Here’s how the AeroGarden is looking these days (or, rather, yesterday). It’s a real treat having herbs in the middle of the winter. The basil, mint, dill, and oregano are doing really well. One basil never came up and the thyme died, but that’s not a big deal — we have thyme outside. (Please ignore the houseplant. That’s a story for another day.) Dabbling in (nearly) foolproof hydroponics has been thought-provoking. The AeroGarden is a really well-designed gizmo, and I love the lights and built-in timer. I think their seed starting kit could be a great improvement to my methods and I’m considering buying it. The one minor design flaw is that the pump is loud (kind of like a white noise machine on overdrive), but even that is forgivable if you put it in the right room. The true problem with the AeroGarden is inherent to hydroponics: without soil you must use chemical inputs keep the plants happy. The nutrient packets for the AeroGarden have that stinky fertilizer smell — like the back of an old garden shed (or the Home Depot garden center). The idea of having to continually buy chemicals troubles me both in the buying and in the sourcing of chemicals. There should be a better way. This has led to me doing some thinking about whether there’s a way to hack the AeroGarden to use more sustainable inputs (organic nutrients?), to rework the lights with a soil-based seed kit, or … maybe … (this is a little nutty) find an aquarium and turn it into aquaponics system!!  Seriously guys, aquaponics is really cool. Instead of fertilizer, aquaponics uses fish who poo out nitrogen to feed your plants. It’s pretty ingenious. Once you’ve got the set up, your only inputs are fish food (which can be home-grown worms or duckweed), occasionally fresh water, and a source of energy (solar!). (Ok, and a lot of time.) Maybe it’s the year for a greenhouse!

Here’s how the AeroGarden is looking these days (or, rather, yesterday). It’s a real treat having herbs in the middle of the winter. The basil, mint, dill, and oregano are doing really well. One basil never came up and the thyme died, but that’s not a big deal — we have thyme outside. (Please ignore the houseplant. That’s a story for another day.)

Dabbling in (nearly) foolproof hydroponics has been thought-provoking. The AeroGarden is a really well-designed gizmo, and I love the lights and built-in timer. I think their seed starting kit could be a great improvement to my methods and I’m considering buying it.

The one minor design flaw is that the pump is loud (kind of like a white noise machine on overdrive), but even that is forgivable if you put it in the right room.

The true problem with the AeroGarden is inherent to hydroponics: without soil you must use chemical inputs keep the plants happy. The nutrient packets for the AeroGarden have that stinky fertilizer smell — like the back of an old garden shed (or the Home Depot garden center). The idea of having to continually buy chemicals troubles me both in the buying and in the sourcing of chemicals. There should be a better way.

This has led to me doing some thinking about whether there’s a way to hack the AeroGarden to use more sustainable inputs (organic nutrients?), to rework the lights with a soil-based seed kit, or … maybe … (this is a little nutty) find an aquarium and turn it into aquaponics system!! 

Seriously guys, aquaponics is really cool. Instead of fertilizer, aquaponics uses fish who poo out nitrogen to feed your plants. It’s pretty ingenious. Once you’ve got the set up, your only inputs are fish food (which can be home-grown worms or duckweed), occasionally fresh water, and a source of energy (solar!). (Ok, and a lot of time.) Maybe it’s the year for a greenhouse!

24 Feb 2013 2
#hydroponics #aquaponics #aerogarden #herbs #basil #dill #thyme #mint #oregano #Indoor Gardening

It turned into a beautiful day to be out in the yard planting seeds and cleaning up.

In the parking strip beds, I planted two rows of garlic with the overwintered leeks — Italian White and Silver Rose garlic.  At the other end of the strip, where we transplanted the arugula and kale last fall, I added some leftover (and rather old) Sylvetta Arugula seeds, just to ensure the batch would get going. Last year’s parsley plant’s seeds have begun sprouting there too. Our neighborhood friends gave us curly-leafed kale, which I also added to the straggly old kale.

In the beds inside the front yard, I added chard plants to the bed of chard, broccoli, and cauliflower. The same friends gave us their extra plants, so we should have a good crop this spring. The cold frames were very dry and the cauliflower looked great, but the broccoli was straggly and slug-eaten. The lettuce and cabbage cold frame is fairly pathetic — I added some snow peas and we’ll see what comes of that.

I also spent a good deal of time cleaning up the herbs and the flower bed near the chicken coop, giving the chickens plenty of chaff to spread around their run and keep them excited.

23 Feb 2013 3
#leeks #garlic #cabbage #planting #parking strip #broccoli #cauliflower #chard #clean up #arugula #parsley #herbs #mint #kale #chickens
Fava bean mint spread: combine fresh fava beans, whole garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, mint, salt, & pepper; blend in food processor.

Fava bean mint spread: combine fresh fava beans, whole garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, mint, salt, & pepper; blend in food processor.

16 Jun 2012 14
#favas #recipe #dip #spread #mint #cooking

On May first we went to the Spring Seattle Tilth sale and bought the starts we hadn’t grown ourselves — Little Finger eggplant, sweet peppers (Beaver Dam and Hungarian), hot peppers (Thai, king of the north, long cayenne), crookneck squash and New England pie pumpkins, a couple tomatoes (Red Fig and Sungold), summer and winter savory, sweet corn, chinook and cascade hops, moroccan mint, red shiso, cipollini onions, and a male and female kiwi plant from one of the nursery stands.

A week later we went to the WNPS spring native plant sale for the first time. Our big score was a flat of 4″ pots of Deer ferns. Usually ferns are in gallon pots, which makes them pretty expensive, so this was a great deal –18 ferns for $4 each. We also scored aVaccinium membranaceum, the native blueberry (technically, “Black Huckleberry”) I brought from the Capitol Hill house and is hard to find. The guy next to me took the second-to-last one, so I could only get one of the five I needed.

I planted the natives from the sale in the front and back, along with 32 Lupinus albicaulisthat I had started from seed last fall.

11 May 2010
#WNPS sale #blueberry #corn #deer ferns #eggplant #hops #kiwi #lupine #lupinus albicaulis #mint #natives #onions #peppers #savory #shiso #tilth sale #vaccinium membranaceum #veggies #plan #notes #garden