Okay, so not all indoor gardens are roomy like this little greenhouse. That’s alright. Pull up a chair. Get comfy, turn on the tunes, relax and study your progeny. It’s perfectly alright if you spend 20 minutes a day staring into a cupboard or closet that houses your potted food producers or hydroponic gardening endeavors. Have a chat with your plants. Feel their leaves. Getting to know your plants and hanging out with them everyday is good for both you and them.
1. A watchful eye points out trouble before its an emergency.
Your indoor garden isn’t a car parked in the garage. Fruit and vegetable plants need your attention in a controlled environment. Lapsing into the bad habit of using monitor readouts to tell you how everything is going in there isn’t a good gardener trait. To my knowledge, there is no sensor to alert you of insect or disease setting in. If you don’t know what your crops look like in the picture of robustness, how will you be able to see the first signs of trouble? From the day you sow seeds into the germination tray, to you’ve picked the last fruit, sheared off the last spring, or cut the final leaf from your greens – eating fresh reliably includes interaction with you.
2. Plants respond to music.
Your garden will be filled with happier plants when you share some tunes with them. Yeah, it sounds a little silly, but it’s not. Research shows that plants who are exposed to music every day are far healthier than those that aren’t. Don’t worry about people making fun of you. This is about having abundant good food to eat. Anyone who ribs you about jazzing up your container growing vegetable’s and fruit’s lives with unique methods can easily be excused from the dinner table.
The best music for plant production? The first testing done in the 70s found that the largest, most robust plants heard semi-pop or easy listening tunes. Heavy metal or acid rock? Pitiful, sickly little plants. They felt neutral about country music, growing robust, but not leaning toward the speakers Huh? the control group that listened to jazz, classical and Indian tunes not only grew like mad, but focused their growth on the source of the sounds. They also like it when you sing to them… a cappella. Not too loud though, at 70 decibels or normal conversation loudness is where the most response is seen.
3. Plants respond when you talk to them.
Is it the sound of your voice? Do plants feel loved when you communicate with them? Prince Charles thinks so. He talks to his plants in the garden all the time, and feels it is very important. He knows they respond.
Some researchers are convinced it’s the vibrations rather than the sound itself. If you think about it, the tone of voice one uses when angry or sad is very different from the average lighthearted conversational range, so tell them stuff that is pleasant. That’s where the good vibes would be. You want them to put their focus on growing, not fending off an enemy.
4. Plants respond to your touch.
Of course, if you think your indoor garden’s residents look a bit peaked, perhaps the communication method best used today is touch. Lightly touching their leaves, and massaging them has been discovered to activate their disease and predator mechanisms. Heck, why wait until they look a tad under the weather. massage a leaf here and there everyday to keep their immune system on it’s toes.
5.Being surrounded by plants boosts your mood.
In the dead of winter, and for those who live in the heart of the city, there’s nothing quite like the positive affects of live greenery to elevate one’s outlook on life. The lack of green spaces actually promotes anger and violence, and there’s very little green in an urban environment. You need plants as much as they need you.
It’s all part of becoming a seasoned gardener.
The added benefit is that troubleshooting will become easier if you adopt this daily practice. The more you understand your plants, and are able to read their messaging system – the better gardener you’ll be. You can’t gain this experience without hanging out with your plants every day throughout every grow, or a string of gardening seasons. Look at it as the way to establish effective relationships with the source of your sustenance.