Phase One: Cold Weather Greens
Something that has irritated me for years is this idea that you have to have shiny, beautiful, and new equipment to grow food. Well, to do anything really, but that's another post. Plants don't care if you have a perfect growing situation, because you know what? Plants want to grow. Focusing on growing conditions and mediums is far more important than the cosmetic aspect of food production.
That little opinion offered, let's talk about my greenhouse. It was made out of salvaged materials. All of the wood, trusses, and windows were 100% re-purposed. Lest you think I am virtue signaling, rest assured, I am not. Rather, I am a frugal creature who grew up in a place where availability of just about everything was scarce or hard to source. There is so much waste in the US and with a little ingenuity you can re-purpose just about anything. If you have a nice new greenhouse please don't think I am whinging at you, quite the contrary, I am super happy for people who have nice things and not covetous in the least. Rather, I don't want finances or item availability dissuading people from growing their own food! Turn that old bucket and light fixture into a plant growing apparatus! You can do it!
So, back to the greenhouse. This time of year I seed cold weather greens in the boxes that line the inside of that lovely little realm. I tend to plant things in a square foot grid rather than rows, and this little apparatus here has been one of the greatest tools ever for helping me mark out my planting pattern:
.JPG)
Next, I take a twelve inch piece of wood and make little furrows in the square.
.JPG)
After that comes the super technical part, poking holes with my un-gloved phalanges at intervals. Officially you usually put about nine spinach plants and twelve lettuce plants per square foot, but here's the thing with greens, you can over seed them a bit and eat the baby greens. In fact, a lot of the time I seed an entire "row" of lettuce, three rows per square, and cut the baby greens as they emerge, gradually thinning the growing plants out to a proper amount of plants per square. You honestly have to learn as you go and do what works for you, as one thing I have learned over the last few decades is that each micro-climate and growing situation is different. What works for one gardener might now work for you, and even though I am a huge advocate of reading and research, nothing, and I mean nothing, can replace the experience that you get by just growing things.
I usually put at least two seeds per hole, it looks sad when you have a gap where no plants germinate, and then I lightly sprinkle soil over the top of the lettuce seeds and compress the soil. Kale, chard, and spinach need to be at a slightly deeper planting depth than lettuce, so I plunk them in there, around a 1/2" in depth and give them a good covering and soil compressing too.
Then comes the drenching. You want to water anything you plant really, really well. Germinating seeds need consistent, steady moisture. Not an all out drowning, for if you keep them too saturated it's a bad thing too. Mainly you just don't want them drying out. I tend to water my germinating seeds every other day or so, but I check the situation daily.
We still have patches of snow and it's a bit frigid in North Idaho, so on nights that get below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, I throw some black or agricultural grade plastic over my little patch of future salad excellence. Mainly because I want to keep the ground temperature up so that my future greens germinate faster.
.JPG)
And that's about it for this phase, just routine maintenance. I put a ton of compost in the beds, so I probably won't need to fertilize the greens at all as I have spent years building my soil, which is also another post, and honestly, greens aren't too finicky. My biggest point is don't be afraid to give growing your own food a try! It's actually a lot of fun! It doesn't matter if you are in an apartment or on a huge tract of land, you can figure out a way to produce something tasty. And be prepared for failure to happen, because it totally will. Every year I have some crops do better than others, and that's okay because as time goes on you will get better and better at food production. I mean, if I can learn how to navigate and post on a blockchain blog then anyone can learn how to grow a tomato plant in an old milk carton!
Thanks for sharing your creative and inspirational post on HIVE!
This post got curated by our fellow curator @tibfox and you received a 100% upvote from our non-profit curation service!
Join the official DIYHub community on HIVE and show us more of your amazing work!
Thank you!
I grew up in the States way down South. I can't say we repurposed everything but we did a lot of things. Old barn wood was always repurposed. Nuts, bolts, screws and semi-straight nails were kept in a tin can until they could be reused. Country people used to know how to squeeze a penny.
They sure did! I lol'd so hard at the barn wood thing. My kids groan every time we tear down a building because we have to pull all the nails out and reuse the boards. Okay, sometimes I even groan too, removing nails from a stack of lumber is sooo time consuming but completely worth it:)
I don't think I've ever seen a serious gardener with shiny new stuff everywhere. When I was in my youth, I had a friend whose family gardened homesteader-style before that term was even a thing in its modern sense. I have also more recently done yard work for a farmer's market hobby farm owner. Both recycled and jury-rigged and made do as much as possible.
I hear ya! When I was little I used to help my grandma in her massive garden, and she reused or had my papa make pretty much everything she needed. I loved her green bean towers that he made for her, they seemed massive to me when I was a sprout (no short jokes!) and I loved to hide inside them. As you've been to my house more than a couple of times, I am pretty sure you know where we fit in on the reuse and baling twine engineering spectrum😁
Pfft! We got 3 inches of snow this evening 😞
OGP!!!! I’ve missed you! We too are to be pelted with the S word this week, but I must say, 3 inches is almost a crying amount. Hope it melts soon, can’t have the Old Guy having a sad for too long!