Interior Growing: I leverage a small greenhouse that I leave open (otherwise you'll have too much humidity inducing mold) with full spectrum lights. I have those plugged into smart outlets so I can schedule the lighting and not have to worry about turning them on and off on a daily basis. Everything is planted in a peat pot so they can be transplanted directly into the ground when ready instead of having to uproot and disturb the plant.
For irrigation I use a B Hyve with a soaker hose set in each bed. This allows the water to seep into the soil and ensure leaves aren't covered with water and sitting in the sun (which can be a cause of blight). The tomatoes and larger plants begin caged, and once they outgrow the cages I will trellis the larger vines to a post with clips and twine for extra support. This keeps the plants from crashing down under the weight of the fantastic tomatoes you'll be harvesting all summer and into the fall.
A perk of leveraging these systems is it does not take long to get everything setup and transplanted year to year. I brought in the soaker hoses over the winter, but left the hoses running to those areas out over the winter. In five minutes after transplanting I had the soaker hose dry fit and then tested and we were ready to irrigate.
New to us this year we'll be trying mint, eggplant, and red potatoes and those are all looking healthy so far (6/15). We've also pulled off a few dwarf and cherry tomatoes so far. The jalapeño and lunchbox pepper survived the winter inside and have came in very well to this point.
7/17 - We were gone for a trip so the garden received a pretty decent test of the automated systems while we gone. Upon returning we had our first eggplant and beefsteak tomato as well as a handful of sweet and hot peppers with some cherty tomatoes. We lost a couple plants that didn't have the best irrigation in their zone, but for the most part everything is healthy. The purple bumble bee cherries have started to change color and still looking for our first harvest there.
