February 2020

Here it is February already. An entire month has passed by. I'm happy with how the seed area is progressing. Now if the plants can just keep growing and produce a harvest, I will be ecstatic. It will mean that I can sustain a garden inside the basement basically year round. The possibilities are huge.

The lettuce plants are on day 7 from planting and the radishes are on day 5. In a couple more weeks on Valentine's Day, the onion seed will be planted. That will be the official start of the garden year.

02-02-2020

 


More of the same. The Radishes are a little spotty with germination. They have germinated but at way different times. Some germinated at three days and some are just now germinating at 6 days. Well, it was old seed.

02-05-2020



Four radishes have grown from 10 planted but it was from old seed so I will except that as an excuse. The lettuce and the radishes have really popped since I gave them a feed. I'll wait another week and give them a light feed again. It's been 11 days since planting. I'll wait another week or two to transplant the lettuce plants to one plant per cup I think I'll have about 10 plants.

02-14-2020



The radishes are starting to put on some weight and I'm thinking that this might be viable way to grow radishes year round. I'm interested to see how the bigger radishes will do as they approach harvest. The radish that I just planted can get up to 1 1/2 inches in diameter which is the diameter of the PVC pipe. If need be I could go to a bigger pipe.

The lettuce just keeps growing leeps and bounds just like the video said. I don't bathe them in the hydroponic nutrients but I do feed them once a week with miracle grow general fertilizer

02-16-2020

The outside tulips are up and growing. The tulip containers have no sign of growth. I'm not sure the bulbs made it through the winter. If they don't come up, next year I'll just keep the bulbs in the refrigerator and plant them about this time of the year in the containers.

In the ground tulips are up and growing.



Radishes are really putting on weight now and starting to look like a radish. Roots are out the bottom of the PVC pipes. The new radishes are reaching toward the light. I think I should have put them in a different tray closer to the light. They are looking a little spindly. If they don't do well, I'll start the next batch closer to the light.

Lettuce continues to grow and look ever so good. So the lettuce is 22 days from planting and the radishes are 20 days from planting. Ten more days and radishes should be ready for harvest. Twenty three days until lettuce should be ready for harvest.

02-19-2020

The second planting of radish turned out very leggy and had to be replanted.

The experiment with winter gardening has been a complete success so far. The next round will be expanded into a bigger planting. It might be a year round operation.

02-20-2020
Radishes are looking good with seven more days to go for a 30 day harvest. I think they could be harvested right now and maybe I'll have to harvest them early. It's time to think about what the next step will be in this experiment. I could ramp it up big time but I'm just not ready for that. Maybe a few more and gently ease into the routine of a steady crop of greens and radishes. It's better than microgreens for me. Actual salads are a good step toward winter growing.

02-22-2020

This is the radish harvest after 25 days. I probably should have harvested about three days earlier. So it would be around 21 days or three weeks. The lettuce could be harvested and I just might have a fresh garden salad today.  The lettuce is just under 30 days. This is a hugely successful experiment. Now I just have to figure out how to get a succession of harvest schedule.

The onions are coming along. I have replanted some of the empty pods and it looks like I'll be planting some more empty pods again. This method seems to be working wonderfully well.
I have snipped off the bent tops. I did that last year and this year I learned that is what needs to be done to keep the stems strong. It seems that every thing I figure out on my own gets confirmed that it's the right thing to do.

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