Monday, March 27, 2017

Seeds Started

We started the seeds listed below on Saturday. We made a tray of micro-blocks for most seeds but put the choi and lettuce in another tray of mini-blocks. The micro-blocks will be transferred to regular blocks once the viable seeds sprout. The mini-blocks will be planted directly outside once the seedlings are strong enough to withstand insect pressure. The peas are soaking and will likely be planted in blocks this evening. The trays are stacked on top of a thermostatically controlled rope light set to 72 degrees F with the micro-blocks on the bottom. As soon as they start sprouting, I will place them under the lights and set up a fan so that they grow up strong (thigmomorphogenesis). I am going to follow the method of this study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC35122/) and turn the fan on three times a day for 30 minutes.

3 Beefsteak tomato
10 Brandywine tomato
12 Cherokee tomato
12 Red Cherry tomato

12 California Wonder pepper
12 Biscayne pepper

16 Giant Italy parsley
20 Curly parsley

20 Calypso cilantro

10 Sweet Italian basil
10 Sweet basil
20 Genovese basil

20 Tango celery

20 Rhubarb Red chard

20 Nash Green kale
5 Toscano kale

10 Joi choi

10 Tatsoi

20 Romaine Ridgeline lettuce
20 Muir lettuce
20 Oakleaf lettuce
20 Red Sails lettuce

50 Peas

Friday, March 3, 2017

Indoor Gardening

Our very mild winter will be coming to a close shortly which means that we will soon be starting seeds under lights in the basement. The past few weeks, we have been getting our kitchen in order and growing quite a few things indoors. Our Omega Juicer has made it very easy to regularly make whole wheat and lentil sprout bread. Once the wheat and lentils are sprouted, it is simply a matter of running them through the juicer with the blank insert, then squeeze into a loaf, coat with sesame seeds and bake at 250 deg for a couple of hours. One of the best things about this bread is that it can be baked in our mini-crockpot, thus saving energy and saving worry about having the oven on for an extended period.



We are also regularly growing trays of sunflower and buckwheat microgreens, and jars of alfalfa, broccoli, and cress seed mix. I am putting together a spreadsheet that will help me to figure out how to have a steady supply of these indoor greens and that will allow me to report on cost and yield.