An Indoor Greenhouse

In a previous article, I talked about indoor gardening. One of the challenges I faced to growing produce indoors was providing my plants with enough light. In wintertime, the sun is sporadic and short-lived, and not many windows provide southern exposure. In spring and summer, the sun is too high to even shine in. And I have another problem: the dog gets into my plants, as potting soil is a tasty delicacy for her.

So I have come up with an idea for an indoor "greenhouse", or in my case, a blackhouse:

The neighbors who can see this contraption through the window must surely think we're up to something very strange. What this is one of those portable closets that zip shut. I got it at Target for $40. It has a steel frame with a zippered cover completely enclosing it. There are two hanging racks from which I suspended two 20-inch plant lights I purchased at Lowes. With a shelf rigged up in the middle, I can get two levels of plants going in this little plant house.

Here it is open and loaded:

The lights are suspended via a crude pulley system that will allow me to raise them as the plants grow. Both lights are plugged into a 3-plug extension cord, which sneaks out the back of the closet and into a outlet timer. I have the timer set to come on for 15 hours a day so I don't have to worry about turning the lights on and off manually.

With it zipped up, this closet retains what little heat that is given off by the lamps. Moisture can gather in there, too, and the dog cannot get into it. It can literally go anywhere in the house, since the lighting is all artificial. The whole setup cost about $80.

The photo above was several weeks ago. Here are those same two plastic containers as of now. The one in the front is watercress, and the one in back is various salad greens:

One change I would like to make is to double the lights. It seems that one bulb is not enough per shelf, and the plants are bending as much as they can to reach the bulb. Early results also indicate that scallions do not thrive in this environment. Full report to follow once the experiment is complete.