I love tomatoes. Salads are a staple in my diet, so to be able to grow my own stuff and throw them I'm my salad just makes me so much more proud to be eating healthy. I will eat any vegetable except for mushrooms, the texture just grosses me out. I think I am going to do squash, gourds and pumpkins this year. They sell really well at our farmer's market and squash is one of my favourite vegetables. I'll bake one for a family meal, eat it as a snack and use the leftovers for either soup the next day or a pie (with the pumpkin pie seasoning you can't even tell the difference).

I looked up growing tea just now, and I'm really excited to start that. I'll order the seeds when I order my louffa seeds. Apparently I can just plant them in pots and then bring them indoors during the winter. They need to be 3 years old before you can use the leaves, but if I plant 3 I can have 1 for green tea, 1 for Oolong and one for black tea. I've already got the making of several herbal teas, and I want to start a Bergamot plant so I can make Earl Grey tea. I'll never have to buy tea again.

@milktoaste Thanks for the advice. I've always had a green thumb, and affinity for nature so I get what you mean by know the plant. I've got this cactus going that belonged to my great-great-grandpa. It's been handed down all the way to me, and as it buds I keep starting new ones to up my chances of having a surviving plant for one of my kids. Other people in my family (my aunts, and even my mom's is dying) have been trying to start new ones and I'm the only one who seems to be able to get it. I'm like a plant whisperer.

Missmacabre,
If you have the room to grow outside, why not build a greenhouse? In Wisconsin, we have to heat our greenhouses in the winter, which is why an indoor garden is so atractive. I would urge you to build a simple greenhouse(tube bent fence post and a double layer of inflated plastic) on the cheap. I can explain how to build one if you wish, greenhouses really are the cats ass.

My Mom thinks my garden is ugly enough as it is haha. Indoors shouldn't be too difficult though, we have a few large windows where we keep our potted plants. We get really harsh winters because we're on the lake so I would almost prefer to keep them inside. I'm actualy debating moving some of my herbs into pots for ease of maintnance and the ability to have them year round. Chives probably wouldn't smell too nice inside, but the lemon balm and mint spread like wildfire so potting them might make things a lot easier and free up room for more tomatoes or something.

I heard it's best to use opaque plastic rather than clear. Plants can be burned through clear but not opaque. That's why my folk's neighbor uses a yellowish corrugated fiberglass panel for his walls. As for us my wife got one of those tomato baskets that hang the plant upside down. So far its sprouted a bunch of yellow flowers. Also trying to grow regular right-side up tomato plants and some lettuce. And got some pole beans coming up through the really rocky dirt strip in the back yard.

Haha missmacbre, I didn't realize where you were. The problem with growing in a window is light penatration. More and more UV rays are being reflected by gasses in our windows, making that sunlight almost useless after 2 or 3 feet. May I suggest trying CFL's to aid in your window grow. Most constrction 'drop lights' are capable of handling around 400w's, turn that into 4 fixtures by using 3 'y' splitters($2 a peice), be sure to get red spectrum bulbs (2700k) for vegetation period and blue spectrum for flowering phases (6000k). Using CFL bulb's you should still be way under the 400w limit of the fixture and I can say from experience that it will cover about 2.5 feet squared with 4 large CFL's. I use 2 setups like this, 8 bulbs total in about 3 foot sq VERY succefully.:cool:

Yes, plants don't use the same wavelengths of light that we see. There are many plastics that work the same way as you described, however I don't believe clear plastic will hurt your plants in any way- original greenhouses were glass afterall. I suppose a 'hotspot' could occur.

I get that, but yknow...he without finances waits, ha.
Getting a(I think) bit of a nice tax return this year, so I'll probably complete it then...I need to make sure heat and smell aren't an issue whatsoever, so I want to make sure it's all good.

So waiting on the oxheart/beefsteak tomatoes...hangin' out so much. I want my giant tomato sandwich gaddammit!!


Yup, I even get pissed off when I got no salad...

Yup, agreed -basically because it's advanced gardening. You learn all about the plant, it's habits, and growing requirements and you meet them at optimal levels.
Growing year 'round is great too.
Eventually myself and the girl will be getting a home airponics/hydroponics bay happening for our edibles too...though right now it's all good, we can grow most of when we use outside quite well.

my problem with growing plants indoors is, to be honest, their attitude. sure when you first get a plant they're all like "hey, i'm going to grow here in the sun" and "how are you this morning, could i trouble you for some water?' but then after a few months they get all used to you and start in with the "hey, jackass, when is my water coming??!!??" and "why don't you drag your fat ass to the store for some MIRACLEGROW - how many times do you I have to ask" and then you start getting the whole "i wish that lovely woman in pink had brought me home, i would be SOO much happier there."

of course even worse is the whole late night existential angst they all get into with their "i just feel stuck in the same place, like i'm rooted down" and "all my friends have really blossomed and i'm still just getting potted in this stinking window sill".

sheesh - stinking plants

That's what I'm goin' for, ha.

Way I see it is, most plants that have enough root space and a half-decent soil, sun for a few hours a day will survive if not flourish.
I personally advocate hydroponic and airponic growing when I can, both tend to use less water, and get better results. Not to mention, grow whatever, whenever.

Cheebacheeba, I've been looking into airoponic and bubbleponic methods, as they seem a little easier to run once setup. Actually, they seem easier to build and I'm just a nut for building my own shiat.

Zero, I used to be a plant killer too. Once I started growing something that I could eat though, it's like my attention span increased 10x. House plants will start to survive longer when you have house produce getting regular feedings and waterings too.