Your Summer Vegetables Indoors Nursery
Every gardener loves growing summer vegetables like peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber and pumpkins, plus basil. But they aren’t really the easiest vegetables to grow. They take long before they flower and produce fruits, hate cold temperatures and require quite some maintenance. These summer vegetables won’t thrive as long as temperatures are below 15 degrees celsius (around 50F). They really like it nice and warm, day and night!
But of course it can be done, also in an Easy Urban Garden. So let me talk you through the most important steps on how to grow these summer vegetables. And one of the requirements, you guessed it, is making a temporary indoors nursery.
Sowing summer vegetables needs to be done roughly between half February and half April, starting with peppers, followed by the tomatoes and then the zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin. But in most areas in Europe and North America the temperatures are still way too cold during these months for these warmth loving plants.
The only option is to pre-sow them indoors and to lovingly nurture them into relatively large plants until they can finally go outside in mid-May.
Many gardeners will tell you. That you need all sorts of fancy equipment to grow plants indoors, but honestly I am doing it now for years without any extra lights or heating. I just make sure I do not start too early and have my plants really next to the window without direct sunlight on them to prevent them from burning.
Let me tell how I work.
First of all I of course use my own soil mixture and add a bit more vermiculite to it. So half Easy Urban Gardening soil mixture and half coarse vermiculite. You can also germinate the seeds in pure fine vermiculite. You then just have to transplant the seedlings quicker.
Second you need containers. I use plastic containers without holes in the bottom and with a lid. But of course you can also use sowing trays, little plant pots or these fancy little pots made out of paper or other organic material. Personally I don’t use the latter ones as you are actually supposed to transplant your seedlings with that pot into bigger pots and in the end into your garden, but my experience is that my plants don’t grow as easy and quick with those pots and I even find them back in my garden after I take out the plants 4-5 months later.
Okay having the soil mixture and a container we’re ready to sow. Make sure the soil is nice moist without being wet as you won’t water your seeds until after they sprouted. Put 2-4 seeds on top of the soil and sprinkle about half a centimetre of soil over them and cover the container. And now you wait for your seedlings to pop up.
Once they are about 4-5 cm tall you transplant them into a bigger pot. This is best done using a spoon, carefully spooning it out of the tray or container. You repeat the transplanting over the next weeks every time your plant grows too big for the pot it is in. This might be 3-4 times.
Important now is that you make sure it gets enough light, so place it near the window, but not in the direct sunlight as that would burn the leaves. Also turn the pot regularly, so your plant doesn’t grow to one side.
When you have been taking good care of your plant until half May it is time to harden it by bringing it outside during the day. Every day a bit longer, but still having it indoors for the night for about a week. When temperatures are guaranteed over 15 celsius you can plant it into your garden.
So now have a good look around and decide where you could grow your plants. Mine are in front of the guest room window, on top of the dog’s box in the lounge and at one side of our dining table. You can still sow tomatoes now early April and zucchini, cucumber, pumpkins and basil over the next two weeks until half April.
Do you feel like you could do with a bit more help you can join my beginners course Your Urban Paradise or my more advanced course Your Summer & Autumn Garden now.