How to Set Up an Indoor Gardening Room

Even avid gardeners don't always have the room to build a greenhouse or plant a garden. Don't let space stop you from pursuing your passion, though. You can easily turn a spare room into an indoor greenhouse. Not only does this provide you with a space to start seedlings for hanging planter or balcony use, it gives you room to grow summer produce and herbs, which will ensure that you'll have fresh fruits and veggies year-round.

Old tables

Flood trays

Free-standing grow lights

Soda bottles

Utility knife

Seeds

Soil

Water

Terra cotta pots

Choose a room with its own thermostat and plenty of south-facing windows. Rooms with southwest-, southeast-, east- or west-facing windows will do as well. Maintain the room's temperature at between 65 and 75 degrees.

Set up tables for your seedlings. Place them against walls away from the windows.

Place some large, plastic flood trays on the tables and bookend each table with free-standing grow lights. This provides a warm, controlled atmosphere for your seedlings.

Cut the 2-liter soda bottles in half with a utility knife.

Poke holes in the bottom half of each bottle for drainage.

Fill the bottles with soil and plant one to three seeds in each bottle.

Water the soil every other day to keep the seeds moist. As seedlings sprout, you can transplant them to new pots.

Plant purchased seedlings of tropical produce, flowers and herbs in terra cotta pots. The pots should be about 8 inches wide and 6 to 10 inches deep so that the seedlings can spread their roots.

Fill each pot with rich potting soil up to about 1 inch below its rim. Dig holes that match the size of the root ball to be placed in the pot.

Untangle the roots of each plant before setting them in the holes. Simply pull the sides of the root balls in opposite directions. Some of the roots will break. Don't worry; they'll heal and branch out once planted.

Cover the roots with about 1 inch of soil; add water until the soil is moist. About 16 ounces of water should be adequate.

Place the planted pots on tables near the windows. The plants should get plenty of sun during the day. Plants requiring less or indirect light can be placed on tables near the center of the room.

You can create a humid atmosphere in your grow room in one of three ways. First, you can spritz each of your plants every other day with room temperature water in a spray bottle. Second, you may set bowls of water around the room, letting them vaporize into the air. Third, you may place river rocks in each plant's flood tray and cover the rocks with water.