Indoor gardening, while offering many benefits, can sometimes be difficult. However, there are many approaches that can be adopted to give your plants the maximum opportunity to grow to maturity. Working with grow tents is one of such approaches, but how do they work and are they worth the cost?
How do Grow Tents Work?
Grow tents are portable units featuring a sturdy canvas and reflective materials. The materials used in the construction are important because they help ensure better growth by allowing added in growth lights more effectively. The system also features insulation, which keeps heat in to boost plant growth.
Grow tents are designed to incorporate fans for air circulation, and some designs include carbon filters to limit smells. The overall combination of the individual grow tent components works together to give an optimal growing environment for plants.
You’ll still need to control the lighting and climate in your grow tent. The settings you adopt will be determined by the plants you’re growing. Getting your grow tent’s internal climate right is important to ensure your plants have a higher chance of blossoming to maturity.
Are Grow Tents Worth the Money?
If you’re growing plants that require very specific climate conditions that the natural environment of your home can’t provide, then grow tents for beginners is almost always worth the money.
Grow tents are also helpful for people living in apartments without access to a patio or outdoor garden, and who grow out of their windowsill space. Grow tents are also useful for apartments that don’t get a lot of natural sunlight.
Below are some reasons why a grow tent may be worth it for you.
Round-the-Clock Gardening
With outdoor gardening, you’re at the mercy of the natural elements. Chances are, you won’t have the right weather for gardening year-round, which can affect the type of plants you can grow and the overall management of your garden.
There’s a grow tent for any size of space, even if the available space is only the size of a small closet. If you have some space in your garage or a spare room, it will typically be more than enough to install a grow tent.
The great thing about grow tents is that they can be easily removed or moved around as needed.
Reduces Pest Problems
Pests are one of the biggest problems you’ll have to deal with in outdoor gardening. Gardeners spend a lot of time, money, and energy to keep them away, and even that may not be enough in the end.
All you need to keep pests out with a grow tent is to keep it closed. Ensure your plants are pest-free when you introduce them to the tent, and only open the tent when necessary to avoid unwanted guests.
More Controlled Air Circulation
Fresh air is one of the main advantages of outdoor gardening. But a grow tent can have great air circulation as well. All you need to do is strategically place a few fans inside the grow tent and open a few air vents to keep the fresh air moving.
Efficient Lighting
Grow tents are built to efficiently deliver lighting with their reflective materials inside which diffuses the light from grow lights and focuses it on the plants. Plants tend to get more light concentration in grow tents than outdoors, which helps ensure better growth overall. The energy-saving nature of the lighting setup in a grow tent makes it a cost-effective system for indoor gardening.
Straightforward Setup
Even if it’s your first time with a grow tent, you can set it up on your own without any elaborate tutorials, and, in many cases, you won’t need tools to set it up. Once you have a source of power, good air circulation, and water supply, you can start growing plants indoors with a grow tent almost immediately.
Do I Need a Grow Tent?
For Growing Flowers Indoors
Many people just buy flower plants from nurseries and big box stores. However, if you want better quality, selection, and better value overall, you might want to grow your own. The highly sensitive nature of these plants means they need a unique environment where you can stay in control of the climate throughout their growth. Therefore, a grow tent can come in handy when growing flowers.
For Growing Vegetables Indoors
Vegetables are another group of plants that perform excellently in growing tents. A right-size tent for the specific vegetable takes care of all the problems that make growing vegetables difficult. Lighting, temperature, and humidity are all issues you can solve with a grow tent, ensuring your vegetables will have everything they need to grow and thrive.
For Growing Fruits Indoors
You can grow fruits, including figs, grapes, and some berries, in a grow tent, as long as you’re working with containers that will allow a deep and nutritious root spread for most of them.
Fruits like peaches and apricots will grow better in a grow tent in the early stages of their life cycle. A grow tent provides a more nurturing growing environment compared to the outdoors. Move the plants to bigger pots or tubs as they grow each year and prune the roots from time to time to maintain the correct size.
For Growing Peppers Indoors
Like other vegetables, you can grow pepper indoors with a grow tent. You just need to ensure you choose a tent that is the right size for how big the pepper plant can grow overall.
If you’re interested in developing different pepper varieties, select the seedlings from a nursery to get started. Seedlings can save you a bit of time, but you can’t grow as many types together.
You should note that you don’t necessarily NEED a grow tent for some of these indoor plants. There are other options for growing plants indoors, including growing them in a pot in a spacious and airy sunroom. However, a grow tent simplifies the process a great deal and provides for more control.