Eating microgreens in january (growing indoors)

Everyday these seedlings grow taller and greener. Last night I cut from the tray of Daikon radish seedlings. They were getting mature, so it's time to harvest them. I ate the seedlings as a garnish over vegan ramen with kimchi.

I don't remember what I planted here. Maybe I didn't because nothing is growing yet. 

The turnip greens are very lush. I can't wait to harvest them to eat in a salad or sandwich.

I'm excited for the new year of growing. I have bigger plans and ideas! So stay tuned.

Starting microgreens in January

Daikon radish sprouting, bok choy, and other seed germinating

 Last Saturday, one week ago, I sowed 7 top turnip, white icicle radish, and daikon radish seed. I sowed the seeds in a seed starting mix with coconut coir. And I am using recycled plastic to use as containers to grow the microgreens.

After a couple of days, the seeds germinated, and I have kept the grow lights on them for 8 to 12 hours.

Turnip sprouting

I'm going to use these microgreens to garnish in salads, soups, and sandwiches. In a couple of weeks, I'll be starting broccoli, cabbage, and other brassicas to transplant outdoors in the garden in late March--early April.

Radish sprouting 

There's no point starting a bunch of plants this early in the year. The temperature outside will be single digits at night this week. And it will be at least another 6 weeks till I can plant cold hardy veggies outdoors. And I still need to compost and mulch my gardens and fruit trees, and till my other gardens.
I am ordering more cucumber, tomato, and pepper seed to start indoors in March to transplant outdoors in May. There's not much I can plant now, but I'm get antsy to see some greens to pick. I encourage you to grow something green today! 

Recycled plastic bottles covering seedlings & more Easter tulips

This week has been rainy with wild temperatures after the snow last week. The spring flowers are blooming around the yard. If course the tulips are blooming one by one for the last two weeks, along with daffodils, violets, and the fruit trees.

Plum tree 

Peach tree blooming

In between rains, I worked in the garden, cleaning up the beds and adding garden soil to them. With the plastic bottles I collected from people-- I'm putting them in the garden beds to protect the cabbage I transplanted today.

The bottles act as a mini greenhouse for the plants, and they will keep my cat from digging up the garden bed. The 2 liter bottles are covering the Early Jersey and golden acre cabbage seedlings, while the 16 fl oz bottles and tops are covering the Easter egg radishes and spinach seed I sowed directly in the soil. To the left of the seedlings, Early Alaskan peas are pushing through the soil.

The next day I finished the second garden bed by transplanting more cabbage and collard seedlings aand sowing radish, spinach, and pea seed.

Also I have been going to the woods collecting large stones and wood. The wood is to frame the garden beds and the stones are being saved to make part of the cob shed (if I ever get around to building it.) For now I'm piling the stones around garden beds, fruit trees and bushes.

The beginning of April is a busy month for early gardeners, as I have more tomatoes to sow, including peppers indoors, and transplanting the greens and tomatoes I've been hardening off in the outside greenhouse/porch.

Early girl tomatoes

Basil

Early March starter plants under grow lights

The starter plants are a couple weeks old. I have been keeping them under a grow light in my kitchen. On the warm days, I take the starters out to the porch greenhouse and then back in at night. These are cauliflower, varieties of cabbage, and collards. I used potting soil mixed with seed starting mix for the starters and keep lights on the plants for over 10 hours. The amount of light varies depending on when I wake up and go to bed because I don't have the lights on a timer.

As I was passing the greenhouse center where I usually get truckloads of mulch, I bought three Early Girl Tomatoes and put them with the starters. I also have cilantro, basil, onions, and carrots growing as well.

Soon I will sew other tomato varieties indoors in recycled water bottles because they're bigger containers than typical starter cells and pots. I tend to start tomatoes and peppers indoors early in March, but I end up regretting starting early because they'll grow better, faster, stronger if I threw out a bunch of seed in the summer instead.

Come April, I'll have greens transplanted outside in the garden and I'll have summer crops started indoors. Tuesday I sewed lettuce varieties indoors along with radish, swiss chard, broccoli, so we'll see their progress in a month, and I'll transplant them outside with the cabbage and cauliflower.

Peas on trellis, sowing seeds, & cardboard mulch blueberries/yard to avoid mowing

The polytunnel garden that was growing the cabbage and broccoli was working perfectly when I had the transparent plastic over top to protect the plants from frost. Unfortunately when I took the plastic cover off and didn't replace it with a cloth cover, a rabbit harvested those plants overnight it seems--eating every plant. Soon there will be other crops to be transplanted there, and for now there are potatoes growing in bags beside the polytunnel.

I showed you that picture recently, so I will only show you pictures of other crops growing on in the garden below. In the first picture, peas growing in an "E" with recycled pieces of materials to make a trellis. I reuse the tobacco sticks and fencing every year for a trellis, and here I have done the same.

peas growing in a "E" with a trellis

When I had transplanted Cabbage and broccoli in the polytunnel at my grandparents', I also transplanted cabbage here in this spot where I could cover and uncover the plants daily and monitor them more closely than the other plants. Because I have cats and a dog here, they keep the mice, rabbits and other critters out from the garden. But I am having a terrible time with the cats because they are spraying all over the yard and digging up the garden and doing their business--so I want them gone.

cabbage

 In this picture, I have cardboard mulched around the blueberry plants which you can see the biggest blueberries in front of the row with a garden cover. The intention also by sheet mulching with cardboard is also to avoid mowing. I don't have much yard to mow, but the parts I need to mow get so grassy and lush quickly that it becomes almost too difficult to mow at all. So I highly recommend sheet mulching with cardboard and then mulch over top of the cardboard with wood chips or rocks or whatever you prefer to make your garden beautiful and work for you.

The blueberries have been blooming a while now so I expect to harvest within the next two months.

cardboard mulching around blueberries

 On the hugelkultur mound in the picture below, I have placed tobacco sticks in a teepee shape and covered with a garden cloth. Yesterday was a good planting day for root crops, so I sowed radish seed as well as transplanting radish plants I started indoors months ago. I really thought the radish would grow full size indoors within a month, so I am testing those radishes outside now. I also sowed beets, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to also plant greens along with the radish and beets. In the front of the row is radish and beets, then broccoli, red romaine lettuce, arugula, black seeded simpson, butterbowl lettuce, then mesclun spicy mix on the end.

tomatoes & peppers starters

 Indoors, I have tomatoes and peppers growing under grow lights which you have seen in previous posts this year. Also I have potatoes under grow lights "chitting" which is a process to get them started before I get another place established for them outside. Because I have potatoes in grow bags, I'm not sure if the plan is to plant the rest of the potatoes in bags or directly in the ground.

peppers & tomatoes under grow lights

even under grow lights the tomatoes I plant are leggy

Indoor grow light tomato garden + tropical houseplant update

On the 7th of February I started tomatoes indoors. This is very early to start tomatoes for my Zone 6-7 in Kentucky. But I wanted to start them early because I wanted to do additional experimenting with the grow lights and creating the right conditions for plants. I really have tried this year so far by using Superthrive as a fertilizer for the plants as well. I have used Superthrive on the fruit trees, tomatoes, and houseplants. So I wanted to show you can update on the progress of the tomatoes and the houseplants as we are growing in the cold winter days of February through March.

tomatoes, swiss chard, broccoli, radish, lettuce

The tomatoes sprouted on the 13th of February, 6 days after sowing, and then I transplanted the tomatoes two weeks ago at the end of February/beginning of March. In the pictures you'll see that some of the tomatoes have curled leaves, and I believe it was the transplant and fertilize that stressed the plant, in addition to the area being different temperatures. There are many factors to this, but they have grown quite a bit since then, so two weeks later (yesterday the 14th of March) I fertilized the tomatoes again with the superthrive. Most gardeners say to fertilize once a week, but I was really surprised by this considering I never fertilize plants (with the exception of laying mulch or compost on trees or in the garden.) Because I usually cannot grow vegetable starts indoors like the experts, I decided to listen to other gardeners that fertilize often with something like the superthrive.
In the early stages of the tomatoes plants growing, I had them on platforms of small cardboard boxes and small plastic containers that raised them closer to the grow lights. As the tomatoes grew taller, I have shortened the platforms they were growing on, and today I just took the plants off their platforms because they are quite tall now. So I have started using trash ties, lettuce ties, and bread ties to  hold them straight.

Below are some photos of the tomatoes growing under the LED grow lights, in addition to photos of the tropical houseplants growing. I have 5 pineapple plants growing (two of the big pineapples are in the largest pots.) I have aloe, cactus, snake plants, dracaena, and a pot of sunflowers.

Cherry tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Beefsteak tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes transplanted into containers (not looking good)

cactus mix in pot

Radishes held up with trash ties

sunflowers growing in pot

pineapples in large pots, christmas cactus, & mulberry plants (not looking good)

Indoor starter garden update Feb 20 2017 & how I overwintered Figs (VIDEO)

An Indoor Greens Garden for COLD climate February harvest! (video)

MIgardener shows you that you can grow an indoor garden in a colder climate and harvest in February.

Indoor Starter Plants with LED grow lights (Mid-February 2017)

Below are updated pictures of the indoor starter plant garden. I have LED 4 foot lights attached to two rubbermaid shelves. Growing on the top shelf is Swiss chard germinating in recycled strawberry/blueberry/kiwi containers. I buy a seed starting mix, or will mix my own potting soil with vermiculite, perlite, and peat moss. On the second shelf is Cherry tomatoes and Beefsteak tomatoes growing almost directly under the grow lights.  The tomatoes were sown 6 days before they sprouted, and now they are at least an inch tall. Beside the trays of tomatoes are a Goji berry in the orange pot and a Pineapple plant to the right. Below on the 3rd shelf is another goji plant in the orange pot with a tray of onion seed germinating, then Beets, lettuce, Artichoke, Brussels, Broccoli, and Cauliflower growing in the second (middle) tray. To the right is a tray of Radish growing. The radish are becoming quite leggy despite putting them directly under the grow light like with the tomatoes.

Cherry Tomatoes

Radish (right)

Goji berry

Goji berry