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Windowsill kitchen garden: Week 10

April 18th, 2010 by Penny Golightly

I’ve had a real stroke of luck this weekend – I was given a mini greenhouse as a gift, so have managed to get some of the overcrowded windowsill sorted out. The dinky greenhouse is now full of baby tomato plants, and I sowed a couple of trays of various salad leaves and herbs as well for good measure.

Meanwhile, back on the windowsill, the not-so-dwarf beans are about to burst into flower. And they’re too tall to go into the greehouse, so maybe I’ll have to put them out in a bigger pot on the back doorstep soon.

Here’s the alfalfa, nearly ready to eat. Maybe needs a couple more days. I suspect that this will be a lifesaver in the winter when not much else will grow – it’s quick and it’s healthy, it’s easy to grow (just rinse daily and drain) and it costs pence. OK, maybe it’s not what everyone would call gourmet, but it’s good for a bit of variety.

We’ve had a couple of home-grown salads in the last week. One was a gorgeous mix of pea shoots, baby lettuce and radish microgreens. The pea shoots are re-growing already:

Last week I also learned that some cheap brands of dried peas can be used for pea shoots, including ‘Leo’ brand. They’re 26p a packet in Asda at the moment, or 27p in Tesco, if your local one stocks that type. When I finally get my hands on some I’ll be growing them by the trayful.

The lettuce is supposed to be a ‘cut and come again’ Salad Bowl, but I have my doubts about its ability to regenerate. Seriously, look at the state of it:

We didn’t eat all the radish sprouts – here’s what’s left of the first big batch. They were delicious. Greenhouse or not, I think these, along with cress, pea shoots and herbs, will always have a home on the widowsill.

The land cress, spinach and rocket experiment is not doing much at all. Fingers crossed that at least the rocket will grow this week – it’s like a weed outdoors.

Those spring onions have got their act together now:

Some of the many tomato plants:

I think I’ll grow a couple of them indoors anyway, in case of blight. And finally, the cucumber plant seems set to make an escape bid. Either that or it’s doing an impression of Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate. Not sure which.

Are you growing your own food this year? Do you have any success stories?

Tags: baby leaf salad, grow herbs indoors, grow salad indoors, grow your own pea shoots, growing food indoors, how to grow pea shoots, how to sprout alfalfa, kitchen windowsill gardening, windowsill kitchen garden, windowsill sprouting
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Windowsill kitchen garden: Week 9

April 11th, 2010 by Penny Golightly

Lots of lovely green growy stuff this week. My free alfalfa seeds arrived on Friday, so I soaked them overnight, rinsed them a couple of times on Saturday, and left them draining this morning in daylight. I hope they’re easy and quick to turn into sprouts – it would be an efficient use of the remaining space, which is now at a premium.

My other new addition is some closely-sown radish seeds to try growing them as microgreens:

The pot that was new last week is doing OK now – spinach at top left, rocket top right, land cress at the bottom:

Those Salad Bowl lettuces have revived after their recent strop:

While the spring onions have improved, I think they take too long to grow and probably use up too much space that could be given over to faster or more expensive crops.

My crazy beans got even crazier. I’m going to have to cut one of them back:

Cucumber plants doing really well:

The biggest chore of the weekend was pricking out all the tomato plants and potting them up. They all germinated, all grew OK, and all seem to be fine in their new pots. Which, I think, is rather unusual. Here are eight of the 32 surviving plants:

Something tells me I might have a few tomato plants to give away next month. Just a few…

Thinking about sowing anything, or buying some seedlings? What’s growing itself silly on your windowsill this week?

Tags: grow salad indoors, grow your own veg, growing food indoors, how to sprout alfalfa, kitchen windowsill gardening, microgreens, sprouting seeds, windowsill kitchen garden, windowsill sprouting
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Windowsill kitchen garden: Week 6

March 18th, 2010 by Penny Golightly

Week six of trying to grow all kinds of tasty foods on an inside windowsill. Still trying to get as much deliciousness as possible for the least amount of outlay. What’s growing and what’s not?

The pea shoots have had their fish and chips. They’ve turned into mushy peas and aren’t going to give us a third crop. The first two rounds were great though, two gourmet bunches of pea shoots in one month from a tiny handful of peas and the smallest amount of soil-free compost. Will start another batch at the weekend and ditch the old ones:

The parsley is doing really well, so here’s the last pic of that:

Mint’s catching it up, finally, and the dill is putting out its first true leaves. Basil’s written off until April.

The spicy leaf mix is still fairly useless. Will probably sow another batch next month in a different container.

The iceberg lettuces got off to a good start but are a bit leggy now. Not sure if they need more sun or less. Any ideas?

The mustard greens seem really happy, and the salad bowl lettuces I sowed in the mini propagator four days ago are sprouting already.

So far so good with peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and the mini chili plant:

Finally, the radish tops were so delicious that I’m probably going to grow them all year round as microgreens. The variety I used was Cherry Belle, if you’d like to give it a go too. The flavour was sweet and mild, and you get fairly big fast-growing dark green leaves with red stems.

Have also sowed small pots of chervil and spring onions, but they are supposed to take a long time to germinate, so no pics of empty containers here. If there’s time at the weekend, will start off some land cress and baby leaf spinach too, to see how they get on.

So far the winners here are: pea shoots, common (curled) cress, mustard greens, parsley and radish tops. It might change as we go into Spring and Summer, who knows?

Are you growing any windowsill food? What are you having the most luck with so far?

Tags: grow your own food indoors, grow your own salad, growing food indoors, how to grow pea shoots, kitchen windowsill gardening, windowsill herbs, windowsill kitchen garden
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Windowsill kitchen garden: Week 5

March 11th, 2010 by Penny Golightly

Week 5 is here, and the longer days and sunny moments have cheered the windowsill up no end. I thought I’d ring the changes with some of the things I’ve been growing, so off I went back to Poundland for another of their bargain £1 mixed packets of seed.

I bought their ‘fresh salad’ multipack, which contains radish, cress, spring onion, tomato, iceberg lettuce and cucumber, all of which I hear can be grown indoors. The tomato variety is Moneymaker, which I won’t be growing this year as I’ve set my heart on growing other varieties (more about that later). The lettuce will probably be eaten at the baby leaf stage, or there won’t be enough room for it. Iceberg isn’t exactly gourmet, but it does have a mild flavour and a good crunch, and it mixes well with pea shoots.

Speaking of which, I cut the last lot of shoots for a garnish. They tasted as good as the first crop, but there were fewer of them and they grew smaller leaves. To complete the experiment I’ll try to grow a third set of shoots from the same pot, although I’m not too hopeful they’ll be as good. Here’s what they look like now, rather depleted.

Here are some of the herbs: dill (new), mint and parsley. The basil is still being finnicky and I’m probably going to end up re-seeding the pots at this rate. I have loads of different seeds left over from my outdoor herb garden so will probably try a few different varieties on the windowsill too to see how they turn out.

Next up, the radishes and cucumber were planted 6 days ago and are already going strong. They’re the pots on the left. Will be pulling up radish thinnings soon and adding them to salads – sowed 8 seeds as an experiment and wasn’t expecting them to have quite so much oomph. Haven’t started the spring onions off yet, but maybe at the weekend…

Mini-lettuces just sprouted, and all I can say is that I hope the other salad leaves start to take note of their work ethic:

The spicy salad leaves are still looking like overgrown cress, the slackers. Might decide to grow a second batch soon, but start them off in a mini-propagator instead and hot-house the little gits.

Speaking of mini propagators, the tomato seeds I planted (cherry and plum) last week are doing really well.

I’ve been bartering on GardenSwapShop and bidding on eBay to get some more interesting salad seeds too, as cheaply as possible. I now have red and green salad bowl, Lazio spinach, red mustard, lollo rossa and rocket to sow, all of which are cut-and-come again varieties so hopefully we’ll get several crops out of each plant. There’s also some land cress, which is supposed to be easier to grow than watercress, but let’s wait and see.

The total spend so far is £3.99, which I’m hoping will keep me in salad ingredients for several months. About the same price as a couple of bags of supermarket baby leaf salad, and with lots of variety so we don’t get bored.

Are you growing food in your kitchen too? How’s it coming along?

Tags: grow herbs indoors, grow your own pea shoots, growing food indoors, how to grow pea shoots, kitchen windowsill gardening, windowsill herbs, windowsill kitchen garden
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