Indoor basement growing setup in cold-winter climate

I live in cold climate New England and am always looking for ways to continue growing produce throughout the winter. Two years ago I refinished my workshop as a dedicated grow space. I thought I would post some updates on the project so far in case it helps anyone else or sparks ideas for any other crops I could try out. In winter here when the main garden is put-to-bed, I have plenty of extra time so there isn’t much downside risk to do trials or experiments.

Overview of my current growing conditions
- Basement setup: I refinished all workbench surfaces & invested in large plastic trays to help with any potential water damage. Painted walls white to reflect light, and stapled burlap over the ceiling (don’t want fiberglass insulation falling into my food!)
- Soil: have switched to sterile potting soil rather than my homemade compost as it was bringing in bugs
- Avg temperature: this hovers between 60-65 F during the coldest months
- Lighting: I use Barrina T8 LED full spectrum lights
- Humidity: low, generally under 35% thanks to furnace

Crops that seem to do well and produce useful yield:
- Green onions
- microgreen trays (cilantro, baby salad mix, radish, broccoli, baby kale)
- full-size crops for salad greens (lettuce, spinach, chard, spinach, & kale)
- Snap peas
- mint for fresh tea
- cooking herbs such as basil, dill, oregano, etc
- plant nursery & seed starting for spring/summer crops
- tree/shrub propagation - I started some willow and honeyberry cuttings last year over winter, but was way more work than my usual approach of just ‘sticking it in the ground’ lol

Poor results or needed a new approach:
- Root crops; anything like radish or carrots  just took too long and seemed to get water-logged. Perhaps some supplemental heat or better watering practices would help
- Potatoes - same issues as above and would take up too much space

I’m open to other ideas that I could try out, especially beyond just greens. I've dabbled with this project so far but I estimate if I got serious about this I could have about would have about 200 sq ft of growing space, maybe even 400 sq ft if I put in double decker racks. I'd love to try tomatoes if I could figure out an affordable low-maintenance heat source, or maybe some other fruit shrub or berry that would produce over winter?

Nice setup!

It seems you already have a diverse array of sprouts, but one item you might consider adding to your list is sunflower seeds. I've had mixed results with them though, mostly to do with the seed husks clinging to the sprouts  (along with some soil) and made for a difficult harvest. If I recall correctly, there are tricks to avoid this issue, but they escape me at this moment (it might have had something to do with lack of moisture/humidity).

On a side note: I'm currently debating whether or not to try and overwinter my celery, I grew some in pots as an experiment over the summer (they never grow like store-bought celery) and I brought them indoors for the winter. However, they don't seem to be getting enough light. Not sure if they are worth the trouble, but you have me thinking about setting up my own indoor winter garden to see if I can keep them going as a perennial.

One other herb you might try is parsley (if not already on your iist).

Cheers!

I've heard that things that fruit like strawberries, tomatoes, etc. are really hard to make happen with grow lights.  I got a couple growlights for my balcony since do to dappled shade a lot of my plants didn't grow well back in summer and they needed supplamental light.  Once I get confident with them I'll try doing some winter growing again, probably next year.  I love hearing about success with growlights and the fact that you can grow all those greens and herbs with them in the basement is really hopeful and exciting.  How much does it scale up your electric bill?

Like Riona suggested, your setup is great for greens and no fruits.

You mentioned pea, did you get any peas to produce?

If you grow your peppers in pots you can bring them in and overwinter them quite successfully... they will drop leaves, stems will die back, some will die... they won't "thrive" to be sure. but i usually get about 70% survival rate and then i transplant them into bigger pots in the spring when i put them in the greenhouse...  BIG jump on pepper production, there will even be a few that flower a bit over the winter and you will have peppers here and there... i have  a few plants that are 4-5 years old.

it works - if you have cats there may be mishaps ;-)

cheers!

Pete Podurgiel wrote: one item you might consider adding to your list is sunflower seeds. I've had mixed results with them though, mostly to do with the seed husks clinging to the sprouts  (along with some soil) and made for a difficult harvest.

Sunflower sprouts - never would have thought of that! I’ll definitely try some this season. I sometimes run a fan to help with husks. It's not perfect, but better than picking off 1x1.

Riona Abhainn wrote:How much does it scale up your electric bill?

RE: electricity cost... For me, zero, because of solar. But I calculated it is about $1 dollar a day depending on electricity rate to run the 8x42w LED lights for 16 hours a day. So even one big salad a week would break even which is more than doable.

James MacKenzie wrote:If you grow your peppers in pots you can bring them in and overwinter them quite successfully.
cheers!

Shoot - wish mine weren't already frozen haha!

Anne Miller wrote: You mentioned pea, did you get any peas to produce?

YES! I'll post a later picture of these same pea plants and pods. This was my favorite surprise from last year since it was the only non-leaf crop and will be dedicating more space for this in 2024. Highly recommend. I grew a dwarf early variety called Sugar Ann. You can also see I interplanted this box with spinach and some other things which was a bad idea because I had to keep raising the lights as the peas grew.

I think you mentioned your were looking for things besides greens but I did want to mention something you are not currently growing that you could trade out. Arugula, is a family, chicken and rabbit favorite at my place. The temps you describe and the setup I see makes me think it would better than some other greens, if you like the taste.

Once the leaves get about 4"-6" long, and you have several plants, it'll be hard to eat enough of them. I started a 15' row, spaced 4" apart at the end of Sept and it is still going strong even through the last 2 weeks of a few hard frosts.

Something to consider, I like your setup and that makes me wish I had a basement.

James MacKenzie wrote:If you grow your peppers in pots you can bring them in and overwinter them quite successfully...
...

cheers!

I discovered this myself a couple years ago.  I brought some potted peppers inside and they produced all winter with nothin but occasional watering.  I'm getting ready to start some variations of some ultra-hot ones I bought seeds for this summer.  I'm not even sure if I will be able to use these varieties.  They are among the hottest types available.  Even if I can't use them, I find peppers to be among the most beautiful vegetables, so it's worth growing them just for that.  I'll try them in chili, but I'm not the person that likes chili so hot it blisters your mouth :)

This is something I need to figure out myself, I've been itching to grow something already but we just started getting snow.

The peas are exciting, I never would of considered it to tell you the truth. I'm curious of the soil depth the plants are growing in.

I have indoor pepper, citrus and tomato by the sunny windows and they are fruiting just fine. Compared to the grow light, sunlight has a much wider spectrum of wavelengths including infrared. Leaves bathing in sunlight have a higher temperature than the room temperature. I am wondering if adding a heat lamp besides grow light will help these tropical plants when the rm cannot be raised.

One thing to keep in mind is that indoors we generally have a lack of pollinators, so it's one thing to get the plants to thrive well enough so that they flower, then you need to deal with pollination to actually get fruit set.

Tomatoes and, more so, peppers are heat loving plants.  I suspect they might struggle in your temperatures without some supplemental heat...then, will that throw off the other plants that prefer cooler temperatures?  I've seen some sort of a growing closet - sort of like a soft-sided garment rack but the sides are insulated and silvered to reflect light.  Something like that could allow you to create different microclimates for plants that like it warmer/cooler, drier/more humid, etc.

If you haven't already looked, hydroponics shops will have a variety of lights and other equipment that may assist in enhancing your setup.

One of the challenges with root crops would be depth of soil.  A carrot variety like "Paris market" would certainly work better than a nantes or imperator type.  I guess that's one thing to consider overall - what sort of root type do the plants have and how much space do they want to thrive?

I would also look at it from a cost-benefit perspective.  While I'd love to grow all the plant material we eat, some are so inexpensive to purchase (even through a farmer's market, CSA, or local buying club) that it would make less sense for me to use resources to grow them (or more of them).  It's a trade-off I'm willing to make to exchange more financial capital for food that supports local organic producers.  

Nice setup!

Garlic might work if you like eating the green chive that sprouts out of the cloves and aren't growing it elsewhere already. My indoor humidity is similar to yours, temp is comparable too. In the winter here garlic sprouts just sitting on my kitchen counter and even sometimes in the fridge without any attention or care. Could be something to put in an awkward or un-utilized space in your setup that doesn't need much attention, or if you do give it some care maybe you can propagate lots of tasty garlic to cook up with your greens in a pan and serve as a side or over some grains/rice, maybe topped with an egg... Yummy!

Jess, I tried growing garlic indoors in a large, deep pot.  It did sprout nicely, but then languished and died back.  So if one wanted to just sprout it and eat the tops like chives, that should work fine, but the rest requires more than just a sunny window and temps in the 60s.

I overwintered strawberries a few years back, and while they lived and the berries already there ripened under the spare grow light my mom had for her African Violets, I had few flowers, and the plants got horribly infested with spider mites.  Despite spraying with organic stuff for spider mites, they took over and decimated most of the plants.   I'm trying again this year with new strawberry plants from last spring, in one of those garden towers where you water the middle and it trickles down into all the plant cubbies.  I put mine on wheels and have it indoors by a south window to try. Existing berries are fine, new flowers seem OK, but my biggest issue is *ahem* cats. They love to dig in the soil to try to find black walnuts the mini squirrels buried in with the strawberries before I brought the tower inside.  The black walnuts make great cat toys, it seems, and the poor strawberry plants in the lower tiers are simply collateral damage.    

I have a setup to grow greens under grow lights in the basement, but haven't set it up yet due to a possible move soon.  I've read that it can work very well, and one guy even did get strawberries to grow and fruit.  They looked good, but I have to wonder how they tasted, as even ones grown outside that don't get enough hours of direct sunlight can taste very bland.

Glad to know about the snap peas though, that adds some protein to the mix and they are good in salads!  Note re: interplanting greens with the peas:  I would try to design shelves/trays that I could lift or lower relative to the fixed grow light, and have a narrower planter for the peas, and another narrower one for the greens that can be moved individually.  They could still take up the same space more or less, but each stay the appropriate distance from the light source.  I realize this would not be quite as efficient as interplanting, and would not promote soil microorganism diversity, but overall I think it might suit small scale indoor produce growers better than trying to move the lights up and down and not being able to accommodate all the plants' heights.  That's just a thought, not sure how well it would translate into real life!

Donna Lynn wrote: Note re: interplanting greens with the peas:  I would try to design shelves/trays that I could lift or lower relative to the fixed grow light, and have a narrower planter for the peas, and another narrower one for the greens that can be moved individually.  They could still take up the same space more or less, but each stay the appropriate distance from the light source.  I realize this would not be quite as efficient as interplanting, and would not promote soil microorganism diversity, but overall I think it might suit small scale indoor produce growers better than trying to move the lights up and down and not being able to accommodate all the plants' heights.  That's just a thought, not sure how well it would translate into real life!

I have lights whose main purpose is to supplement our length of day for starting seedlings in the spring. Mine are in the front south window, so they do get natural light such as it is in 'wet coast winters'!
1. Yes, the lights need to be *very* close to the growing mass of the plant. There's physics that will tell you how light strength drops with distance... but not in my brain today.
2. I wouldn't try a polyculture under the same lights unless the plants had similar sizes. Even lettuce claims to want "full sun" to produce.
3. I would plan on swapping out the soil in my containers over the summer, thus would be prepared to not worry about the plants using all of one nutrient.
4. I wouldn't underestimate just how much light you need to fully replace the sun. I have tried growing in December and gave up. The plants grow soooo... slowly, that they can't outgrow the bugs. If I *really* need some winter greens, I'd be more likely to grow sprouts - much of the plants strength comes from the seeds and you grow for quick consumption. You can grow "mother plants" in the summer to produce your own seeds if you choose ones like sunflower sprouts that are annuals.

All that said, even with just starting my tomatoes in the spring, I find that having my lights on a system that makes them very easy to adjust their height, is a big help. I do have a number of blocks that I can put under seedling trays to raise them if there are different heights under the same light, but one of my lights is on a pully system and the second one has breeching snaps on swing chain that is quite easy to raise or lower as needed.

When there is no natural light available, my sister has found that LED grow lights don't seem to work as well for her as fluorescent grow lights, but that's just one test case. My other sister does grow a little "cut and come again" lettuce despite it not being terribly practical, but she considers that a treat to herself. She grows in dirt and tosses the used dirt in the garden when one batch is done.

Jay Angler wrote:
1. Yes, the lights need to be *very* close to the growing mass of the plant. There's physics that will tell you how light strength drops with distance... but not in my brain today.

Energy in the electromagnetic spectrum (sound, light, etc) decreases with the square of the distance - so 1/(r^2) relationship.  So a light 1" away will have 4 times the energy at the plant as a light 2" away (2X the distance, then square that is 4).

Some of that information learned decades ago just won't go away to make space for new data....

Totally agree. As Donna and Jay have mentioned, matching the growlight distance with the growth stage/ height of plants is a critical factor for indoor garden planning and it takes time to get it dialed in. Will probably make that mistake again but at least now I know!

Recently I started hanging the light fixtures via chain and S-hooks, so it is super quick and easy to lower or raise the S-hooks on the chain as needed.