indoor gardening!

With the gorgeous weather and A getting over a bug he caught on Halloween, we have been staying close to home. Lots of garden cleanup work, bread making, bubble blowing, book reading, microbe researching, and craft/giftmaking planning. Oh, and indoor garden planning. The indoor garden has been on our mind for awhile. At first I really wanted a lean-to greenhouse outside, but with HOA restrictions, cost, limited placement options with our tiny space, massive snowdrift possibilities, and me not wanting to permanently affix something big to the side of our house, well, we are bringing it inside. I seed start in the basement each spring and usually grow window herbs through the winter, but we wanted to do a little more this time.

The boys wanted to help with everything from seed selection to technical requirements to planting, so they have been involved in planning. This is going to be pretty basic, but the plan is to start seeds in trays - we are testing two planting mediums so the boys can see which produces the best seedlings. We plan to take advantage of any sunshine during the day, and then move trays into our growlight seedling setup in the basement at night...just until seeds germinate and we start getting some growth.

The boys did the planting today. We setup the two soil mediums, planted all seeds, marked all of the cells with what is planted there, watered and put it in the window to start. We started a graph of what seeds we have, what their germination needs are and water preferences. A wants to expand that to include seed to plant time estimates and harvesting notes. Good ideas!


After rambling on you are probably wondering WHY are we starting seeds inside in November? Well, we preserve and freeze and save foods all summer from our farm visits and garden and work to keep our food local as much as we can. We do sprout a lot in winter, but fresh herbs and greens would be wonderful. Last winter the boys grew a few carrots, radishes and small onions in a window, so why can't we do more?


We are planting a few things for this first round (they will be transplanted into larger pots later)::
-mustard greens
-salad bowl lettuce (cut and come again)
-spinach
-cilantro
-chives
-swiss chard
and by special request we will try
-window box roma tomato


As we go we plan to succession plant what is working, eliminate what isn't, try new things, and see how much we can grow inside in the winter. Should be fun - and the boys are EXCITED to see results!