I now have a little “farm” going, and everything is happy (various states).
I have the following sprouts growing:
- Red clover (about to harvest today)
- Alfalfa (growing fast)
- Onion (doing nicely, about midway through)
- Mung bean (doing nicely, ready by Sunday)
Microgreens currently growing:
- Full tray of cruciferous blend, doing very nicely, growing fast – the struggle right now is keeping the moisture low enough
Potted plants (outside):
- Jalapeños (2)
- Poblanos (2)
- Sweet basil (2)
- Serrano
- Cilantro
- Mint
I eventually want to branch into the following:
- More jalapeño, preferably a smaller plant that yields a lot of peppers lol (there are different cultivars that will)
- More poblano (I’ll see if there’s a similar situation as jalapeño)
- More cilantro
- Chives/garlic chives
- Green onions
- Regular basil
- Culinary dandelion
- Ghost pepper (for topical pain relief purposes)
- Peanuts
- Mushrooms (probably indoors at this time of year)
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Italian parsley
- Aloe (and possibly other therapeutic/edible succulents)
- Sunflower microgreens
I’d love to have a vertical garden, but I’m not sure of a placement. I can’t block any doors (2 apartment doors, 1 storage closet), and I don’t want to block any windows or light they depend on. Except that that’s pretty much my whole deck, unless I get a compact enough one and situate it where the plastic shelves are right now. It’d be a nice compact way to grow a lot of stuff, though, so I could definitely do something like that, I think, especially plants that don’t need tons of direct sun.
I realize my pepper plants are way too small though; the guy was an idiot, “water twice a day” and “8-inch pot” – yeah….no. More like 3-gallon pots!
So, I have to get a few things…
- 3-gallon pots, apparently
- Copper gardening tools
- More copper wire and stakes/rods – I firmly believe this may be at least a big reason why my older jalapeño plant is doing so well with no real effort from me!
- A solar generator (still)
- A still (for distillation) (or make one)
Serious learning curves lol.
I did remove all the peppers from their dish and I realized the moisture levels can be seen on the outside of the clay pots, and right now it’s moist about halfway up, so I’m kind of using that as an indicator, even if I don’t completely know what it means.
Also seriously looking to start composting. Found an interesting article on composting in an apartment. Apparently there are special containers you can get for your kitchen to do it indoors, that won’t attract flies or fruit flies or smell bad. They’re small enough to put right alongside our current trash can.
You can compost anything but meat, fish, cooked food, etc. Anything raw is good, as are paper and cardboard and stuff. That’d help us reduce waste and trash can loads (and stink and bag usage), and also help us score free plant food lol. Might get something like that today.
I’ve got some sprouts that have gone bad prematurely, sitting in the fridge right now, that would make perfect compost. Also a way to use spent microgreens soil once that’s harvested. And a place for onion paper scraps, broccoli stalks, cauliflower leaves, pineapple skin, etc. I’ll need to get an accompanying tool for hand-turning the compost mulch.
Sorcha's Jungle 