Learn ideas for designing your vegetable garden in this free online video guide to vegetable gardening. Expert: Scott Reil Contact: www.safelawns.org Bio: Scott Reil is an accredited nurseryman and longtime horticulturalist with over two decades of experience in the field. Scott is now working for www.safelawns.org. Filmmaker: Christian Munoz-Donoso

Everyone enjoys fresh garden vegetables when they grow them themselves or purchase them at a farmers market. Even if you do not have a backyard, you can enjoy planting vegetable gardens by using your indoor space. You have to make a few decisions before you begin concerning space, containers, and of course, the appropriate vegetables.

The first thing you’re going to have to decide on its whether you have enough light, and the available containers to take advantage of that light. This is a decision before you can choose what type of vegetables. Your planting. Because some vegetables are going to need more light than others, and some may not grow indoors as well.

Fruit bearing plants need more light than vegetables type plants such as Swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, and even miniature cabbage.

Once you decide on the amount of light you have it’s time to determine how much space you going to use for your indoor garden. In other words, you need to make sure that you have room for containers that are big enough to allow the plants to grow to their full potential. You may find that root crops are good choices, those such as onions, radishes, and even carrots do very well indoors. And of course, most people found that many herbs can be grown affectively indoors year-round. There are also miniature varieties of different vegetables that you can grow indoors that do not take up as much space as the full-size ones, including peppers, eggplant, and miniature tomatoes.

Now that you’ve decided the type of vegetable garden you’re going to plant, you’re going to have to find the best spot to place your containers. You’ll need a minimum of five hours of light for your indoor garden, but don’t forget, you can actually set up artificial lighting. You’ll also think about traffic flow throughout your house. Vegetable plants bruise easily make sure they’re in low traffic areas, that they don’t get bruised by kids playing, pets, or briefcases and packages.

Of course, indoor gardens need special care. Plants grow best through high humidity and constant temperatures. And this means you may have to water your plants more frequently, as well as moderate the temperature in your home on a regular basis

Now that you have chosen the type of plants you’re going to grow, decided on the spot to grow them in, it’s time to think about soil. You’ll have some choices as far as what type of soil you bring into your home to grow your vegetable gardens. You can choose the ground that is outside and add fertilizer as well as drainage, you can purchase potting soil, or you can actually purchase organic potting soil that has all of the fertilizers you may need.