One of the most important issues in indoor or deck gardening is the light. When you have a large plot of land outdoors the sun pretty much makes the point moot, pick a sunny spot and go. With a deck or when inside it become your job to provide the light nature can't.

Decks are easier, most get at least some light and the outdoor exposure makes artificial lighting impractical. In this case it all comes down to facing. For the Northwest area, the best facing is south, this gives you all day sun during most seasons. You can plant pretty much anything but shade plants on these decks, and may even have to provide some sun protection. The primary issue here is to remember to water frequently. Western is probably the next best, with the long evening sun and then east with the morning light. Both of these can plant pretty much anything but real sun lovers, if you do want to plant tomatoes or other fruiting vegetable, start them early indoors so they have a head start and a longer fruiting season. Lastly you have north, at which point your pretty much talking shade plants only, (lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi in the case of vegetables).

Indoors you have a lot more control. While a large window is good and can add considerably to your light real estate, it also can create a high degree of variability, providing too much light in summer and almost none in winter. If you have a south or west window, use it for the vegetable or succulents and keep your orchids, African violets or other plants under grow lights if you have them set up.

When it comes to grow light setups, go first with florescent. They are not as bright, but on a cost per watt basis they provide a great deal, and more illuminated area. You can pick up cheap hanging fixtures for less than 20 dollars at your local home improvement store. You can try balancing various cool and warm light bulbs to get the full spectrum, but I would recommend getting the full spectrum "grow" bulbs in the first place. It's the difference between 5 and 7 dollars for the most part and save a lot of bother. For flowering plants 40 watt florescent are quite suitable. Wattage for these lights is a function of length, to get a wattage higher than 40 means really long tubes, longer than is practical for most homes. Get plants as close to the bulbs as you can, each foot of difference roughly halves the intensity of the light. If you want to grow vegetables indoors and don't have a good facing window, you may need spot incandescent to get islands of high intensity, (100 to 150 watts), the plants will need to ripen fruit.

More the more dedicated with rooms to spare, you can get halide lighting systems, that go from 250 to 1000 watts. These miniature suns will illuminate a small room bright enough to ripen a tomato but you wouldn't want to live in the same room with it for any length of time. They also consume a pretty notable power cost, about a dollar a day at Northwest prices for a 1,000 watt.