In
the spring of 2013 I
decided to learn how to make my favorite Vietnamese Pho at home, because I couldn't find anything like it in
the restaurants of the small prairie town where I live. When I started learning how to make Pho, I soon realized that you have to have fresh herbs,
and that the “fresh” herbs sold in in local supermarkets are not very fresh at all. The problem is, herbs start losing flavor the minute they are
picked, and since the “fresh” herbs at the supermarket are mostly products of the southern U.S.A. or Mexico, they've lost much of their flavor by the time they reach us on the Canadian prairies. I got really tired of having a
batch of Pho turn out "edible but not great", just because (a) the only
fresh basil I could find was Sweet Basil instead of Thai, and (b) it
had already lost most of its flavor anyway.
“Wouldn't
it be great”, I thought, “if there were someplace you could buy
locally grown herbs that were picked fresh every day, even in the dead of winter, and had the date and time
they were picked written on the bag, ?”
That
concept fascinated me for awhile, but eventually I decided that it
was probably a pie-in-the-sky idea, - considering the cost of heating
indoor space on the Canadian prairies in winter. “For the time being”, I
thought, “I will just build my own indoor gardening system where I
can grow my own herbs and vegetables and also have a new toy to play
with as winter drags on and on.” (I don't know if you
guessed it, but I hate winter.”)
Anyway, over the
next 15 months or so I did a lot of on-line research, and I designed
and built several soil-based indoor growing systems using arrays of
three-watt L.E.D.s for grow lights. All of these units grew beautiful
basil, cilantro and tomato plants, but each one had to be torn down
and re-designed because it either cost too much to build, or wasn't easy
enough to use, or didn't optimize the use of space. Besides,
I wanted a unit that could conceivably be used for small scale
commercial growing indoors, and for experimenting at home with ways
of growing and harvesting various herbs and vegetables. I guess I had become
kind of addicted to indoor gardening. There's just something very
satisfying about being able to grow beautiful plants under bright
lights indoors, especially during a long cold winter. I soon decided I wanted to continue indoor gardening as a hobby, but I also wanted to develop equipment for other
indoor gardeners as a business, and so Sunmaker Indoor Gardening
Systems Ltd. was born. (I am the only shareholder, so far.)
The
Sunmaker 2 Indoor Garden
In
the fall of 2015, working as an incorporated business, I finally came
up with a really good design for an indoor gardening system. I call it my Sunmaker 2 Indoor Garden, and with it, I've gotten more and more into indoor gardening as a hobby. I find it fascinating and a lot of fun, and with up to eighteen plants to raise and nurture, it keeps me enjoyably occupied all year round.
(For more about the Sunmaker 2 see my next post, The Sunmaker 2 Indoor Garden: -What are you planting this winter? )
