Growing Strong on the East Coast – Maximum Yield’s ‘Grow Like a Pro’ Indoor Gardening Expo Tour Hits Michigan

Celebrate with us on the second stop of our ‘Grow Like a Pro’ Tour at our Great Lakes Expo in Novi, Michigan, June 2 to 3, 2012. The vibrant and rapidly growing East Coast indoor gardening industry will be in for a treat as exhibitors from around the globe showcase the newest and most innovative products at the Suburban Collection Showplace. Located ideally northwest of Detroit in Novi, Michigan, this venue provides the perfect backdrop to highlight the strong growth of gardening enthusiasts in the Great Lakes area.

This two-day event begins Saturday, June 2. Doors will open to the industry only from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. giving attendees and exhibitors plenty of time to interact, network and do business. Sunday, June 3, the expo will be open to the general public from noon to 5 p.m. giving exhibitors the opportunity to educate and show firsthand the benefits of their products to enthusiastic gardeners.

There are various reasons why people put up an indoor garden at home – it could be for health reasons such as opting to eat organic fruits and vegetables, filtering the air in the home, have a good ambiance for small gatherings, or simply just to have both a safe and relaxing haven to go to in the comforts of your own home at the end of a stressful day. Whatever your reason is to putting up an indoor garden, it is most often than not, a good reason to have some “chlorophyll” in your home.

Reports issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) stating that indoor pollution is far more dangerous than outdoor pollution should not be brushed aside. This is enough reason for you to be concerned when symptoms such as headaches, upper respiratory tract infections like throat irritations, sinus congestion, asthma, or the common cold are exhibited.

When the above symptoms are manifested and you don’t have an indoor garden or even a single plant in a pot inside your home yet then you should be putting some serious thought into this. The health benefits of having an indoor garden are astounding and the cost to have even a small indoor garden patch is truly affordable if you really plan it.

Basic science has taught us that plants exhale oxygen and breathe in carbon dioxide and we need oxygen to survive. Oxygen is free but with all the technological gadgets; state of the art vehicles; even chemical ingredients found in cosmetics, carpets, fabrics, upholstery, draperies, paper towels, or even grocery bags, chloroform added to tap water, and cigarette smoke, to name a few; that emit substances that can cause serious damage to our health, people eventually end up in a hospital hooked up to an oxygen tank.

Having your own indoor garden – be it just a patch or a room with plants in pots , or a room in your palace – will save you the anguish of being confined to a hospital bed hooked up to machines and gadgets because you are terminally ill. There are a lot of people suffering from lung cancer today that neither smoked their entire life nor even went close to someone who did.

Start planning for your indoor garden now – not tomorrow or next year. Here are a couple of things you need to decide on to get started:

What type of indoor garden do you want? A flower garden? Fruit garden? Vegetable garden? Herb garden?

What type of flowers/fruits/vegetables/herbs do you want to have in your garden?

How much space do you have for your indoor garden in the house?

How much funds can you allot for your indoor garden?

Will you use pots or can you afford to have shelves, window sills, or clay containers to move around when you don’t have ample lighting?

The biggest challenge is always getting a head start but, once you have lifted off, you’ll be amazed someday that you have created the safe and relaxing indoor garden haven of your dreams.

Modern commercial farms are notoriously unsustainable, especially given the world’s looming population boom. Farming often demands deforestation, for one: Some experts estimate that to feed the planet’s population in 2050, when it could be above 9 billion, we’ll need additional arable land the size of Brazil. Bye-bye, rain forest!
Other issues with traditional farming include the heavy use of pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides with the consequent chemical runoff, destruction from invasive and treatment-resistant species, weather-related crop failures, wasted water and depleted soil. Clearly there’s an issue here, so enter indoor farming from stage left. Slowly growing in popularity, indoor farming could not only help feed the few extra billion people we’ll have hanging around in a couple of decades, it could also conserve precious resources and help reverse climate change.
While that might sound too good to be true, consider some of the potential benefits of indoor farming. When you grow plants (and raise livestock) in regulated facilities, you can constantly control temperature, humidity, water, light and nutrient delivery. In Japan, a company called Pasona began an indoor farm in the unused basement of a skyscraper in Tokyo’s business district. Located in a former bank vault, the farm uses an automated control system to grow fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers — there’s even rice grown in specially designed terraced paddy “fields” built for the purpose.
An even more ambitious idea that’s still largely in the conceptual and prototyping stage is known as vertical farming. In order to maximize land use, vertical farming would take place in towering skyscrapers, possibly 30 stories high or more. There are several advantages to consolidated growing space. Land use drops steeply so former farmland can be allowed to return to its natural state, creating vast new carbon sinks. Such a setup would also work perfectly on an abandoned city block: By growing food in urban environments where the majority of us live anyway, the drop in cost and carbon emissions related to shipping could result in huge savings.
Because vertical farms are self-sustained, they function much like factories. The operations can process plant waste and filter dirty water. They can generate power and prevent billions of gallons of wastewater from being dumped in nearby waterways — something that happens every few days in the average big city.
Put up a dozen or so vertical farms, and all of a sudden you have yourself a self-sustaining closed-loop system that can feed an entire city. Running year-round, weather and pests are never a problem, so people can get all the nutrients they need even when a particular crop is technically out-of-season. Plus, arid or drought-ridden places can conserve massive amounts of water. All in all, it’s pretty much a win-win. Now all we need are several specialists and some super-generous philanthropists willing to make it a reality.

Advantages of Indoor Gardening

There are many reasons why indoor gardening is increasing in popularity. When set up right, a good hydroponic growing system can be much more economical and efficient than a traditional soil garden. Here are some of the benefits of growing indoors:

• Fruits and vegetables grown indoors with hydroponic gardens have been shown to contain more vitamins and usually taste better than soil grown produce.
• Indoor gardening allows you to grow year-round, especially useful for those in extreme cold or hot climates.
• Larger numbers of plants can be grown in small spaces because less space is required between plants. Most hydroponic growing systems can be adapted to fit in oddly-shaped areas, allowing greater flexibility.
• Eliminating soil reduces the risk of disease and drastically cuts water usage. Indoor hydroponic systems are usually easier to maintain than soil gardens because there is no soil prep work required (weeding, tilling, etc.)