Monday, January 11, 2010

Planting Spring in the Greenhouse

Planted some early Spring things in the greenhouse today -- beets, carrots, kale, peas, spinach. Didn't plant lettuce, as we still have a row of it. Being new at this year-round thing, I didn't plant enough last Fall, so we've had to supplement it with store-bought, to make it last the Winter. Three to six inches of rain forecast in the next couple of weeks, so, though I'm itching to put something in the garden too, I will wait.

There's been a flurry of activity around here, lately. I wanted a light shelf (for peppers and tomatoes, mostly), but didn't want to spend the $250 or more for the one in the catalog. So I spent the weekend engineering and wiring, learning about light output and T5 vs T8 or T12... Finally, my little seedlings are basking in the glow of 2 grow lights. It was obvious that I needed to give them more light, as they were all leaning in toward the center, to soak up all they could get from the original single-light fixture.

My ever-patient husband has spent the last couple of weeks fiddling with the (inexpensive -- flimsy) greenhouse, trying to make sure it can withstand the gale-force winds we get, here on the edge of the valley. With the storm that's coming, it's about to be tested...

I was struck, as I was tucking in the little specks that will, hopefully, one day soon provide us with a shot of color and vitamins for our dinner table, by the idiosyncracies of time. An investment of less than two hours of my time, and a larger investment on the part of the sun and the little seeds, will, with any luck, yield food that will nourish our bodies -- just as the growing and harvesting of it has nourished my mind.

I've been thinking about my motivation for all of this. It began as an outgrowth of my interest in food storage -- which has ultimately translated to taking more control over the foods we eat. When I discovered Eliot Coleman's excellent book, "Four-Season Harvest", I realized that we could eat from our own backyard all year. That, in turn, led to the idea of growing things we've never tried before -- kohlrabi and sorrel, for a start.

I had already set up a vermicompost system in our laundry room (if it's properly managed, there really isn't any smell, to speak of), because it just didn't make sense to me to throw away kitchen scraps and then drive to the store to buy compost. Living as we do in the city, a compost pile isn't really all that practical -- although we have made some excellent compost just by burying things in the soil. But the worms do it a lot faster -- they can handle a half-pound of food a day! In fact, I've just added another tray, so in a few months, they'll need even more than that.

There are so many benefits to this year-round gardening thing: The freshest food possible; a wealth of nutrients not available in commercially grown produce (we're doing this as organically as possible, so there should be a nutrients available to what we grow that just aren't there for commercial produce, plus we're growing things in a multitude of colors -- red kale, purple brussel sprouts, blue kohlrabi -- providing us with phytonutrients both discovered and otherwise...)

I can't help but reflect on the fact that we were designed to be hunter-gatherers, spending our time looking for food and consuming it very soon after obtaining it. Produce at the supermarket has rarely been picked the same day it is purchased.

There are many benefits of year-round gardening, and one that I'm particularly happy about is that planting a little at a time, once the area has been prepared, hardly feels like work! We've also expanded our culinary horizons, by growing and consuming things that aren't necessarily found in the produce section of the local supermarket.

I have discovered, though, that there's not much information available on year-round gardening, even though I live in Zone 9 (one of the easiest zones in which to grow things to eat all year), so I'm making notes as we go along. I did, however, get a useful planting guide table from the Cooperative Extension, and am using it to help plan our planting schedule.

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