Kitchen Garden

Happy New Year! As the new year has come, so has my little kitchen garden. I started cutting two liter bottles in half and making self watering containers. So far it has worked very well. I have sweet basil, lemon basil, thyme, marjoram, dill, garlic chives, parsley and summer savory all planted. The dill has yet to sprout, but everything else has popped up beautifully. I don't expect the dill to actually make an appearance for another few days. I'm using a compact fluorescent bulb in a regular floor lamp with no cover to give my plants light and it is working wonderfully.

My little orchard is also stacked behind my emerging garden. I nearly lost my bananas because I didn't get them in before the first frost which came on time this year around the 15th of October, much to my dismay. I forgot all about them so I had more than a couple of battered dying leaves but, the bananas have made a very serious come back. My blueberry bloomed shortly after coming in and has continued to do so. I did finally figure out why my poor lemon wasn't doing so well. It's an iron deficiency that was getting out of hand. I found a rusty nail to insert into the pot around the roots and about a week later I finally got the new growth I should have seen back in August but never got. I'm going to find a couple more rusty nails to insert into my orange and lime as well as their lower leaves started to yellow a couple of weeks ago so I'm thinking it is the same problem for them.

The mother of a good friend of mine is a professional horticulturist and I asked her about it and she agreed that it was either an iron deficiency or spider mites. I went home and checked it out to see if I had the mites and there were none, thankfully, it was just a simple iron deficiency and that is easier fixed than the bugs.

So all of the plants are healthy and doing well with my modesty lighting system. I was looking into a small LED lighting system and found them to be affordable at around $60 for a system that will cover about 3 square feet. I'm looking forward to getting something more set up so that I can start with some tomatoes and maybe some cucumbers which will require more light than my little compact can produce alone.

I've been saving up my two liters (and so have my friends) and I'm going to start experimenting with lettuces next to see what all I can grown in my little pots. I don't really need much, and baby greens are very quick to grow and then be devoured. I'm really quite excited about this and so are the kids, the enjoy planting and watching the plants grow.

It's a nice start and I'm certainly looking forward to have a good fresh salad whenever I want!

Phew!

It's been a while since I've posted. We moved back in October to what I hope is a more permanent home (one that we'll buy eventually I think). It doesn't have the huge track of land we wanted, but it has some and it will do for our purposes. Behind our property is a "green belt" which is more than an acre or trees separating us from the street behind us. It's actually quite nice and we are really enjoying out new home.

Anyway, with the move in October, then trying to get the house in order before Thanksgiving and now trying again to make sure it stays somewhat in order for Christmas, it's been challenging to say the least. I'm almost done unpacking, but I've been sort of stuck on the last 15 boxes since three days before Thanksgiving. I actually managed to unpack our entire lives in less than three weeks. Most everything has a home, thankfully and I have a few boxes that are in need of storage because I just don't have a practical place to put them right now. I came to the conclusion that we just have entirely too much stuff and it isn't frivolous junk. Camping gear alone takes up.. wow. And then the kitchen... double wow. You just never realize until you move.

So now I'm back on a limited basis through the holidays. I'm pleased to be able to sit down and actually not feel guilty for touching my computer with stuff standing around me in boxes waiting and pleading to be put away. And I've been very busy writing for Patti Moreno. Be looking forward to this coming year, I've sent many articles to her this month. Seven in total at this point!

I had a thought this past week about an inexpensive self watering container while talking to a rather handy fellow at work. We were talking about building my hydroponic system because he has the tools I'm missing and is interested in seeing how my first run at a full indoor system will work. I was showing him plans when I came across a set of plans using cut off two liter bottles screwed into PVC. It hit me at that point that I could just put the cut off top right back in the cut off bottom and fill it with water.

So I did. I poked my husband into finishing his Pepsi and then I proceeded to cut it in half, stuff some cotton into neck and filled the bottom part with water. The wicking process began. I didn't put the water in from the top because I wanted to see if the cotton would actually pull up enough moisture into the dry soil and it did. It only took a couple of hours but the bottom part of the soil started to intake the water so I felt it was a sound process. I put together three of these over last couple of days. I have lemon basil, sweet basil and garlic chives so far. Now that we're going to save our two liters (I had the kids dig through the recycling bin and grab a few others for me from the last month) I should have a few of these all over the house to see what plants respond well to this and which ones don't.

I'm very excited about this and hope it works. I'll get pictures posted of them as soon as I can.

Winter Gardening

This is not something that is limited to the boxes in the backyard with cold frames and hoop houses. I've rambled about this before. Hydroponic, aeroponic and bubbleponic systems in a warm room will keep producing those tomatoes and depending on the space that can be given to such a project a host of other foods that you just don't want to be without. But it isn't even a system of water it can just be a flower pot growing root crops with a grow light.

Considering I have a family of four, an inside winter garden is a good idea not only because it will cut down on the food bill, but because it will also keep down on cabin fever. We have something to keep us busy during a period of rest for the earth outside.

We have our fresh herbs in the kitchen window. If it is one thing my children know better than anything is the difference between all the herbs in the window. They do most of the picking for me when I'm cooking and they make sure to give them a good rinse before we start cooking them, too. We're actually not doing it this year because we're moving in 6 months and my son was horrified when I told him we weren't going to plant more basil.

Another one on our list of food to grow indoors would be potatoes because we love our potatoes and a good tall slender bin or flower pot for potatoes can be easily grown in a window seal or with grow lights in soil not even necessarily getting into the water systems. It's easy because potatoes don't have to have temps above 75 to grow. Most prefer 60 to 65 which is easily attained in the home. Flo tubes could help with lighting if a window isn't getting enough sun and those are cheap, cheap, cheap.

Drop some soil and then a seed potato or two in the bin and cover with soil to the top. The potato plant will seek out the light (if you remember your science experiments from the 8th grade you'll remember the potato in a maze finding its way to the light). I've seen some seriously complicated potato bins, mostly for outside growth, but I've not seen anyone do just a tall slender planter of them in the house before but for once and I swear I thought that the woman who did it must have been in my head. She keeps hers on her deck and hers worked just fine and so have mine inside. You get a mess of potatoes that last about a week or so and then you can start again. Get two or three of those alternating and you've got yourself potatoes all year round with better flavor and without chemicals.

Little pots of lettuce or an entire hydroponic system. Patti Moreno definitely has the right idea, she has a fish tank fertilizing and watering her lettuce which is growing in bins of perlite under flo tubes. An easy and inexpensive set up.

Strawberries are a favorite, especially since the little hydroponic systems came out and a variety of strawberries fit for the little system. Grow some on the counter in the kitchen with one of those like this guy, who has set up his hallways to grow lettuce and strawberries.

There are plenty of dwarf varieties out there that can withstand a good cold snap, but for those that don't, they can become the plants that get brought in for the winter. Banana is getting hugely popular for growing indoors and others as well. A lot of these can be bought mail order depending on where you live.

There are just a ton of things you can grow indoors. Late winter and spring aren't the only times of the year that food can be sprouted and grown. With enough time, space, and patience our old favorites can be grown indoors within reason.

A couple of places and products of interest:

Universal Garden - this is a really cool system consisting of large covered buckets for the reservoirs and adjustable amount of pots to use for the system starting with 4.

Specials for all sorts of great equipment.

LED Grow lights.