Indoor greenhouses

How dedicated are you to gardening? If you’re the kind of person who spends the winter months poring over seed catalogues and gazing at the muddy, frosty or snowy expanse of your garden, desperate for spring, you might want to consider setting up an indoor greenhouse to extend your growing season. This means buying, or building a wooden or metal frame, supporting polythene panels and containing 40 watt fluorescent lamps on chains. You can consider a thermostatically controlled heated shelf to provide bottom heat for germinating seeds and rooting cuttings. Below your workbench you can store your junk etc.

If, however, you’re a bit of a novice, then for your first try, start small. Buy or make something simple that will grow a flat of plants. Use soil you mixed up last spring or pre-packaged soil mixes you’ve already used to grow plants like tomatoes through the summer, growing plants indoors should be enjoyable and fulfilling but if you commit to more than you can easily handle, the plants probably won't do well and you will become frustrated. Set up a few pots of bulbs and enjoy their spring smell in the depths of winter, that’s a good way to get started on the indoor greenhouse bug.

Regardless of what method you select, indoor gardening can be a breath of fresh air during those long winter nights and it’s a great way to help yourself through Seasonal Affective Depression (SAD) if you’re a sufferer as the extra light in the greenhouse, and the smell and feel of the plants gives a very strong sense of spring, which helps boost your mood.