If you’ve recently moved into an apartment or are thinking of starting an indoor gardening hobby, you should definitely consider some hearty plants for your first collection. Many plants can be grown indoors but it is important to find a few that can tolerate both moisture and heat. There are many reasons why indoor plants are a good choice but most of the reasons center around the fact that they require very little upkeep unless cared for properly. Unlike outdoor plants you don’t have to worry about removing dead flowers or new ones in order to replant them or water them. If you want to care for your indoor plants properly, however, it’s best to start with the most common indoor plants first.
One of the easiest and most popular indoor plants that people keep is the tomato. The large varieties and relatively low maintenance make them popular choices among home gardeners. Tomatoes come in a variety of colors so finding one to go with any color scheme is easy. Just be sure to make sure you buy whole tomatoes because placing the seeds directly into the soil can result in some unwelcome and even unhealthy surprises. Many people like to use salsa or other items to disguise the taste of the tomato inside their house plants as they are able to eat the green foliage on the seeds without getting the pungent taste of the tomato.
Lemongrass and peanut plants are also great for your first collection. Like tomatoes, they are easy to grow and offer a wide variety of colors. As with tomatoes, you can plant the lemongrass in a variety of ways including using it in sauces or salsas. Most often the leaves on the lemongrass plant will turn a bright vibrant orange instead of the dull leaf yellowing typical of most annual plants. This change in color is actually caused by the nitrogen cycle that occurs at the base of the plant during its growing season. This particular cycling can be interrupted when your plants are exposed to too much moisture or too much sun.
Another common plant to have problems in the winter are the tomato plants. The reason is normally because of too much water. A good way to combat wilting leaves on these plants is to simply relocate them to areas that get less water such as in a raised bed. Just be sure to check the leaves before they turn yellowing to ensure that nothing else has caused this problem.
One problem that I have seen over the years is yellow leaves on fusarium plants. I call them fusarium plants because they look just like fusarium soil. The difference is that fusarium soil is very low in nitrogen and will cause these plants to turn yellow quickly. The solution to this problem is to evenly spread your fertilizer over the entire area. Make sure you follow the directions on the fertilizer bag because different brand’s will require different amounts of fertilizer to do this effectively.
If you have a garden in your yard, you are probably already aware of how difficult tomatoes are to grow. This is one of the reasons why they should be part of every household garden. However, growing tomatoes in your garden can be a challenge because their huge size makes them a pest. Many people believe that this is due to bad soil and other issues with the tomato plants but I have found that most of the time it is due to overfeeding. If you use the correct fertilizers and following the instructions listed above you will be able to keep your garden healthy and happy.
One of my favorite backyard plants are tomatoes and I love using them to grow our family organic garden. My oldest daughter actually started using her tomatoes as an alternative to lettuce when she started getting picky about her daily salad. She started getting strange phone calls every now and then from her phone saying her tomatoes were suffering from the tomato spotted wilt virus. I immediately took her plants in for diagnosis and sent them to a specialist for treatment.
Once they received the all clear from the specialist and were diagnosed before they were put on a course of antibiotics and then started on a probiotic program. After being treated they went back to regular gardening and after a few months of being on antibiotics I started using organic fertilizers. The result was the same, her tomatoes kept growing strong and healthy.