I’ve been working on an outdoor food forest for about 9 months, but I’ve been inspired to also create an indoor food forest. I previously tried indoor vertical farming of vining crops like tomatoes, peas, and beans with a hydroponic setup and grow lights. It worked pretty well, and I plan to get back into hydroponics eventually. So, my experience with the vining crops and now the food forest concept has led me to try an indoor food forest.
A bit of backstory: about 10 years ago, my wife’s aunt and uncle were looking to sell their house and move from New Jersey to retire in North Carolina. Moving from the very high tax states of the Northeast United States to the lower tax states in the Southern United States has been very popular among retirees over the past 20 years. I kind of figured this move would happen eventually. However, I did not figure that my wife’s uncle would give us about half of his collection of tropical indoor trees and other plants. This created an indoor forest in our home. Some of the Yucca plants were 30 years old and 15 feet tall! We rented a U-haul, packed it with plants (and a piano), and drove from Northern New Jersey to Southern Maryland. It was about a 6 hour drive over 300 miles.
Permaculture Principle #3: Obtain a Yield
I have to say that as much as I love the plants, it has pained me to put so much care and effort into them. I have not received any type of yield out of them. Not a single one produces a fruit or an edible vegetative part, so our indoor forest is certainly not an indoor food forest.
But last night, at 2am, I had the brilliant idea to plant some bean and pea seeds in the pots of all these tall indoor trees. An Indoor Food Forest! What a revelation after 10 years! Now I’m actually excited to water these indoor plants. This way my peas and beans can thrive.
For those of you who have tried gardening before but have not stuck with it, I urge you to try again. This time, focus on growing something easy that you can use right away. Herbs are good because they are very pest resistant. Beans and peas are also good because they actually provide you with some calories and protein. Consider starting an indoor food forest to motivate yourself. The most important part is just getting some kind of reasonable yield from your plants. That yield will motivate you to try to grow new things. Or at least it has for me.
The first plants that got me into gardening were rosemary and basil. Rosemary is great because it is a perennial. Once it is a decent size, like 12″ tall, it’s pretty hard to kill. I live in USDA Zone 8a and I planted a rosemary plant outside 8 years ago. I split it into 2 plants about 4 years ago. Now each of those plants is about 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide.
Herbs are Gateway Plants
My success with growing basil actually came from hydroponic gardening, even before I started experimenting with hydroponic vertical gardening of vining crops. I really like pesto. So I spent about $500 to build a Deep Water Culture (DWC) hydroponic system. This is essentially a large tub (~27 gallons) full of water with a lid that had holes cut out into it. I could put net pods and seedlings so the roots touched the surface of the water. DWC also needs the water to be aerated. So I used a pump on a timer (same timer as for the LED grow lights). It had tubes going to porous stones at the bottom of the tank to distribute the air throughout the water tank.
I had 27 basil plants growing in this system for about 4 months, along with some pea plants and tomato plants. I got a few tomatoes and some peas. But I had amazing bowls full of 4″ leaves of basil each week. I made a ton of pesto!
So, pick a food you like and grow it!