Indoor tomatoes year round

I think about indoor vegetable growing a lot. I’m not into cannabis but I am into tomatoes. When tomatoes go up to $4 per pound in January, the idea of chowing down on juicy red home-grown ones has an awful lot of appeal, to both the pocketbook and the taste buds.

Canada Grow Supplies has a professional style system that I think I could handle: the AC Infinity Grow Tent Kit 4X4. It’ll be an investment— $1400 for a 4-foot-square tent with all the fixings—but we’ll easily save that much on grocery store tomatoes in a year or two.

Gardening in an indoor grow tent is a lot like growing tomatoes in your garden, with a few differences.

1. Choose compact varieties.
   Select determinate or compact tomato varieties that are well-suited for indoor growing. Bush-type varieties are often more manageable in confined spaces.
2. Provide adequate lighting.
   Tomatoes require a lot of light for healthy growth and fruiting. Invest in high-quality LED grow lights with a full spectrum to support all stages of plant development. Ensure that the lights are positioned at the right distance from the plants to avoid burning. The kit includes an inboard S44 LED grow light board with 400 watts of LED power.
   That’s a lot!
3. Control temperature and ventilation.
   Maintain a consistent temperature in the range of 21 to 29 Celsius during the day and slightly cooler at night and keep air circulating inside the tent to prevent mold and disease. The kit comes with a controller and fans, so you can see track temperature and control fan speeds.
4. Maintain humidity levels.
   Humidity levels should be around 70 percent. Use a hygrometer to monitor and adjust environmental conditions. You can purchase a Cloudforge T3 environmental plant humidifier from Canada Grow Supplies (currently priced at $84.95) to take care of this.