Herself's Houseplants

Between rising prices and tomato scares this year, and spinach scares last year who isn’t thinking of an indoor garden?

Farm Fountain is a system for growing edible and ornamental fish and plants in a constructed, indoor ecosystem. Based on the concept of aquaponics, this hanging garden fountain uses a simple pond pump, along with gravity to flow the nutrients from fish waste through the plant roots. The plants and bacteria in the system serve to cleanse and purify the water for the fish.

This project is an experiment in local, sustainable agriculture and recycling. It utilizes 2-liter plastic soda bottles as planters and continuously recycles the water in the system to create a symbiotic relationship between edible plants, fish and humans. The work creates an indoor healthy environment that also provides oxygen and light to the humans working and moving through the space. The sound of water trickling through the plant containers creates a peaceful, relaxing waterfall. The Koi and Tilapia fish that are part of this project also provide a focus for relaxed viewing. [ to learn more about how to create your own Farm Fountain and view the movie and more photos see Farm Fountain]

Visit the site to see more photos, read how to build your own Farm Fountain and chat in the forums.

credit to: Inhabitat who always has really cool stories like this one.

One of the most challenging groups of plants to grow indoors is herbs.

1) Start seeds directly in a pot with soil. Your best successes growing herbs indoors will come with the ones you start from scratch. Not to mention there are a ton more varieties of seeds available than plants.

2) Go easy harvesting herbs grown indoors. They are not going to be as large nor as fast growing as your outdoor ones.

3) Herbs grown for their leaves are the best choice for indoor herbs. Herbs grown for flowers or roots are not usually successful inside.

4) When sowing herbs indoors, put the soil in a pot, soak it, drain it, then plant the seeds to about twice their size down.

5) Put the pots in a warm location ~80′F and cover with wet newspaper. This provides dark and damp for the germinating seeds. This works especially well for seeds too tiny to sow into the soil. Don’t let the paper touch the seeds, just put it over the top of the pot. Take the paper off for a couple of hours each day and check to be sure the soil remains damp while waiting for germination. Use a spray bottle to dampen the soil if needed.

6) Once seeds sprout, remove newspaper, move to a cooler location and give them bright but not direct light. Do not keep them too wet. If the soil is too wet at this stage fungi will destroy your seedlings.

7) Once the plants have two or more leaves you can thin them out and move them to a brighter location. Place herbs in your sunniest window and supplement them with a fluorescent light. Get the brightest bulb you can and place it as close to the herbs as you can. Herbs want about 16 hours of light per day.

In no particular order:

Dieffenbachia ( Dumb Cane )
Chlorophytum comosum ( Spider Plant )
Chinese Evergreen
Aspidistra elatior ( Cast Iron Plant )
Spathiphyllum ( Peace lily )
Mother in Law’s Tongue ( Sansevieria )
Devil’s Ivy ( Scindapsus )
Pothos ( Epipremnum )
Jade Plant ( Crassula argentea )
Lucky Bamboo ( Dracaena sanderian )

All of these plants will forgive you if you forget to water them occasionally. Most won’t even mind if you stick them in a dark corner.

These are good plants for children to begin gardening. Cut the top off of a pineapple about a half inch below the bottom leaves. Trim excess fruit away. Then allow it to dry out on the counter for a week or two. Otherwise the fruit still on there will cause it to rot.

Then place this in a pot. Water the pineapple regularly and put in a sunny location. In one to three months roots will form and new leaves will begin to appear.

If you take good care of your pineapple, giving it lots of sun and not over watering it you may get a pineapple from it in a couple of years. After which it will die. Pineapples only live long enough to bear fruit. New plants appear as babies around where the mother plant was the following season.

The top picture is of one I planted one year ago. It has been growing rapidly the last couple of months. The diameter from leaf tip to leaf tip is now about three feet.