Reader Question: Growing Tomatoes and More Indoors

By Vanessa Richins

From Patt, Oregon:

“I have a quick question. I haven’t heard of anyone doing this, so there must be a reason. But maybe I don’t know.

We have a daylight basement with lots of southern-facing windows. I would like to grow fresh “garden” food down there in the winter. We live in eastern Oregon (the dry side of the state.) Winter daylight is as little as 8-10 hours in the dead of winter

Does anyone know if one can be successful growing tomatoes in this kind of an inside garden in the winter? If this is possible, are there other fresh-type fruits or vegetables that would be successful for winter indoor-gardening as well?

Thanks!”

Hi Patt! Growing vegetables like you describe can be done…though you would likely need to add in some additional grow lights to the room, as well as make sure the room was kept warm enough.

To understand why, we need to first look at Read the rest of this entry »