Every spring I start my own seedlings for almost every vegetable I plan to grow that summer. Over the last few years as the farm has grown and I have started more and more seedlings, I found that I was running out of room and my family was beginning to complain. I had seedlings growing all over the house. At the same time I was becoming interested in trying to grow vegetables during the winter. My solution: build a basement greenhouse. I had a friend build a raised floor about 6 inches tall and 8 feet wide by 10 feet long. Then I put up 2×4 floor to ceiling supports in each corner and framed in a door. Then I bought greenhouse plastic and enclosed the entire space, including the ceiling, in the plastic. The last investment I made was in a 400 watt growing light that I installed in the center of the space and put on a timer so that it would go on at 7:00am and off at 9:00pm to give the vegetables 14 hours of light. The greenhouse was more successful than I could have imagined for both purposes and my family stopped complaining about my seedlings everywhere.
indoor greenhouse constructed in my basement
Last winter I grew basil, green beans, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, and cucumbers in the greenhouse all winter. In the spring I began to phase out the vegetables and replaced them with seed starting trays and then seedlings. I did add a few supplemental fluorescent lights that I already had for the seedlings because I was able to raise and lower the fluorescent lights at the seedlings grew. The greenhouse stayed warm enough in the winter with no extra heat source because of the heat the grow light gave off and the buildup of humidity. For seed starting I did use heat mats to speed germination but that probably wasn’t necessary. Now that all the seedlings have been brought outside I have turned off the light and will leave it off until early fall when I will start seeds for the fall and winter indoor crops.
If you have any questions about the indoor greenhouse, feel free to contact me and I will gladly answer them.
