← Previous Previous post: Levelling A Wooden Floor With Hardboard
Next → Next post: How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs In The Most Effective Way Possible