How to Bring Your Outdoor Garden Inside
What’s the ultimate way to protect your garden from the weather, pests, or disease? Well, sometimes it can be bringing your outdoor plants inside. If you want to extend the growing season, let a more tropical plant go dormant over the winter, or just avoid marauding garden pests, your best bet is to pot up some plants and get them to safety. But there are some things you need to consider before you decide if you should bring your plants indoors. Here are some tips for how to bring your outdoor garden inside.
Why Bring Outdoor Plants Inside?
There are several reasons why bringing your plants inside for a short time or over the winter might make sense. If you have container plants that are easy to move, you may want to bring them inside when the weather forecast calls for storms, a cold snap, or even a heat wave. If you have sensitive plants that are almost ready for harvest but temperatures are about to drop, potting them up is a great way to get more produce in your pantry. I like to bring in a couple pepper or cherry tomato plants in the fall to keep the fresh produce going for a few more months.
Some of your plants may need a period of dormancy to complete their growing cycle. Tropical flowers, roots like ginger or tumeric, even certain fruit saplings will do better in cool dark storage rather than in the freezing ground outside. Some folks grow semi-hardy fruit trees in large pots and move them outside in the spring and back inside in the fall. Some citrus or banana trees will still give you a decent harvest even within limited space.
You can also evacuate plants indoors as a last ditch effort to save a plant attacked by garden pests or disease. I’ve rescued the last couple of plants from a row that was devastated by groundhogs, lady beetles, or blight. If you can avoid bringing the pest problem or disease inside, it may give your plants a chance to recover. You might be able to reintroduce them again once the danger has subsided. For perennials that are able to bounce back, it may save the crop. This can give you viable genetics that will help your plants for years to come.
Tips for Before You Bring Them Inside
Before you bring your plants inside, you need to make a couple of decisions. Are these plants going to need to grow inside, or just be stored? How much space are you willing or able to dedicate to indoor plants? Do you have supplemental lighting, suitable temperatures, and the right containers, growing medium, and time to devote to your indoor plants? Once you decide, then you can figure out how to bring your outdoor garden inside.
If you are just storing dormant plants, you should cut back any dead leaves, remove as much soil as possible and store them as bare root plants. You can store them on a shelf in the root cellar, in a plastic bag in the bottom crisper drawer of your refrigerator, or even in a bucket or bag in an above freezing garage or attic. Some plants will prefer to be stored in damp sand or potting mix, but almost all prefer cool temperatures, relatively high humidity, and little to no light.
For plants where you plant to extending the harvest or keep them inside to avoid weather, pests, or disease, you’ll need a space with warm temperatures, sufficient lighting, and access to water and nutrients. For plants close to harvest you want to disturb the soil as little as possible, so you should bring them inside in a pot of garden soil is usually best. If you’re trying to eliminate pests or disease, you may want to transplant into a sterile growing medium and keep them quarantined from the rest of your indoor plants until you are sure they are safe. You could use a shelf where you can hang plastic drapes or a separate greenhouse or porch area to quarantine.
Tips for After You Bring Them Inside
After you’ve decided how to bring your outdoor garden inside, how you treat your plants will vary depending on why you brought them inside. If you are keeping dormant bare root plants over the winter, you may not have to provide much. Checking them every so often to make sure they are at the right temperature and humidity is all you need to do. Seed potatoes and other root vegetables may start sprouting at some point, but keeping them in a low-light environment can help keep them dormant as long as possible, hopefully until you’re ready to bring them back outside.
Plants that you are extending the harvest will need plenty of light and water. If they are in good quality garden soil and didn’t experience too much transplant shock, they shouldn’t need extra nutrients. Once you harvest their fruits, you can dispose of them, or keep them going until spring to encourage a super early harvest once the weather warms up. If they continue to grow indoors, you may need to provide additional supports or prune the plants to keep them from getting top heavy.
For plants on life support, they will need the most care. You will need to regularly check if they are healing from any damage, or for signs of continued problems. You might need to splint or wrap broken or damaged stems, or try to re-root plants that were cut or damaged. Rooting enzymes, antiseptic sprays, or other emergency care can give your damaged plants a boost. If your plants make it through quarantine and seem to be healing, then you might need to provide additional nutrition to help them recover. Transplanting into new growing medium periodically can provide more nutrients and help break any pest or disease cycles.
How to Help Your Indoor/Outdoor Garden Thrive
The basics of caring for outdoor plants that have come inside isn’t very different from any other plant care. But there are a few tips to help your indoor/outdoor plants thrive. Make sure you watch for any pest or disease problems. Sometimes problems that wouldn’t seriously affect a plant outdoors in the sun and fresh air can get worse in a poorly ventilated indoor space. Cooler temperatures, higher humidity, and lower light can encourage mold, fungus, and some insects to multiply.
Moving to a pot or shelf indoors can cause stress on your plants. Transplant shock, rapid temperature swings, or dryer heated air can set your plants back a bit. Make sure to water more frequently if needed, but don’t let them sit in saturated soil. Find a sheltered location away from strong drafts, but with sufficient light so they don’t have to stretch to reach it. Also be prepared if your plants slow down their growth or even stop for a while. It may take some time for them to acclimate to their new surroundings. Dropping some leaves or dying back may be a normal response to stress, but keep an eye on them to make sure there’s nothing more serious going on.
Next Steps
Make a list of which plants might need protection in your garden this year. Whether it’s short term or a longer committment, figure out where and when you might need to set up some indoor gardening space.
If you’re ready to take the plunge and pot up some of your outdoor plants, I hope this has been a helpful guide on how to bring your outside garden inside. Good luck and happy gardening!
Looking for more info on how to keep your garden safe, check out How to Protect Your Garden from Pests & Critters. This post focuses on ways to keep your outdoor plants safe before they get so damaged they need to come inside. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
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