Hello and welcome back to The Self Sufficient Citizen where I talk about homemaking, homesteading and self-reliance. Today’s blog has been long in the making! I’m talking about the garden I am currently growing in my apartment. Why is it in my apartment?
Short story long, here we go. I decided last year after a lousy garden on my tiny sunless balcony I needed to do something different. Exploring my options, I found out that I could rent a garden space for $45 a month. Yeah no. I have about 800sq ft in my apartment and I’m already paying pet rent and parking. Me being me and with my motto in tow I got to work researching what I could fit into my apartment because I don’t want to spend $225 for a garden plot plus plants.
I also wanted to be able to share this with my readers and I have a feeling that at least some of you are in a space where you cannot grow outside. There are a lot of ways you can grow your garden inside I found out. Hydroponics, living walls, terrariums, herb gardens are a few that come to mind. Hydroponics specifically have a ton of beginner home grow kits.
I did not choose hydroponics because of two reasons. Cost and carpet. I don’t want to ruin my carpet with an accidental leak. Also, they cost a lot for the amount of growing space they provide. I am not knocking on hydroponics at all though. My mother-in-law has a kit and grows great herbs and cherry tomatoes right in her kitchen! But for the scale I want to achieve I needed something different.
Vertical Garden Shelf with Lights
Thats where I started brain storming. I don’t have a lot of floor space; I have a lot of vertical space and I can’t put holes in my walls. Hopeless? I think not. I use these wire shelves out in my garage to help with storage so I knew I could hang lights off of them.
So I headed over to my local Home Depot and I was more than excited when they were on sale. Next were the lights and I figured I will buy a few and see what works. More on that later. I also purchased a thin plastic floor covering for painting.
I have a cat and she believes that my plants are for her to eat regardless of if they’re poisonous or not. So, to prevent her from consuming something potentially dangerous and moisture retention I got the plastic. I also picked up soil and little 3” pots as well as a handful of seeds. I had seeds from previous year so I didn’t go crazy with that.
Now I got to work. My back-office room originally was our bedroom until the summer heat made it impossible to sleep in. But plants love heat, right? So that’s where I set up the shelf. I also get the most amount of sun through that window. I will be able to use the sun and my grow lights to facilitate my garden now. (I’m super jealous of all the people with balconies facing this way because they have great gardens on them). Next, I wrapped a single layer of the plastic sheet around the top 3 shelves leaving the lower one open for storage. The “front” of the shelf can be opened and closes with tape, so I have full access, but the plants are protected.
Lighting
This is the first light I started with and I won’t lie about my favorite right now. FEIT Electric 12in grow light is bright, easy to hang and has a remote. Did I mention it has light settings for what you’re growing and a timer? Honestly great. Now I will readily admit I did no research jumping into this. I just wanted to buy stuff that would be readily available to anyone so that’s what I grabbed. I started all my plants and here are their plant date/ sprout dates. Above was also a photo of all the seeds I used minus the green beans because those were ones I dried from a previous year as well as the chives.
Everything was groing great. Too great because I thought I would have a month to go and grab another grow light but I was WRONG. Everything sprouted and was growing so rapidly I began to split them into more containers. I needed another light so here I got Ferry-Morse seed starting light partially because I knew this was widely used brand.
A few complaints about this are that it has no way to hang it. For a plant shelf that relies on me hanging the light it was an overlook. I figured out something with zip ties as the plants grew and I needed more space, but the original height was great for seedlings. Next complaint is that it does not have a remote. Its little switch is hard to reach when I turn it off at night because I have to open the plastic wrap and turn it off. Then on again in the morning. I could fix the fact it has no timer with an outlet timer, but I am going for a simple and low-cost setup. I thought about returning it for another of the original light, but it is doing a good job growing so I will keep it for seedlings next year.
Both lights can be connected to more than one other light as long as they’re the same light. That means for the top shelf I will get another FEIT Electric light and will be able to run them both off of the same power cable and remote!
Cost
Now onto the cost. Cost will vary depending on where you live and where you buy the supplies but overall, I spent less on this than if i bought a premade plant vertical garden. Yes, they have those on the market.
- (2) Jiffy pots 3” (15 pots each) $3.97
- FEIT Electric light 12 inch 12w $38.47
- HDX Metal Storage Shelf reg. $109.00 (I got it 27% off $79.98)
- Plastic paint cover HDX 9ft x 12ft .7 mil $4.87
- Ferry-Morse Seedling Starting Light $49.97
- Jiffy Seedling Start Mix $7.97
- Seeds 1-$2 each. Mine were about $9 together.
I also bought a long pot that was about $20 for the lettuce. Other things that I used and had on hand was potting soil, tape, scissors, and zip ties. Overall, my cost was about $220 which isn’t bad considering I can reuse this for as long as I want to grow seedlings or plants. I am curious to see how long each light is going to last and I will update on that end of grow season. If you are also curious about my setup and plants, you can visit my Instagram where I will be posting updates on the indoor vertical garden in my apartment.
Thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful for you to start your own indoor garden! Subscribe to my monthly newsletter where I send out a monthly recap of the blog posts I put out or check out my Instagram and Pinterest for more content. Until next time!
-Hannah
