Monthly Archives: June 2014

Belated update on the 8 year storage results

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I forgot to mention a few things when I posted the first round. In no particular order:

1. Powdered milk in the box = iffy. It looked sort of yellowed and smelled odd, it may have been OK but I’m recommending buying it an a vacuum sealed can. I need to break some of this out (I have that as well) and see if it is usable, I hate to blindly assume it’s OK.

2. Potato flakes in a box = fail. This was a 24 month in my pantry test, I made some up and noticed it was not white and tasted like used gym socks. Same thing as the milk, go with the #10 cans and test every few years. Maybe better at 60F, I dunno.

3. #10 cans= win. Even with a half-assed plastic box wrap in a really humid place, none of the cans showed any rust or degradation. I’ve since sealed the space, and ziplocked/dessicant bagged so I should be good for another 25.

Mini-garden pics

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Compare the original “just geminated/planted” pics to these.

Bell Peppers, Hot peppers (see the red ripe one..)

Bell

Hot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bell peppers are just starting to peek out from the flower buds, teeny weeny things right now.

Jalapeno Peppers

Yielding like a mother, just had one. OMG. JalThey are so tasty, just the right heat. Got 25 seeds from one slice, I’ll see if it germinates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broccoli. Rocking in the woefully small pot, no heads yet.

Broccoli

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s everything else:

Onions,Carrots (made almost 100% and are now transplanted), Front sunflowers (to the right next to the curb)Onion

Frontsun

 

 

 

 

Rasperry, deck sunflowers (babies) DecksunRaspberry

 

 

 

 

 

The bad bunny ate some of the back sunflower plants, so they are up on the deck. Ordered two more raspberry and Darrow blackberry plants, they will be here soon. I’m hooked on having these berries every day, I just walk out and pick some and drop ’em in my cereal. I only get a few every other day, but I should be getting loads with 5 plants going. I’ll need to T-trellis them next year, but they are manageable now.

Spring Wheat

SpringWheatIf you look closely, you can see the green wheat berries and head on the taller stalks. The crop is a lot shorter than I thought, Ag sites says 2-4 ft but I recall it being way taller. Maybe it’s going to grow more, but to be heading out is odd. I saw some winter what that the combines were just getting ready to go into, it was really short too so maybe that’s what we get here.

 

All of this (except the wheat) is being grown in planters in minimal space, it could fit on a balcony or even in a sunny bay window. I think someone could have a decent amount of produce in a 6’x6′ area, especially if they build a rack like a gym bleacher or step ladder to use the volume.

Pretty amazing, really. And I’m just going through the exercise of growing everything on my Day366 list to make sure I can do it for real if needed. It ought to be just a matter of scaling it up then. I’m a ways off from getting through the list, this was the easy stuff and I’ll be doing more exotic things like vertical potatoes, sugar cane, rice, peanuts, beans, and sorghum later.

Odds N Ends

The lettuce has ended, started another round of Simpson leaf in a planter but zero germination. Not sure what happened, but going 1/8″ deep this time to see if I can get it going mid-summer.  Trying spinach again, 5 of 10 came up in partial shade so reseeding that at 1/8″. Kale is kicking it, 4 of 4 and sprouted in 3 days. Replaced the original lettuce with Jericho (warm weather variety) , and started a pot of Orach which is some Asian green that likes it hot. All this is an effort to make salad year round, need that green leafy veg.  Supposedly fall is another time to grow all this but I’m skeptical, it seems to only like cool weather with rain and overcast.

The mini-garden at 60 days

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Results

We are now eating some of the mini-garden produce, so far just Romaine lettuce and raspberries. TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! I never had off the vine berries, oh man they are good. So this effort is paying off aside from any emergency planning aspects.

The goal of this project was to plant everything intended for the long haul, to see:

  • How each seed came up and how robust the plant was in our climate
  • How much area was needed for each plant
  • Any special considerations (amount of light, water, pests)
  • What was the yield per foot
  • If the plants could be successfully propagated, i.e. hybrid seed recovery/storage/germination

I should have a good idea of 1-4 this fall, bullet 5 next summer.  I’ll also plant the fall stuff to see what happens, although the containers will complicate things. It’s not the same as being in the ground, I’ll bring them inside so they won’t freeze but no idea if that will interfere with the natural cycle. Probably not, we’ve had strawberries winter over that way and be just fine next spring. Hopefully that’s the case with everything else.

Lessons learned and other tidbits

Pests

Definitely needed rabbit fencing. My first round of sunflowers nearly got mowed flat by bunnies, the little ones seem to be the culprits. Putting up 24″ high graduated rabbit fence fixed that, so any garden that is accessible will need to be fenced in.  You will need to acquire enough rolls to go around the vulnerable plants, with stakes. May need to bury it 6″  to keep them from tunneling under, although I haven’t had that happen yet. Cabbage worms infested the broccoli, we picked them off but it’s wise to have the Bt or other spray on hand. They would have stripped the plants had we not seen them soon enough.

Containers

I’m leaning towards long planter boxes as the best solution to container growing. They are light, cheap, volumetrically efficient and stack for storage. Pots are OK, they look good (we have a bunch of really nice ceramic decor units) but are cumbersome and waste precious space. I’m contemplating making up some wooden stands, sort of like bleachers but with treated 2x2s. I think you could get a TON of planters in a small area, it would be mostly vertical up to 5 ft.  A 60 degree angle would minimize the footprint. That’s next year’s work though.

Sunlight

All the seed packets say “likes full sun”. Maybe that’s full sun in Norway, but down here it nukes the plants. Lettuce and spinach need partial shade, as do the bell peppers. They seem to want the light but need misting in the afternoon to avoid wilting. Everything else is OK so far, it might be that I started the peppers as nursery seedlings didn’t harden off enough. The ones I grew from seed seem to be holding up better.

Onions have risen from the dead

I was planning a wake for these guys, they were all dejected and droopy but have rallied. The initial shoots looked awful, but they took off after I stopped fooling with trying to trim the shoots and moving them around for best lighting. I figured they either lived or died and there was nothing else I could do. I put a few in the ground, they are good but I need to figure out how to get the seedlings out of the starter pot and separated. I went overboard with seeds, I only needed 3-4 but I have an onion forest. Good problem to have I suppose…

Successive plantings

I’m going for round 2 on the lettuce and carrots, I want to see if I can stage them to produce the rest of the season. Also trying the spinach again, this time in a planter box and in shade.

Kale

It would be tough to get enough calcium without dairy, turns out kale is high in that. We have seed on hand, so a planter of that went in. It’s with the rest of the greens, hopefully it makes it. I’ve not eaten it raw, no idea what’s it’s like.