Our indoor gardening experiments continued this weekend with some new projects. We have been re-visiting the book "Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long." The book talks about forcing winter greenery inside - which is very interesting! The boys like the 'mad-scientist' stuff we always have going on, and I like that we can bring in a bunch of things already in our garden and see what we can continue to grow.
The book suggested certain root vegetables - by planting them in moist sand and placing in a sunny window, you can force the greenery to sprout, and then just snip and eat as it grows! We went to the yard and collected parsley root, cabbage root, fennel root, and celeriac.
We rinsed the roots clean, snipped off any frosted bits and old growth (only left any new shoots) and then planted them in sand. The pots were placed in sunny windows and I know the boys will obsessively water them and keep the sand moist (the fun part!).
Our seedlings are doing great - we plan to transfer those to bigger pots this week. That along with the forced winter greenery pots gives us a nice number of things for our indoor winter garden!
If you haven't read the Four-Season Harvest book and are interested in extending your growing season into the winter, you should check it out. It is a great read.
Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman.
I'm interested in trying this. Thanks for the book recommendation...I just requested it from my library.
ReplyDeletewow...great photos...and always fun to catch up on what you are doing with A & G!
ReplyDeletemust be lovely to have green in the house!
You're indoor garden is wonderful! 34 is your high?! Wow, it's still in 80s here...ugh. Speaking of asthma, my Livie had a bad bout last night and today.....I hope your guy is doing better.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was going to find seedlings! And I thougt that was fast! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the book, too.
Thanks!
Stephanie
You really are getting the creative juices flowing!!
ReplyDeleteI was just saying to my husband yesterday... it's not too early to begin thinking about our first garden... this project could be practice :)
Very cool!
ReplyDeleteJust for fun, I lay a dried ear of corn in a shallow dish, add water and place it in a sunny window. The corn grows roots and grows right out of the corn cob. We have fun watching it grow.
We measure it's growth and keep a growth chart. After awhile it will die out. But it's fun while it lasted.
thanks for the book rec Denise. i am on it. we've been growing rocket/arugula indoors (maybe i've mentioned that before) and it's going great. we're having fresh carrot and rocket juice almost every morning.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff. Is that JUST sand, nothing else?
ReplyDeleteOh fun!
ReplyDeleteWe've got our salad garden going outside the herb garden is still happy through the winter (about half of it). Green is nice this time of year.
Wishing your little guys well again and you some time to rest as well.
Love~
Four Season Harvest - one of my all-time favorites!
ReplyDeleteAnd again, I love the projects you do with your kids.
Hey, I've given you an award! Come on over and check it out.
I just had that book out today, while consulting about our cold frames.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this book and been curious about it...I'm definitely going to check it out right now. Though we're just getting into actual cold weather here; looks like we'll have our first hard frost tonight.
ReplyDeletei love this idea xo
ReplyDeletemon - the book said just sand, so yes! :) i did add a little bit of Fox Farm Grow Big Liquid Plant Food into the water once so far...will probably do that every week or so!
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I've been wondering about how to do this, so this is good timing. The book is on my library list.
ReplyDelete