My indoor garden is already growing, and there’s plenty to do.

The season at the country house is over; October is here. I have no plans to go there right now, so I have time to focus on my indoor garden. It consists of daisies and purslane. They’re growing quite well and seem happy! There are about 40 purslane plants and 10 daisies. Each one grows in its own little cup or container. Then there’s the "cross-garden"—a mixed arrangement. It’s a large container where each plant has its own spot; there are about 3 purslane plants and 3 daisies growing there.

This is my autumn project. Ideally, this is the first tier of the shelving unit. But! I haven't finished setting everything up yet—specifically the grow lights. It involves some technical work, like wiring them together. They’re InHome brand lamps. They emit a purple—or sort of pink—glow and are very bright. Connecting them requires some know-how; my brother handled that part. I found the process a bit too complex myself. The whole system also needs to be mounted to the underside of the shelf above, so for now, they’re just sitting upright on the shelf.

Tier one: the autumn project. The flower growing continues. I chose low-growing plants—under 20 centimeters tall. That’s the maximum height allowed when you factor in the pot and the mounting position of the grow lights. There are two types of plants here: purslane and daisies. Each one now grows in its own container. I used some leftover 8x8 black containers from last season, and for the rest, I’m using containers I’ve collected.

Things like plastic yogurt cups or other plastic containers—you can actually plant in them. That was a real discovery for me! For instance, those white plastic yogurt containers work really well. They’re roughly 8 by 8 centimeters—well, not exactly, but close enough. I have a lot of them, and I’ve already put them all to use! There are other types of packaging that work perfectly for this, too.

Everything is growing now. I’ve already transplanted everything out of the chicken packaging—which was an ideal solution for the seeds I’d just planted and for sprouting them. Now, everything has been moved into individual containers. I even used a plastic cake container for my "cross-garden" project—that’s what I called it at the start. Several plants are growing together in that wide, long tray. It’s an interesting setup; I’ve never done it this way before. I can always transplant them later, but for now, everything is growing well, and there’s plenty of space.

There’s enough room for the moment; each plant has its own section, so it’s not crowded at this stage. Daisies are growing in one corner, and purslane in the other. I haven’t decided to mix them up randomly yet; for now, I’ve just split the improvised garden in half. Of course, I could always make another "cross-garden" in a similar container and mix the plants up then. That’s for later. I have plans to plant other things, too, but I don’t have enough grow lights yet. It’s going to take a long time—I plan to spend the rest of this year and part of next year collecting grow lights.

Even though the gardening season is over, I still have plenty to do. I need to tidy up the shelves; there’s a heap of packaging and yogurt cups up there. I’ve washed everything—it’s all good as new. There’s a ton of stuff: fertilizers, seeds... I still need to sort through the seeds, too. These are ones I collected myself for the first time—seeds from plants in the garden.

My mom gave me the idea. I’m going to plant them, too. I need to sort them into containers—chocolate wrappers, cardboard medicine boxes, or just about anything. Pasta bags work perfectly. The process of gathering new seeds has actually been going on since the second half of summer. I’ve been buying inexpensive packets and have already collected a lot of new ones—including some tried-and-true varieties.