Gardens...fall crops...moving indoors

[streetsurfer]

Have you put them to bed yet? I've been thinking ahead to what I might want to plant at the end of next summer for harvesting in fall. Next year I hope to be growing some kale (have the seeds), as well as some various mustard greens. What do all you folks still have growing in your gardens at this time of year? Do you use a cold frame to extend the fall season? Do you use row cover? I think we hit 25 degrees once overnight once here, and then had a couple events hovering near freezing.

Out back under a double layer of row cover, I still have rouge d' hiver, black seeded simpson, boston bib, parris romaine, a few left over carrots and beets, fennel, mizuna (mmmm!), some unknown onion (either wild or nodding, I think), and recently placed in the ground some porcelain and colossal garlic.

In preparation for winter, I put together a test bubble lift hydro setup that can support three small plants. It has Black seeded Simpson lettuce doing great in it now (growing much faster and larger than those outdoors in the cold), and I just transferred three cilantro plants into one of it net pots. One thing I found is the lettuce tastes different between soil grown and hydro....soil has more of the green bitter taste, and hydro is more of the crisp tangy taste like a mustard green or cress. I thought that was pretty interesting. In the third is a toad lily that was about dead (left over store stock). In the hydro bucket, I was able to bring it to bloom and then regenerate its foliage. It will soon go back into dirt to open that spot for food.

I just wanted to spark up some garden talk. Gardening ain't over until I've shoveled the drive a couple times..........actually it's never over, it just moves indoors for a season.

[rawrawks]

I moved my garden indoors. In a double closet under grow lights.

[Soka]

Oh! Any pictures of that?

I really want to try gardening next year. I always manage to let my plants die though. :( In Spring I hope to try my hand had cherry tomatoes, carrots, green beans, sunflowers, and radishes. I hope to grow some greens for the fall. I'm itching to grow something right now, but I don't have grow lights and I don't have the money for them. Is there any way to grow plants indoors without a grow light?

[rawrawks]

If you have enough light inside. You need many hours of direct light. You can ALWAYS grow sprouts tho.

Here are a couple of my pix.

[streetsurfer]

Shop lights are fairly inexpensive to purchase and operate Soka, and are adequate for many things, as rawrawks photos show. You don't have to have the more expensive grow lights You can ocassionally find the shop fixtures for ten dollars at home centers on sale. I think a pair of 4' bulbs would be under ten, while plant specific bulbs are more. A cheaper way to go for a small plant or two/three would be a painters light (looks like an aluminum bell) with a cfl in it.

I just called our local brew and grow and asked if they had experience with growing kale indoors. They reported good success with it under T-5 flourescent lights. I wasn't sure if it could be done under flo's since it is a much taller plant than the lettuces and herbs I was used to.

Today I am making cuttings to root some stevia and rosemary, I turned and fluffed the compost pile (gotta make them worms work for their room and board:)), will shortly be mowing up the fallen leaves under the willow to add to the compost pile (willows are rich in growth hormones), as well as trim some newer end growth from the willow to make rooting solution for the cuttings, and removed the row cover for the next few warmer days since there's no threat of frost. Trying to make good use of the sunny day.:cool:

[streetsurfer]

If you are one of the group growing kale indoors this winter.....

Did you know the USDA has Kale rated as the one vegetable producing the highest amounts lutein and beta-carotene carotenoids? Maybe Alissa has discussed this in her book? These are the phytochemicals (the red, orange, and yellow secondary pigments) associated with reduced risks of cataracts, age related macular degeneration, and lung cancer. Reading about some testing done on kale, I've found you can easily manipulate the lutein and beta-carotene levels of your kale.
To increase your plants production of these components, you can simply increase the light period (the photoperiod) the plants are under. Highest amounts of the chemicals are produced under 24 hours of, or continuous light. The testing for this had the plants grown out to the three week period under bulbs in the cool blue spectrum (after starting under two weeks of natural light), then the test samples were harvested from under 6/12/16/24 hours. These were for fresh mass sampling as if you were eating the kale fresh. Dry mass results differed, but were tested to show the results for powdered supplementation.
I don't know what effect it might have on flowering to continue 24/7 beyond several weeks but I will be looking for the answer to that. I suspect flowering is more related to high temperatures, as the bolting of lettuce is.

For now I have my kale at about eighteen hours but intend to increase to 24 shortly when I transplant to larger containers. My plants, started on 11/21 now have 4-6 true leaves.

Mizuna mustard greens I planted less than 48 hours ago have already emerged :D. I am about out of stock and looking forward to picking more. The current deep chill, in spite of erecting impromptu hoop houses with dupont row cover just prior, has probably done in my outdoor greens. It has been down to 7º with high winds today, 13º yesterday:(.

So, how does your indoor garden grow?

[lovenlife]

Good deal and info! Mine isnt doing so well. I need to revamp it all. New soil,new tainers and all. I love the light increasing idea though.

My plants are not doing so well but I have two "lady"bugs in there that finally "met' are are VERY much enjoying the accomadations.~