As the temperatures drop outside, a frosty ground is never ideal for our garden and plants to grow. But, you can take matters into your own hands by making an indoor winter garden to protect your plants from the cold and help them thrive.

Whether you’re a plant lover or simply enjoy growing your own herbs and edibles, don’t let the winter chill put you off. How to make an indoor winter garden is relatively easy if you know the type of seasonal plants, and provide the right conditions for it. What’s more, this will ensure your lovely plants can thrive and last throughout the season and beyond. There are also things you can do to help your outdoor flora flourish, such as learning how to winterize your hydrangeas.

In the meantime, here’s how to plant an indoor winter garden for your plants to thrive well into the new year!

Indoor growing in cold climates basics

Growing plants indoors can seem like the best approach if your climate is simply too cold and the outdoor growing season is too short. Indoor plants cultivation is a chance to avoid the worst of the early season and late season weather.

Although many consider it relatively easy to grow good quality plants indoors, there are some considerations when the weather is cold. If you are growing on a cold concrete floor, the root space of your plants will quickly find the heat drained from them. This can dramatically slow down growth, affect quality and cause issues with nutrient uptake if temperatures have dipped too low for too long. If your grow room is too cold results will be significantly below expectation and harvest quality may well be disappointing.

When growing indoors in a cold climate, consider which room to grow in. Perhaps, if you have the choice, you will want to avoid a room with too many external walls. This can cause the room temperature to drop further than you might like, especially during the ‘lights off’ period. You may also want to avoid trying to grow in the loft — this can also present problems with temperature extremes in mid winter when your lights are turned off.

That’s why many indoor growers grow autoflower seeds during the winter months. With 20 hours of daily light (or even 24 hours!) your grow light will be able to help keep the grow room warm. Though it’s worth adding that some of the latest and most efficient LED grow lights don’t produce much surplus heat at all. Older HPS lights, however, are less efficient and do produce plenty of heat which may come in useful during winter grows.

How Often Should You Water Indoor Plants Over Winter?

A lot of houseplants go through a dormant period in winter — think of this a little bit like them going into hibernation and taking a well-earned rest after a summer of growing.

This means their growth will slow down in the cooler months and they won’t need as much water. In fact, being over-enthusiastic with the watering is a common mistake that can lead them to rot — and that goes for the best winter plants for pots outdoors, too.

Only water them when the top two inches of soil feel dry to touch. And when you do hydrate, ditch the cold water as this could shock them — use room temperature water instead.

How Can I Keep My Grow Tent Warm In Winter

Let The Sun Do The Job
If your grow tent has south exposure to the sun then you’re lucky. When the sun shines by the window, it actually heats up the room inside. You can keep your grow tent warm so easily with this method.

Insulate the tent so the heat it’s getting from the sun can’t get out of the tent. But don’t leave the heating job to the sun when the days are cloudy. You have to go for other methods these days.

Insulate The Tent
The temperature is already too cold in winter. Now if you don’t insulate the tent kit well then the heat will get out of the tent and you can’t heat it up properly no matter what.

Insulating doesn’t mean only stopping the air from flying outside the space. You can do a lot of other things like wrapping up the plant pots with aluminum foil papers, placing a plastic sheet or rug on the floor to prevent the floor from getting cold.

Another thing to do is keep an object between the floor and the plant. If you have some empty boxes or trays, place it upside down then keep the plant pot on it. This will prevent the cold floor from affecting your plants.

Apart from that, wrap up your grow tent with building insulation that will keep the tent warm. If your tent is warm enough then you don’t have to worry about your plant’s growth.

Change Lighting Period
Let’s assume your plants are in the vegetative stage. At this point, it’s better to keep grow lights on instead of using electric heaters.

Using as many grow lights as possible for 24 hours than an electric heater for 5–6 hours is actually a good idea. Don’t worry about the electricity bill as grow lights use less power than electric heaters.

HID, compact fluorescents and LED lights are one of the best grow lights for winter. LED lights usually don’t produce as much heat as HID would. So, if you live in a colder area, consider buying HID grow lights for your tent in winter.

Add More Lights To The Tent

At some point, you might need to add some more lights to your lighting set up of your grow tent. Winter doesn’t fall on us all at once. It gradually creeps upon nature.

So you have to make sure you’re adding more lights to keep the temperature perfect for the growth of your plants. This ensures you to get the most out of your plants.

ECO Farm DBL3000 Full Spectrum LED Grow Light 320W

Features:

This ECO Farm LED grow light uses 864 SAMSUNG LM281B diodes with a power of 320 watts, which can achieve an impressive PPE 2.5 umol/J, covering a 3'x3' high-yield full-cycle growth. The strip light design and the aluminum on the back contribute to better airflow and good heat dissipation. The DBL3000 plant growth lamp is equipped with a detachable driver and a long power cord, thereby reducing the environmental heat in the growth space and prolonging its service life. Waterproof circuit board, no worries in humid environment.

Supplement Your Plants with Nutrients
You have to be extra cautious while supplementing your plants with nutrients. While preparing nutrient solutions, make sure you’re keeping the water temperature between 18–21°C. The water temperature shouldn’t drop too low during the supplementing process.

Otherwise, your plant’s roots might go into shock which might cause the absorption to slow down. As a result, the growth of the plants in your tent gets hampered.

However, using too warm water isn’t a good idea either. As it reduces the oxygen level, the growth will again slow down. This will make the plants more vulnerable to problems like pythium disease.

To prevent such problems, you can try mixing the nutrient solution with cold water and then set a water heater into the water tank. This way, the solution will get warmed up and stay at the same temperature all the time.

Also, be wise while using storage for the solution. If your storage is too cold then it might make the salt in the solution get solid.

Hence your plants can’t get the benefits of this ingredient. To combat such a situation, store the solution in a cool and dark place, where sunlight can’t reach and the temperature is between 10 to 19 degrees.

Take Care Of The Temperature
The perfect temperature for grow tents are between 25 to 28 degree celsius during lights are on and 18 to 21-degree celsius when lights are off.

These conditions make it an important task to check the temperatures are accurate all the time. But this tough to sound job can be done easily by using a digital thermometer in your grow tent.

Having grow tents is like a blessing as it allows you to grow your favourite plants the whole year. Though it is much difficult in the winter season, you have these amazing solutions to keep the freezing temperatures at bay.

Use An Oscillating Fan

You can keep your tent warm by using those electric heaters but have you ever wondered if the heat is distributed equally at each corner of your grow tent?

The solution is running an oscillating fan which will distribute the heat in the whole room.

ECO Farm 6 Inch Clip Oscillating Fan Fit for Grow Tent with 3-Speed Control

Ventilation
Ventilation is equally crucial as heating up the tent. Heats produce moisture into the air which needs to be ventilated. Otherwise, molds and fungus can attack your plants which will make all the efforts go in vain.

You can open windows and doors, especially when the day is sunny to allow the moisture to fly out of the grow tent. This is definitely going to make your plants happy.

ECO Farm 4'’ Ventilation Kit

Conclusion

We discussed a few methods to keep your grow tent warm in winter. You can choose any of them or more than one at the same time according to the weather condition.

When the weather is colder, you have to go for two or more options. On the contrary, you can leave it to the sun when the days are sunny. Make sure you have a proper ventilation system to keep your plants free of diseases.