First-time gardeners can look forward to a fairly long list of plants that have proven themselves to be quite newbie-friendly. You don’t necessarily have to have a green thumb to get into indoor gardening.
As long as you can stick to a schedule and you are sufficiently eager to garden, there are lots of low maintenance, low impact plants you can cut your teeth on, figuratively and literally, as you master indoor gardening.
Check out our article on the Kratky method, if you want to learn how to grow most veggies! It works great for lettuce in particular.
Here’s a short list of easy to cultivate plants. They’re listed in no particular order.
Lettuce
Lettuce is very easy to grow. It has very small seeds. You can put several seeds in one planting medium, and once it starts to sprout, you can weed out the seedlings to ensure that the stronger lettuce seedlings have enough space and access the nutrients to fully mature.
Scallions
Scallions are popularly known by their other name “green onions”. They grow from a small bulb or from seed.
Beginner gardeners usually use starter bulbs to get the hang of growing scallions. They don’t take much effort. You pretty much just plant them in your growing medium, water them regularly, and they pretty much grow on autopilot.
Carrots
Carrots are root crops that are surprisingly very easy to grow. You just need to plant carrot seeds into your growing medium and wait for the seedlings to sprout. Pick out the weak seedlings to make space for the stronger seedlings, and that’s pretty much it. They don’t require much hand cultivation and management for them to grow fully.
Radishes
Radishes grow very fast, and sometimes in only a matter of days. They’re a root veggie that produces a mildly pungent but juicy and sweet flavor. They’re also a great source of potassium, calcium, and magnesium. They’re rich in fiber and add a crunchy texture to salads and other meals.
Radishes don’t require too much attention, which makes them ideal for those just starting with a new greenhouse. Just burry them an inch into the soil spread out an inch from each other and add some organic compost. They’ll require sufficient water that keeps the soil wet but not too saturated for the roots to start decaying.
Onions
Onions are a vital ingredient in many tasty recipes. They’re also a very resilient plant and can survive even during wintertime. As soon as you notice their tops starting to wilt, they’re ready to be harvested. It takes about 3-4 months before you can pick them, ideally in the fall.
The easiest way to plant them is with onion sets, which have small bulbs intended for planting. They grow best in raised beds, and you can also grow them from seeds. In cold climates, the perfect time to plant them is during the spring, since they need milder temperatures at around 10C to germinate successfully. They do need constant feeding to grow into big bulbs, and it’s good to use a fertilizer that’s rich in nitrogen every couple of weeks.
Garlic
Many culinary experts consider garlic as a superfood that provides many health benefits. They have antibiotic properties and help prevent heart disease.
They’re also a great source of vitamin C and b6, as well as other essential nutrients and minerals the body needs. It’s often used in a lot of popular dishes around the world and is one of the easiest to grow in a greenhouse.
Cloves are divided from a fresh bulb and are pushed two inches into the soil while keeping their husks. If you want bigger bulbs, choose larger cloves to plant. Next, cover them with a layer of organic mulch composed of hay or dried leaves. After that, you can top them off with fertilizer compost.
Potatoes
Potato is another staple food and is an easy crop to grow that you can harvest all year round. Growing potatoes in a greenhouse is a sure way to protect them from frost. You can plant seed potatoes in beds just as quickly as in farm fields. All you need is to mix your soil with some organic fertilizer.
They can start to germinate out of the ground, and some gardeners even wait for this to happen before they start planting them. You can also cut large ones in half and plant both pieces separately. Just make sure that they have bulging eyes. It would help if you allowed the cut surfaces to harden for at least a day. It will prevent these exposed areas from rotting in the moist soil.
Kale
Kale is very popular nowadays in most farmer’s markets throughout the United States. It’s easy to see why. It’s a great source of fiber, it is very healthy, it has antioxidants, and it is also packed with nutrition. All the good stuff!
On top of this long and impressive list of advantages, kale is surprisingly easy to grow. You just need to plant kale seeds in your growing medium or in a strip and pick out the weak seedlings and everything pretty much goes on autopilot.
Microgreens
Microgreens are taking community gardening throughout the United States by storm. Ideally suited for indoor cultivation, microgreens don’t take up much space but grow quickly and cost quite a bit of money. As more and more discriminating diners look for the exotic and varied taste of microgreens, you can bet that you can make quite a bit of money with this type of indoor horticulture.
The surprising thing about microgreens is that there’s a wide range of plants that you can grow and sell as microgreens. Some are extremely easy to take care of in an indoor setting. So, if you’re looking for a great mix of high commercial value and ease of cultivation, the place to start are microgreens.
Keep the tips above in mind if you are a first-time gardener or if you are helping somebody who is. Indoor gardening doesn’t have to feel like you’re pulling teeth. There are crops out there that are fairly straightforward and easy to manage in an indoor setting.