If you try to raise those plants outside it will cost you a fortune.

If you try to raise those plants inside it will cost you many fortunes. electricity will kill you.

If you try to raise those kids it will bankrupt you.

May as well go bankrupt now as later.

Plants have to grow outside or the cost runs out of control. Plant them outdoors and allow them to die. Lots of land up in Maine. talk to your local flower club in town. find some open space along the road. maybe you will get lucky. your town might have a local community garden. ask around. To find a community garden ask the local police, town hall, high school and local farmers. Garden stands might know.

Give the kids a hug and tell them you love them.

Electric and heat are not an issue.

Is it possible to garden inside without pollination?
If so, how do I know how much room each plant needs to grow healthy roots?

Telling me I can't will only make me succeed. You're talking to person who heats her entire home on 1 tank of oil a year - because someone told me I couldn't! And it's winter here 11 months out of the year!
I will find away. Now gardendawgie do you know how to grow plants indoors? Or how much room the roots need?

Yes, you can grow indoors, but like gardendawgie said, it requires significant resources. I'd never even consider it. Thus, I don't have any advice for you from personal experience, but I would direct you to look to container gardening resources to find information on ideal container capacity for various vegetables and maybe to hydroponics or greenhouse resources to learn what sorts of fertilizers you'll require for a plant grown to maturity indoors.

"Is it possible to garden inside without pollination?" This breaks down into 2 questions. The answer to both is 'Yes' but there are a lot of provisos.

You have had great success germinating veggie seedlings indoors and your ingenuity is impressive. The difficulties will arise growing actual vegetables. Even if you are not bothered about maximising yield but only interested in getting a few veggies as a project you will need to address some issues. The plants I see in your blog (beans, tomatoes, and I can't make out the rest, don't take up much space as babies but when they are productive adults they will needs a lot more space than they have. A single pole bean plant can be 8 ft tall and would need about 1.5. to 2 gallons of soil to really succeed. The plants will also become heavy and those little window stickers especially will not hold for long. The stones 'for drainage' will not stop water pooling in the bottom of those pockets and possibly stagnating. I also raise many of my vegetable plants inside using only natural light and no supplemetary heat. However, and this is the big difference, I then put all my vegetables outside You have a fun experiment going there and I am not trying to quash your enthusiasm but just to be realistic and avoid disappointing your kids.

Regarding the pollination issue - that only arises with veggies where you eat the fruit and is not a problem otherwise. Even then you can help pollination by tapping the flowers, spraying etc.

I suggest you take a look at the growing under lights forum and the container forum for more definitive advice on growing veggies to maturity inside.

Looking through your window there I can see an area approximately 3 x the size of my entire garden(ie 'yard' in US English) at home and well on the way to being as big as my allotment. The indoor growing is a fun experiment but if your kids really want to succeed in growing something they can eat I would genuinely recommend starting work outside. It would be really simple to start off a little garden out there where they could transplant their indoor babies.

@flora_uk - Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to know. A realistic answer is what I was after.
Our backyard is great as long as you don't need any direct sunlight - the only spot that gets light for more than a few hours a day is the center and that's where the pool goes.
I wonder how veggies would do upside down - like the topsy tervy thing we use for tomatoes. The tomatoes do well every year, I wonder if I could make my own out of milk jugs? That would be a gallon of soil at least - it may work.
Thanks again.

I'd suggest looking into planting a great deal outside anyway. They may not be "ideal" in terms of sunlight, but you never know- plants can be oddly persistent. :)

Besides, there are several plants and veggies that would do just fine in more shade. Lettuces and many other 'cool season' veggies would be ideal, and anything is better than nothing as far as the rest go. If your tomatoes have done well for multiple years, I'd guesstimate you'd have at least some produce. :D

Luck!!

(Oh!! I do a LOT of seed starting in milk jugs, and occasionally keep them planted in there - but the plastic tends to degrade very quickly out in the weather. I would not count on that being feasible as a hanging solution, I'd be very afraid that when it starts breaking down you'll end up with broken plants and a big wet mess. Mine have all stayed on the ground since the early incidents... ;D )

There's a gardening under lights forum here where you may find some help.

If your topsy's do OK, you can always use a 5 gal bucket and cut a hole in the bottom (with a skill saw), line the hole with weed cloth and plant the mater and hang it.
Then hanging is the only problem. HTH Nancy

I'm not sure you are looking for answers or confirmation that what you are attempting to do is great.

Having been there and tried it, you are farther over your head than the last person buried in your town. Not trying to be mean or harsh, only realistic.

It takes lots of practice, and a decent amount of talent and treasury, to learn either hydroponics or how to mix container soil so it doesn't compact, holds moisture yet drains, and is large enough to sustain your plants.

Then there is the lighting issue. Research Daily Light Integral, PAR light, lighting spectrum to get a basic idea of what is involved. Growing inside is simply not as simple as "transplant a seedling and it will grow." Platitudes such as "Telling me I can't will only make me succeed. You're talking to person who heats her entire home on 1 tank of oil a year - because someone told me I couldn't!" may sound confident (or arrogant) but the truth is it is hard to make a silk purse from a pig's ear.

Pollination is the very least of your worries. Of course, you will learn this as the months pass.

But I wish you good luck on your endeavors!

Mike

@wordwiz "the truth is it is hard to make a silk purse from a pig's ear"

"Hard" being the operative word - you didn�t say impossible - you just have to find the right ear.

Thanks everyone is there a different forum for spray fertilizers. I was using TerraCycle All Purpose Plant Food (last few years), but I can't find it anywhere this year.

@flora_uk something you wrote has got me thinking: "A single pole bean plant can be 8 ft tall and would need about 1.5. to 2 gallons of soil to really succeed."

I assume the plant will need 2 gallons of soil because it will draw the nutrients from the soil. In hydroponics nutrients are added to the water, the plants need less room.
My question, in �Theory� if nutrients were added to the soil, would the plant still need 2 gallons of soil?

you can grow at least 4 green bean plants in 2 gals. very small roots and they produce there own nitrogin.

I was basing it on the volume of soil I would allow an outdoor inground polebean. I don't use any fertilisers in my garden, only manure and home made compost. I'm afraid I have no experience of hydroponics so cannot make any useful comments about it.

Few things are impossible; an exception is making a rock so huge you cannot move it!

Outdoors, I allow about 1/3 sf per plant (4"x4")/ Allowing for four inches depth, that's about 2.5 gallons of dirt.

Mike

wordwiz - arithmetic is not my strong point and gallons are not used here (and when they were they were different from US gallons). So apologies in advance if I have this wrong. However, I think you might find that your decimal point has shifted to the right. 4" x 4" = 16 sq" x 4 = 64 cubic". That's about .27 of a US gallon apparently.

Here is a link that might be useful: conversion table

I could also get to the store using only one wheel by riding a unicycle. Or I could get there rolling a boulder. The question remains, though, why would any sane person do that?

Plant them outside or be prepared for them to die. Only other alternative--get a non-ridiculous set up and pay a fortune for inferior veggies using grow lights. You will have more light in your yard than in any of your windows.