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Design Ideas for Garden/grow room?

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Royiah

Guest
Ok so My dad is letting me turn our second unused bathroom into a garden room for all my gardening needs. And since he said I could go all out I thought I would post this here and ask Ya'll thoughts/Ideas on it. I'd like to know what Ya'll have and what Ya'll think works best. We'll be doing it all by hand.
The room is : 9ft - L x 9 1/2ft - W (Our ceiling's are 8feet tall.) There is only one small window other wise its pretty dark in there.
This is what I want to put in there;
I want to build a seed starting shelf
A seed rack (I really want to use jars of some kind.)
Some where to put full grown plants (Probably gonna put in a simple table or counter against the wall.)
A sink. (already have one but want to get a steel kitchen one seeing as the one I have is made for a bathroom and is very shallow.)
Counter for doing random things.
So what I want to know while keeping in mind what I'd like to have is;
Are these ideas ok?
Should I be worried about the lighting?
What To do about/how to build the Seed starting shelf? (I've seen a lot of different ways to go about it. like with foil and trays and lights and stuff)
Is there ever a time when someone can have too much counter?
I have no idea what kinds of seed racks are good or not so I'd like some recommendations.
Am I being too picky about the sink?
Any ideas for improvement?
Should I repaint the walls? (Their 2 different shades of blue at the moment.)
 
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Mr_Yan

Guest
My first question is what are your gardening goals for this? A garden room for an orchid enthusiast is a lot different from that of someone doing serious succession planting of a veg garden.

Any type of plant will require more lighting than you make it sound like you have. Look into lighting options and budget. Florsent is usually good. LEDs are great but pricey unless you build your own arrays and power supplies. High output lighting like pot growers use puts a lot of heat out. With this look into the electrical and whether you have enough supplying the room.
 
R

Royiah

Guest
Veggies veggies and more veggies! I mainly want to use it to store prepare plants, seeds and tools; And to start seedlings and overwinter plants. So pretty much just a seed starting/overwintering room/ storage for garden stuff. :p I might even try my hands at Aquaponics! :cat:

I have a few shop lights I use for starting my seeds I was thinking about just getting a few more of them for anything else I'm going to put in the room.
As for the electrical no worries! :) My dad could rewire the whole house if he wanted to! (Believe me I've seen him do it before.) :LOL:
 
R

Royiah

Guest
:/ I was thinking along the lines of peppers, tomato's and summer plants maybe even some tropicals. It may not snow/get drop dead cold here but we still get frosts and sometimes very rarely a bit of snow. I wanted to try and get ahead when it came to planting in the spring. (Who doesn't want tomato's all year round? :X3:) Larger plants are more likely to survive anyways. That and I'm getting tired of bugs being attracted to my room. :cautious:
 

finkikin

Well-Known Member
Messages
204
Location
Tomball
Planting Zone
8B
Build wrap-a-round shelving and space them about 18" apart. Tools, seed jars and seedlings could be stored on those. And you will need more lighting I would think.
 

w_r_ranch

Master Gardener
Administrator
Moderator
Plus Member
Messages
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Location
South Central Texas
Planting Zone
8b
I would think that a small, inexpensive greenhouse would be a more cost effective solution... especially when you consider resale value, a perspective buyer may not be receptive to a grow room vs a 2nd bathroom. Just something to consider...
 
M

Mr_Yan

Guest
I'm with WR on this one. The weirder you get in a house the harder it will be to sell later. A grow room is WEIRD.

What about just some simple shelving units - either the $10 plastic ones or the stronger steel-wire shelfs commonly used in restaurant kitchens. Lighting will be much more expensive but look around. Shop florescents are common. LED's are catching on and becoming more cost effective. You can hang lights above plants as needed. Use GFCI's on anything you put near where you water or may be dripped on.

While the bathtub and or sink are really convenient for watering plants remember any soil or sand that goes down the drain can cause real problems.

If you want to drop some money go into a local hydroponic shop and look at those setups. The indoor pot growers have some cool toys. My local hydroponic shop is also the local homebrew store - known around here as 'dope and brew' - I prefer to use cash when making a purchase there.
 
C

Canesisters

Guest
You might want to give this a look. This guy does some amazing things with his completely indoors garden.
hydroponicworkshop.blogspot.com
 
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