Grow Your Own Vegetables In Your Conservatory

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The following is a guest post. Enjoy!

Growing your own vegetables not only saves you cash, it also gives wonderfully tasty and organic produce that family and friends will love. You don’t need a large garden, or even one at all to grow your own either, it can be done in your conservatory, which is the ideal spot for many plants.

Here lately, growing cycles for many gardening enthusiasts seem to almost be disrupted due to later frosts. With a conservatory though, this can be avoided, and you can grow delicious vegetables all year round.

Making a start

Purchase some cheap propagation trays from a garden center or hardware store first, along with some good-quality compost, grow bags, a book on growing vegetable and plant food. It’s not necessary to spend a huge amount on pots and planters. Use your imagination, as anything can potentially become a planter. Instead, visit car boot sales and pick up cheap items that you think may be suitable, such as buckets, old drawers, small wheelbarrows, or whatever catches the eye. If they are a little worn, don’t worry, you can always add a lick of paint and some stickers to liven them up and match to your conservatory furniture.

Once you have these things, it’s time to decide what you’re going to grow, suitable vegetables for indoor growing include:

Tomatoes (smaller climbing varieties can be trained to climb trellis or arch and look beautiful)
Peppers (bell, jalapeno etc.)
Carrots (round ones do well in pots)
Radishes
Potatoes (seed tubers, plant and top up with compost as they grow)
Mushrooms (dark spot needed – buy prepared special compost with mushroom spawn and keep at around 50-60 degrees)
Peas and beans (dwarf varieties and mange tout can be used)
Herbs (basil, chives, coriander, dill, parsley, fennel, mint, to name a few)
Aubergines

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so you can experiment with other vegetables, or even fruit, or ask at your local garden center which veg are suitable for indoor growth. Don’t discount growing edible flowers either, if you fancy really jazzing up your culinary efforts.

Next steps

Once you’ve decided which vegetable you’re going to grow, raise the seeds in a propagator, which should be kept in sunlight. At this stage, it’s worth pointing out that you will need to know which vegetable can stand a little cold and which can’t stand too much heat.

Spring and autumn are the best growing times, as you may find the conservatory gets too hot in the summer. Pay attention to whether what you’re growing thrives in hot weather and direct sunlight, so that they don’t die on you and remember to check and water (if needed) a couple of times a day.

Once your seeds have sprouted and are looking healthy and strong, you can replant into planters or grow bags. Tomatoes and peppers are especially easy to grow and pendant varieties of tomato can even be grown in hanging baskets.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of raising your own seeds, then you can buy seedlings at the garden center to give you a head start. Bear in mind that the veg that you choose are likely to be seasonal, so you can rotate your crops to ensure you grow all year round.

That’s really all there is to it, and as you can see, there is an abundance of things you can grow in your conservatory, so really get your imagination working and go for as much as you can. It’s also possible to grow fruits, although we wouldn’t recommend going tropical or planting an apple tree, but you can try your hand at melons, grapes and even strawberries.

Once you’ve tasted everything that you’ve grown with your own hands, you’re unlikely to ever want to use a supermarket for your vegetables ever again!

How about you all? Have you ever tried growing your own fruits or vegetables as a way to save some money? How well did it work out? How much do you think it saves you? Are the savings worth the time involved?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Fresh_cut_fruits_and_vegetables.jpg

About the Author Jacob A Irwin

Hi folks! My name is Jacob. I am the owner and operator of My Personal Finance Journey. I started this blog in January of 2010 and have enjoyed the journey ever since. Since finishing up graduate school in Virginia in 2014, I have been working in biopharmaceutical development in Colorado. You can read more about me and this site here. Please contact me if you have any questions!

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