Indoor Organic/Permaculture Plants - Discussion Thread

Here is my plea for information and advice on growing plants organically indoors.
I have tried growing plants indoors (without toxic ick) many times, and I am having a very hard time getting started. I feel like once I have some soil life going then it would be easy to maintain, but I have no clue what else I can try.
There seems to be very little information on this topic both on Permies as well as on the web in general, aside from things among the lines of "reuse coffee grounds and banana peels by adding them to your potted plants".
Information relating to organic indoor gardening would be very useful to anyone perusing the PEA gardening badge, as well.

How do I provide the initial nutrients for growing plants?
(I have tried mixing food scraps into ick-free potting soil, but they don't seem to break down fast enough for the plants to use them.)

How do I introduce microbial and fungal life without introducing pests or potential breathing issues from spores?
(I have tried mixing in some soil from outdoors, and it turns out that insect larva and eggs appreciate the warmth and consistent moisture)

My dad has 35+ indoor plants that are 5+ years old (some of which were only meant to last a season) and he just uses their own fallen leaves and leaves from outside as a little mulch and they do great. I think he has only repotted the plants a time or two. He DOES use pond water to water them, so they do get some nutrients from that water. In my experience with plants, they don't need quite as much soil nutrients as imagined, and they DO need quite a lot of "leaving them alone" time. I like to start plants in pots that have biodegradables at the base of the pot then filled with topsoil. By the time the roots reach further down the pot, there is enough decaying down there to provide nutrients. I would be hesitant to create a full blown compost bin in a pot though. I did that before and I kept burning the roots of my plants. Oops!!

I'm not a big indoor-plant guy. I overwinter some peppers as a hobby and I start plants in trays before spring comes, but I don't really do houseplants. So I can't answer from experience, but the first place I'd look is worm castings. They're supposed to be full of exotic microflora that's great for roots. I do wonder how large a chunk of soil needs to be to replicate the bio-buffer of healthy outside soil. It might just be really hard to approximate nature in a small pot.

Logan Byrd wrote:"reuse coffee grounds and banana peels by adding them to your potted plants".
Information relating to organic indoor gardening would be very useful to anyone perusing the PEA gardening badge, as well.

How do I provide the initial nutrients for growing plants?
(I have tried mixing food scraps into ick-free potting soil, but they don't seem to break down fast enough for the plants to use them.)

How do I introduce microbial and fungal life without introducing pests or potential breathing issues from spores?
(I have tried mixing in some soil from outdoors, and it turns out that insect larva and eggs appreciate the warmth and consistent moisture)

As a young homemaker, I had lots of house plants from aloe vera, coleus, spider plant, airplane plant, dracaena, ponytail palm, etc.

These grew well for me off and on for at least 20 years.

I no longer can grow houseplants for some reason.  I have successfully overwintered my hanging baskets of portulaca, lemon balm, and parsley in the house.

My recommendation for feeding indoor plants would be "compost tea."  I have not read anything about this though it just seems logical.

https://permies.com/t/53922/composting/Compost-Tea-easy

I firmly believe in using coffee grounds and while they might not hurt houseplants I feel their place is better outdoors.

My experience with banana peels and eggshells has not been a good experience so I would not want to put them in my potted plants.

If the eggshells are ground up very fine and then added to water, allowed to sit overnight this might be great for indoor plants. Just the water, not the eggshells.

I put the banana peels in my garden and two years later I dug them up because they were still banana peels.

Same with food scrapes.  These all belong in a compost pile.

If you do not have experience with making a compost pile this is something you might look into.

I have planted directly into finished compost and it is the most marvelous product on earth.

If you do not have a place to make a compost pile, something to look into is bokashi composting.

https://permies.com/t/78784/Bokashi-Composting

Have you thought about vermiculture/worm bin? My food scraps in my worm bin makes nice stuff that I put in my indoor plants and the liquids drained from the bin to water them. There's a lot more life in there than just the worms.

Maine Fout wrote:My dad has 35+ indoor plants that are 5+ years old (some of which were only meant to last a season) and he just uses their own fallen leaves and leaves from outside as a little mulch and they do great. I think he has only repotted the plants a time or two. He DOES use pond water to water them, so they do get some nutrients from that water. In my experience with plants, they don't need quite as much soil nutrients as imagined, and they DO need quite a lot of "leaving them alone" time. I like to start plants in pots that have biodegradables at the base of the pot then filled with topsoil. By the time the roots reach further down the pot, there is enough decaying down there to provide nutrients. I would be hesitant to create a full blown compost bin in a pot though. I did that before and I kept burning the roots of my plants. Oops!!

I'll try placing them only down at the bottom instead of mixing them throughout and let you know how it goes!

Do you normally have a layer of soil (or something else) between the very bottom of the pot and the biodegradables, or are the biodegradables at the very bottom?

Jenny Wright wrote:Have you thought about vermiculture/worm bin? My food scraps in my worm bin makes nice stuff that I put in my indoor plants and the liquids drained from the bin to water them. There's a lot more life in there than just the worms.

I have wanted to try vermiculture, but at the moment I don't have the room for worms, and the room that I am renting is entirely carpeted, so in the unlikely event that something did go wrong, I would be worried about the leachate staining the carpet.

(plus I don't know if they have any type of smell, since that would be something else to consider in my small area)

Logan Byrd wrote:

Maine Fout wrote:My dad has 35+ indoor plants that are 5+ years old (some of which were only meant to last a season) and he just uses their own fallen leaves and leaves from outside as a little mulch and they do great. I think he has only repotted the plants a time or two. He DOES use pond water to water them, so they do get some nutrients from that water. In my experience with plants, they don't need quite as much soil nutrients as imagined, and they DO need quite a lot of "leaving them alone" time. I like to start plants in pots that have biodegradables at the base of the pot then filled with topsoil. By the time the roots reach further down the pot, there is enough decaying down there to provide nutrients. I would be hesitant to create a full blown compost bin in a pot though. I did that before and I kept burning the roots of my plants. Oops!!

I'll try placing them only down at the bottom instead of mixing them throughout and let you know how it goes!

Do you normally have a layer of soil (or something else) between the very bottom of the pot and the biodegradables, or are the biodegradables at the very bottom?

Usually a thin layer of gravel, if it has a drainage hole. If there's no drainage hole, about an inch of gravel. No swamped root toes that way

Just wanted to say that I had 'house worms' indoors as a student in a rental property. Now they live outside, but at one point I kept them in the kitchen in a small food scraps bin like this, with air holes poked in the top: https://www.all-green.co.uk/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/4c8fff867dc00832ab79057e319483e4/2/3/23l-green-main.jpg

I added potato peelings, fruit cores, egg boxes - stuff like that. You have to be careful not to give them more than they can handle or you'll overwhelm them. Also don't overfeed them on one thing (not too many onion skins, etc.) Cover the top with a layer of shredded newspaper, which also helps keep them down in the bottom.

It worked okay. They produced nice compost which I used in my house plants. Having them outside is better, but inside is definitely doable! I also put the worms in the houseplant pots, if the pots were large enough, which never seemed to do any harm to the plants.

The only thing with having them in a closed bin is that the moisture builds up, so you either have to drain it by hand, or you could install some sort of bung or tap near the bottom of the bin. The smaller the bin, the more you have to actively manage their ecosystem, to make sure the moisture levels, food and worm population is balanced, etc. And yeah, put some stones in the bottom or the worms can drown in waterlogged compost.

Logan Byrd wrote:

Jenny Wright wrote:Have you thought about vermiculture/worm bin? My food scraps in my worm bin makes nice stuff that I put in my indoor plants and the liquids drained from the bin to water them. There's a lot more life in there than just the worms.

I have wanted to try vermiculture, but at the moment I don't have the room for worms, and the room that I am renting is entirely carpeted, so in the unlikely event that something did go wrong, I would be worried about the leachate staining the carpet.

(plus I don't know if they have any type of smell, since that would be something else to consider in my small area)

They don't smell at all. And if you put a tap on the bottom of the side, you just keep a small container to catch drips.  OR you could use a small plastic tote worm bin system and keep it sitting in a large plastic tote .

Also, you could look into Bokashi system of composting, which is basically completely sealed up, anaerobic I think, and you are basically fermenting your kitchen scraps.  I haven't tried it but lots of interesting youtube videos about it. Since it is sealed up, there is no smell and no drips. At least that's what people say.

Right now the lemons, kumquats, aloe, jade, Christmas cactus, ginger, turmeric, parsley, cilantro, are thriving in a SE windows. These tips really help me keep the plants healthy and disease-free:
+Buy plants from CLEAN organic greenhouses or grow from seed (don't bring home diseases)
+Grow plants in succulent organic potting soil (good drainage mix)
+Buy highest quality organic succulent mixes in sterile bags (no tears that carry contaminants, no stacks of soil sitting in a wet yard)
+Start plants in a small (2”) pot
+Increase pot size by 2” when roots are visibly healthy at pot edges (don’t let roots grow through drainage holes)
+Water when top two inches are completely dry
+Use sanitized clay pots when plant reaches 1 gallon size
+Keep the pot as small as possible so you can add new soil when upsizing pot
+Compost old soil outside (don’t reuse old potting soil)
+Top dress the pot with sterile worm castings every 3 months. Christopher, Jenny, Logan, Rudyard and others have mentioned worm castings which are incredible. However, I don’t bring outdoor castings indoors due to potential for cross contamination indoors. Top dressing creates Anne’s compost tea for roots
+Keep the indoor plants indoors and use top quality potting soil to prevent infestations
+Don’t use lava for drainage stones on bottom of pots due to salts
+Put large plants on wheeled bases so you can look at the plant carefully, move plants to keep area clean
+Regularly tap, fan, spritz, prune and attend to the plants to help with pollination and simulate natural conditions
+If you like giant indoor pots, put a small liner inside for your plant and raise the height using empty CLEAN pots (don't fill with dirt)
+Look up each plant at a reputable greenhouse site or plant reference for additional specific tips
Seriously, all these lessons I learned the hard way. The incremental cost for top quality indoor products more than pays for itself by avoiding diseases. Have fun!

The tips that Amy's has offered are the same as what I have always been told.

Use potting soil rather than dirt.  I tried that with starting seeds indoors and it was not a happy experience.

I tried two pots, one with potting soil and one with dirt.  Thought I would save some money.  With the potting soil, the seeds sprouted and grew.  I just don't remember what happened with the pot with dirt from outside I just remember that I said I would not do that again.

Hoping you find what work for your indppr plants.

Anne Miller wrote:The tips that Amy's has offered are the same as what I have always been told.

Use potting soil rather than dirt.  I tried that with starting seeds indoors and it was not a happy experience.

I tried two pots, one with potting soil and one with dirt.  Thought I would save some money.  With the potting soil, the seeds sprouted and grew.  I just don't remember what happened with the pot with dirt from outside I just remember that I said I would not do that again.

Hoping you find what work for your indppr plants.

The reason using straight dirt from outside into a pot doesn't work well is because you disturb and usually kill off the soil food web. It's hard to keep all that complex life going in a small container. Just like having animals in a cage or aquarium, it requires a lot more tending and fussing to keep the environment nice for the living organisms, plants or animals. Dirt from the ground has living things constantly going through it, breaking things down and digging tunnels for air and water. Potting soil has material added to absorb water and keep it from compacting and letting air in. It's still not going to have all the soil microbes you will find in a healthy outdoor soil but there's only so much you can do indoors in pots and potting soil is one of those trade offs.

As an example, my kids were playing with some pots and filled them up with nice soft and healthy soil from our forest. Then they left those pots there for a couple of months. They got rained on and that's about it. When they rediscovered them later, they went to pour the dirt out and the dirt came out in the form of pot shaped bricks, didn't even crumble. On the flip side, they then thought it would be fun to make and build with brick as a game. 😁 But the soil initially went in nice and fluffy because of all the life that was in it. Cut off in a small pot, that life died and the soil settled and became dead and impenetrable.

Jenny Wright wrote:Have you thought about vermiculture/worm bin? My food scraps in my worm bin makes nice stuff that I put in my indoor plants and the liquids drained from the bin to water them. There's a lot more life in there than just the worms.

  Less work, no extra space, just keep adding 2 worms to each container that is large enough.  Keep adding organic matter and covering with decorative mulch.  The worms often bring the soil life needed with them and keep it functioning.  In apartment permaculture collecting rain water for your plants would be a bonus point for getting your badge.  Would also protect against city water contaminants.