Windowsill kitchen garden: Week 6
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?
Well Penny, you are going great guns! My pea shoots (a la Golightly method) have gone bananas – by which I mean they have not turned into them, but are growing thick and fast. I used a normal variety (Kelvedon Wonder) vs the mangetout (by mistake I might add, as I am clueless!) and I actually think I am going to leave them to grow into real pea plants – the leaves are very tasty but not as delicate as yours. Will have to do this in an oblong trough on the balcony and grow them up the railings so wish me luck! It is a low-growing variety so hopefully it will work. Round one of my balcony potato crop is safely ensconsed in its bags – just waiting patiently to see some greenery now. Once again, having been inspired by you I have planted radishes and today they are just poking through. I got a long variety from Lidls (29p for squillions of them) and so far so good. Jobs for the weekend are tomatoes (3 kinds), a third balcony bag of spuds (chitting away nicely at the mo), some oriental leaves and whatever else I have time or room for. Have you ever had any luck with chervil? As a keen cook I love to use it but it is hard to locate in the shops and I’ve heard it is tricky to grow. Any ideas? Keep the gourmet updates coming and good luck 🙂
Hi Sophie – you’ve been busy again! Which varieties of tomatoes are you growing this year? I’ve gone for ‘Sweetie cherry’ and ‘plum Roma’ as an alternative to those watery supermarket ones. Might try putting a Sweetie tomato in a hanging basket later in the summer, as it’s a bushy variety that’s supposed to do well without support.
Would love to grow some spuds too but don’t have the resources at the moment – maybe next year though, depending on what happens with the garden (the last people who lived here left us with condemned decking and no topsoil, so the options are limited this summer). Let me know how your spuds get on please, and maybe I’ll try your most foolproof ones next time around!
This is my first time growing chervil from seed, but it’s sprouting a little already after five days, and it hasn’t been given any special treatment at all, so feeling quite hopeful. I heard that it’s a common ingredient in microgreens mixes, including fancy mesclun mix, so might try a couple of the sprouts in a salad if there are enough of them. Pics next week if they keep growing. P x