Category Archives: winter greens

Golden Harvest Time, And Greens Go Wild

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Leaves
Leaves – they are appearing by the bagful on curbs all over the city. And I’ve been driving about, collecting as many as I can. I particularly like the large clear bags of leaves so that I can be sure it’s just leaves, and not trash.

Leaves are gardener’s gold. They provide carbon for the compost pile. They are a good soil amendment and are great for mulch. I use them prolifically in my hugelkultur beds.

And most important – They are free.

So save your leaves and put them on your garden beds or work into your compost pile now and gather a few extra bags for use later in the year.

Garden greens more dec 2015

Remember that hugelkultur bed I installed a month or so ago? The greens are taking over! We had our first dish of greens – collards and mustard – from the garden last week. And I go through and remove ragged leaves for the hens – which they, of course, love. The greens have weathered our almost-freezes well, and the chard is beginning to take off.

Now, we’re going to be installing a spiral garden in another part of the yard, and more growing space. Stay tuned for updates!

Adventure in Microgreens!

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As I search for ways to teach how to grow food in winter (and/or indoors), I happened on a slim volume called “MicroGreenGarden: Indoor grower’s guide to gourmet greens,” by Mark Mathew Braunstein (Book Publishing Company – Green Press Initiative, 2013).  Braunstein carefully and clearly sets out the advantage of microgreens and how to start and grow them.  I was inspired!

Seed-2Btray
On Friday (11/21) I scavenged a couple of take-out boxes from Olive Garden that my son brought home (filled with food).  They are good plastic (recyclable) and sturdy.  Following Braunstein’s directions, I cut the top and bottom apart.  The top became a stabilizing addition when added underneath the bottom part.  Since I didn’t have an ice pick (which he recommended using), I found a large eye-screw and made 9 drainage holes in the bottoms of the stacked tray. 
seed-2Btray-2Bliner
 
Then I found some newspaper (he recommends sturdier paper, but I hated to use good copy paper) to put in the bottom of the tray so that the starting medium doesn’t clog the drain holes. Next step in the process was to mix starting medium/potting mix with water to make it mushy and put it into the tray.
 
I found some seeds for sprouting languishing in my refrigerator (an organic mix of alfalfa, radish and broccoli) and measured out 1 tsp. of the seeds (per his formula on page 40).  I used a small camping salt/pepper shaker to sow the seeds evenly across the top of the wet potting mix in the tray.  That’s a lot of seeds for the tray – I probably only used ¾ tsp. and threw the rest into one of my garden containers among the greens that are growing nicely.  Then I pressed the seeds into the mix (not covering them!) with my fingers to make contact with the moist soil.
 

Seeds-2Bplanted
I found a larger container without holes in which to put the planted tray. Braunstein recommends covering the seeded tray with a wet cloth or paper towel until the seeds sprout. I put the tray in my upstairs study by a west-facing window (it gets somewhat warm from sun during the day) and covered with a wet paper towel.
An alternative would be to leave the trays uncovered but mist or spray them three times a day.  Well, I wouldn’t be able to do that, so I opted for the paper cover.
From here, I bottom water about once a day (for my smaller, ½ pint container – every other day for a pint container), or when the top of the soil feels dry.  Now to watch for the sprouts.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress!