Get your green on.

[streetsurfer]

I hope to get some greens planted this week. For starters, our cat has been jonesin' for some grass, so we have oats for her. I want some mustard greens to mix in the hot sauce papa2X has recently posted a recipe for. They will replace the onion. Mrs. Streetsurfer found me a pack of seeds by Botanical Interest called Ruby Streaks which looks lacy and milder like mizuna but with added color. 20-40 days out. I may go 24 hrs light and push it forward. Then there will be some kales and maybe a datil pepper plant. I was away for a while so I need to take stock of what growing materials I have on hand and those needed. I want to make some hypertufa pots for when outdoor grows can start. I have crete but need perlite and peat. Post up. What are you growing now? How are the hoop houses/rows performing for those using them. Seems the mild winter ought to be great for some areas crops. Man, I've got the itch to garden. How 'bout you?

[SunshineMN]

Yes! I really do have the itch right now. Especially after reading an article this morning about how they "wax" organic fruits and veggies. (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/08/that-isnt-wax-on-your-organic-apple.aspx?e_cid=20120212_SNL_MV_1) :( One thing I think that will be easy to grow inside is spinach. I think I saw seeds at Johnny's that take just over 30 days. You could grow rotating crops to have a fairly steady supply. Leaf lettuce should be fairly easy. I'd like to get a couple large pots and grow a couple grape tomato plants as well. Kale shouldn't be hard either.

When we finish the livingroom next summer we plan on making space to grow a bunch of greens. LOL We'll be living in a jungle. We're also planning to get rid of the dishwasher and put an indoor compost bin there. We can just recycle the food scraps into dirt to grow new food scraps. ;)

I also read another disturbing article this morning on how Dow is making new GMO seeds that are resistant to RoundUp and to Agent Orange chemicals (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/12/dow-agrosciences-developed-new-genetically-modified-crops.aspx?e_cid=20120212_SNL_Art_1). They want to start using Agent Orange on fields to destroy the weeds RoundUp no longer kills. How can they think this is safe to do? I followed the link on Mercola's website to all the pictures of teenagers, children and babies that were affected by Agent Orange. It's horrible! I don't want that near my food or anywhere near where I live, or upwind of where I live for that matter.

[DebB]

You both blow me away with all your gardening knowledge!

[SunshineMN]

I saw a story one day some time ago that had some pictures with it. The guy had a shelving unit in his house. There were 4 shelves and each shelf was for a week of the month. Every week he started new containers of lettuce seeds to fill the shelf. Every week he had a shelf of lettuce to eat. I think he also had a grow light or two shining on it certain hours of the day.

How hard can it be? LOL I was thinking about getting these cool flexible tubs (http://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/2750/) I found while browsing around on Azure Standard. They have a bigger version of that one that is 9.5 gallon I believe. I thought I could get a couple of those and have spinach in one and maybe cilantro in another? I'd like to grow a bunch of cilantro to help with heavy metal detox. They also have bigger taller ones that would work for tomato plants. We may get a couple metal shelving units to grow leaf lettuce and other microgreens. I haven't quite figured out what kind of tubs to use for the shelving though. I'd love to use the grey ones that meat cutters use, they'd be a perfect size, but they are made with toxic plastic. The tubtrugs from Azure are BPA free.

[LadySapphira]

I'm amazed by your knowledge. I guess I have the itch since I'm here.... I'm trying to sprout for the first time :P

[SunshineMN]

Sprouting is fun and easy! We just started sprouting a month ago and we're already in a good routine of growing just what we need for the week. We use 5 one quart jars at the moment. We're rotating through alfalfa, green peas, fenugreek, rye, amaranth and lentils. And we just added clover, which eventually sprouted okay but it was quite slow compared to the others. We tried and failed with hulled sesame seeds (I wasn't sure if those would sprout or not). The first time we did quinoa failed too and we haven't tried again but I'm sure next time will work out. Sunflower seeds will be here next week, the batch we had went rancid (we had problems with our central air last summer and the seeds were left in a room that got too hot for a few days). I can hardly wait to sprout them! The rancid ones sprouted great but they tasted really bad and ended up smelling, but they were nice fat sprouts. LOL

I love love love alfalfa sprouts. And I'm so happy I like the lentils. I never liked cooked lentils, but raw sprouted ones are actually quite good. The rye has a wonderful texture in salads. And amaranth sprouts smell and taste like raw sweet corn! Even my cats, whom absolutely adore raw sweetcorn, tried out the amaranth sprouts. :D

[Living Food]

For starters, our cat has been jonesin' for some grass, so we have oats for her.

While your at it, you should grow some oatgrass for yourself too...right up there with wheatgrass in nutritional value.


Sprouting is fun and easy! We just started sprouting a month ago and we're already in a good routine of growing just what we need for the week. We use 5 one quart jars at the moment. We're rotating through alfalfa, green peas, fenugreek, rye, amaranth and lentils. And we just added clover, which eventually sprouted okay but it was quite slow compared to the others.

I agree with SunshineMN, if your planning on doing indoor gardening then you should definitely includes lots of sprouts. If you want it to look more like a garden (instead of a bunch of jars full of seeds), grow microgreens on soil. Sunflower greens, pea shoots, flax and chia greens (don't soak these), and many other greens can be grown on soil for 1-2 weeks, then you eat the shoot. The nutritional value of these is insane; the only thing better are the cereal grasses (although weeds are up there too).