An early sowing of chili underneath a grow light. This is one of my favorite little growing spots in my living room at home, right next to the stove. Do you want to try indoor gardening in winter too?

When winter tightens its grip on the garden, it’s time to reflect on the past growing season and look ahead to what comes next. Many of us take out seed packets and soil again to try indoor gardening during the winter. Personally, I feel a little incomplete in some way if I don’t have something sprouting nearby, all year round. I enjoy taking care of my plants, thinking about them, making plans, and watching them develop. It feels meaningful and makes me happy, so of course I want to keep doing it even in the depths of winter.

Read more: Growing vegetables in winter - a beginner's guide

Of course, indoor gardening in winter isn’t a must (even if you might feel like the only one who hasn’t gone all-in on grow lights, sprouts, and super-early tomatoes). Or perhaps you just haven’t reached that stage in your gardening journey yet, but would like to try?

Gardeners often put seeds and plants in the most unexpected places. Here, an early sowing has found its spot on a heating mat on a shelving unit in a temporarily unused space, with grow lights mounted on the shelf above.

Why should I try indoor gardening?

If you’re growing on a very small scale and mostly just want some homegrown veggies to harvest in summer, you don’t need to grow anything indoors during winter. Instead, start sowing later in the spring, sometimes pre-cultivating more declicate plants indoors or in a greenhouse, and then transplant them outside when it’s warm enough.

Vegetables and/or flowers that take longer to grown need to be sown early. So, if you don't want to do that then you can always just buy some potted plants at the garden center instead. It's convenient, though the selection is usually smaller than if you sow yourself.

The real enthusiasts usually have a number of sowings brewing indoors at the same time, from fall until next summer basically. There’s often plants and seedlings everywhere; on and under small tables, benches, shelves, and windowsills. Most of them have grow lights connected to timers, which gives the home a rather interesting lighting.

Some good reasons to grow vegetables indoors in winter:

• Harvest fresh greens when growing outside is a challenge (sprouts, shoots, baby leaves).
• Shorten the growing season for heat-loving crops outdoors (leeks, chili, peppers, celery).
• Enjoy the chance to stick to your gardening hobby all year round.
• Save money by growing your own seedlings instead of buying them.

Read more: Growing vegetables indoors - what temperature? 

The pros

There are plenty of clear benefits to starting your growing season in winter. Sure, it’s might feel more convenient to buy plants when you're ready, but it’s not very economical in the long run. While seeds aren’t exactly cheap either, once you’ve been gardening for a while, you’ll have a good collection of pots, trays, lights, and everything else you need. Then, the cost of seeds becomes quite manageable. And most of the time, it’s still cheaper to grow your own vegetables from scratch than to buy organic or locally grown produce at the store.

I love the idea of starting all my plants myself. They feel like my little babies somehow. Plus, I want to stretch the growing season and have plants that produce both early and late harvests. Starting early with indoor gardening is such a big advantage for slow-growing crops, giving them a chance to develop in time. That way, I can harvest tomatoes and eggplants as early as May! Sometimes even earlier for tomatoes, if I grow smaller varieties on the windowsill.

Read more: Q&A Growing windowsill tomatoes

But none of that would be interesting to me if it weren’t for the simplest reason of all: it’s fun. It’s so much fun to see seeds sprout! I love taking care of with my little plants, figuring out how I could do things better, smarter, or more efficiently. It’s like solving tiny puzzles all the time, and I enjoy the challenge. It’s exercise for my brain combined with practical work.

And later, of course, there’s the incredible reward of being able to harvest early. All these things together make me eager to pull out the seed packets and start sowing again, often not long after summer is over. I’m a better me when I get to garden, even when things don’t go quite as planned.

One of many makeshift solutions for starting seeds in the living room. It’s not exactly appreciated by the rest of the family, who’ve nicknamed the lamp “the death light."

Indoor gardening - the drawbacks

Unfortunately, indoor gardening in winter isn’t all cozy and fun. There’s a long list of challenges to consider. I’ll share some of them here so you can reflect on your own priorities and what you’re willing to take on. It’s worth noting that many gardeners (maybe even all of us?) find it a hassle to start plants indoors at times. Yet we choose to do it anyway. That says something about how valuable it is to us.

The "hassle list"

• Caring for little seedlings and plants takes time.
• Sometimes, seedlings need daily attention.
• Early sowings require grow lights.
• Plants need certain temperatures to germinate and grow well.
• Indoor gardens are prone to pests.
• After repotting, plants take up a lot of space.
• Before transplanting, plants need to be hardened to avoid any damage.

An example of indoor gardening issues:

Each of these challenges of indoor gardening might not seem overwhelming on its own. But when they pile up—and when one step leads to another unexpected complication, then it can become a real headache. Let’s take the issue of space as an example.

When seeds are freshly sown, they sit in small containers, quietly waiting to germinate. Let’s say I sow 20 pepper seeds because I want 10 plants for the garden and assume some might not germinate or survive pests or hardening off. Four to six weeks later, the seedlings are big enough to be transplanted. By then, I’ve probably sown plenty of other things, which are now crowding the area underneath the grow lights.

Read more: Store-bought or DIY grow light?

After repotting into 3 inch deep (7.5 cm) pots, I end up with 16 plants (maybe 4 seeds didn’t germinate). These alone take up the prime real estate under the grow lights, forcing me to move everything else to wherever there’s space. Often places that are far from ideal.

A few weeks later, it’s time to repot the peppers again, this time into 4.5 inch deep (around 11 cm) pots. By now, two plants have died, leaving 14. If I’m lucky, 12 pots fit on the tray, meaning I need to rearrange everything again. Some pots might end up in spots that are too cold or too dark, leading to wetter soil, slower growth, and weaker plants more vulnerable to pests. Frustrated, I eventually move them back under the grow lights, cramming everything in as best I can. With plants packed together, pests spread more easily, and soon all the peppers are infested with aphids.

That’s when I think, "To hell with this!!!" and toss the three worst-hit plants, feeling like a failure despite knowing I have all the tools to succeed. I just don’t have enough space.

But!

In the end, summer rolls around, and I still have nine fantastic plants that provide all the peppers my family could possibly want. And that is the beauty of indoor gardening!

No matter what goes wrong with indoor gardening, most of it still works out and gives me the foundation for a thriving vegetable garden every year. It’s pure joy to step into the laundry room and check on the plants!

Joy and frustration

Indoor gardening and early sowing often come with a fair share of frustration—sometimes even a lot. For instance, the seeds to that long-awaited plant might not germinate at all, perhaps because something went wrong during sowing. Or maybe every single plant in a particular spot gets hit by a massive aphid infestation and has to be thrown away. Or the space under the grow lights runs out unexpectedly, leaving some plants unnecessarily leggy and off to a bad start.

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For me, things usually go fairly smoothly as long as I remind myself that setbacks are completely normal and don’t expect otherwise. It’s a bit of a battle at times, but I’ve decided to measure success by how much food we’re able to eat over the course of a year. If we hit my goal of being entirely self-sufficient year-round, I see no reason to feel too bad about the mistakes along the way. Even if I don’t fully achieve that goal, it’s still worthwhile.

It’s also worth noting that indoor gardening itself provides food that can be harvested straight from pots and trays. I love growing baby greens, shoots, sprouts, little tomatoes, and certain other vegetables that I can harvest during winter and spring. That, in itself, is incredibly valuable!

Knowing that my two gardens can be brimming with vegetables and flowers every year makes all the effort of sowing and indoor gardening during winter absolutely worth it.

Those are a few thoughts on why we want to try indoor gardening even in winter—what it can bring to the table and what can be challenging.

If you don’t usually grow indoors or start seeds early, it’s probably something you’ll need to get familiar with if you’re eager to expand your garden and harvest more food. It’s incredibly rewarding. The benefits always outweigh the drawbacks. So, get started!

/Sara at Skillnaden's