Growing greens in my basement
These may not be the mind altering variety of greens I normally grow, but they are quite nutritious none the less. I started them in my green house, and when it got too cold out there for them I brought them inside. I repotted them into some trays and put them under some LED grow lamps. I give them water every few days and keep an eye out for fungus gnats. I can deal with them easily though, and so far these have provided a few meals already.
My carrots, peppers, brussels sprout, okra and kale are all edible leafy greens. We cut them when they start to get too tall and saute them for eating. Some may not be normally eaten for their leaves, but you can none the less.
The flavor is amazing, being cut minutes before cooked you get everything the plant has to offer.
It was funny our plan was not growing these for greens, we actually wanted to test if the green house could grow seedlings of veggies in low humidity. It worked, kinda.. they did not do well until they got much bigger. But when the cold weather came around I had to do something with them.
There was no chance of them forming carrots under ground, or the cabbage like balls on the brussels sprout plants. But the leaves themselves are edible. So we figured we could bring them inside and grow them just for that.
I have been worried about cutting them back, as if we take too much leaf the plant will struggle. But we have been careful and they seem to be okay with it.
Also tried growing greens from extra oats I had from the field.
I had to toss them after about a week. The smell got terrible, even with replacing the water every two days or so. They grew a little but managing them was a huge pain so I stopped on the oat fodder project for the moment. Need to figure out what I did wrong as it seems to be a smart way to grow food for chickens and such.
As the greens get too tall they get close to the LED light, I am glad it goes not get very hot so they are almost touching before it dries them out. I can keep the light very close.
Its mostly the carrots that spring up tall, the okra and kale stay close to the ground.
The morning after trimming them for a meal. We leave just a leaf set or two for them to recover, within a week or two we will have more greens to cook. I think the carrot leaves have the best flavor, but its all quite nice and my body seems to like them.
Eventually the brussels sprouts will get too tall I think, not sure what I am going to do there. With every cutting they gain a node in height based on their structure.
The okra seem really happy, its cool seeing their spiky leaves and stem.
I water them every few days, and add BTI to keep the gnats away. We can see the pepper plants behind the okra there, not so happy. We have yet to take any cutting from the pepper plants as they seem to be in shock still.
The brussel sprouts and carrots we have had two cuttings already. All really tasty and can even be eaten raw.
The asian lady beetles have shown up in swarms, I invite them into my garden spaces to keep any mites or other bugs feeding on my plants in check. I don't want them inside the house but a few in the basement and grow tent is a bonus I think.
If this keeps working I may expand how many plants I am harvesting greens from, as its nice to have leafy greens in the winter when otherwise its too cold for them outside.
EDIT: I mistakenly upvoted this post this morning during my morning tuesday curation. It should not have gotten a minnowsupport upvote. My bad.
How are you dear friend @solominer good morning
You are truly passionate about agriculture, I love that you have this space available for winter planting and getting fresh, tender vegetables for your meals.
The quality, flavor, and tenderness of what we grow will always be better than those vegetables we buy in vegetable stores.
To this crop assortment you could add soybean seeds, and consume the fresh sprouts, it is a very good winter planting option.
Success in your sowing, I appreciate that you have shared this passionate post
Have a happy start to the week
Thank you, glad you enjoyed my post and the setup.
Yes indeed its the best fresh and cutting them right before cooking is the best way to go.
Oh gotcha, I will look into soybeans.
As far as I know and believe. Only foods I grow that I trust because most people now use fertiliser for to grow plants.
Yeah I need to add some fertilizer to them.. I will do a soil test from those plants and see what they need.,
very good, can you achieve this only with artificial light LED?🤨🤨
In the winter yes, its too cold outside for these plants to grow and survive. Maybe if I find a window that would work they could but the artificial LED lights work better than most window spots.
Haha nice! I thought you might have snuck a little autoflower in there but we will leave the mind altering growth to @davedickeyyall this season.
I have always wondered if I could grow sprouts indoors for harvesting during the winter. For sure a little fresh basil and a hearty kale plant would work. Maybe even a little chili pepper plant? 🌶️. You may have inspired me again!
Hah well I got my sour diesel growing, it should be ready soon.
Yep you can indeed grow them indoors, I know this guy @futuremind that uses his indoor cannabis grow tents to grow all kinds of fruit.
It's a little tricky but the plants like the tent environment. I just need to keep it warm.
So you had even guest beetle lol :)
Hah yeah these asian lady beetles are good resources to have.
Hello my friend, how are you, I didn't know about you for a while, the plants you have are very interesting, and how you put them with the LED light, everything is special friend and the photos, as always, turned out very good. You know when you have some type of analysis data on your soils, tell me friend, thank you and greetings
Hey bud.. yeah using these LED lights have been fun. I had them laying around so its always nice putting them to use.
Yes I plan on doing a soil test of the trays soon to see where they are.. and I will post results when I do.
ok friend, I hope for those results, and the idea of the LED lights is super good and fun, thanks for everything friend
Omg! Thats amazing Solo!
I am working towards gettibg my own place, so I cam start doing stuff like this :D
I would also add potatoes into the mix :D
Yeah man its been quite fun, hope you can get into the indoor plant action too soon.
Well you cannot eat potato leaves, unless you are growing sweet potato leaves which are edible.. But the white/red/yellow types are toxic :-/
Its gonna time a while before I have the space to groe anything x)
But I just love it. I am currently just learning how to use Apple cider, Honey and such as preservitives :D
Ohh. I just wanted to eat the potato :p
I also like growing plants. I once tried growing mustard greens hydroponically to save land.
Oh cool, I have yet to try any hydroponic grows. Maybe one day I will give it a try.. When I do I will do a post about.
Need to try growing mustard too..
yes friend. Hydroponics is already widely used by many people. and I hope you can also do your best..
Hi @solominer. I am happy to be a part of this community and hope to make many friends here. Now I start my new life after prison. I will be grateful for your support.
Hello welcome to Hive. Best of luck on your journey here.
thank you @solominer
You are really doing well with your garden, the plants looks so healthy especially the okra. I can see that you have a beautiful visitor in the garden, who is helping you out
Hah yeah the okra is super happy.. it does not grow too close to the lights and seems like its always getting bigger. The carrots are big growers too but they get too tall.
Yep, that asian lady beetle is a good one to have around.
Is this the kale? And the same plant in the photo above the ladybird? I notice the tray is quite shallow, it's interesting that it will still grow. Kale is quite expensive here, so I might explore to see if I can grow them indoors over the winter. Every thing bis getting so expensive now
That is brussels sprouts, the kale is the two purple plants in the first row on the right in the below photo.
Yep that is brussels sprouts too, just trimmed up the day after we made a meal out of the extra leaves.
I had to use shallow trays as the LED light was quite close, so any taller of a pot and it would be touching the lights. Hopefully they can deal with the shallow trays, I hope so.
Yeah growing your own greens would be nice, they just grow right back.. So having enough it would be quite beneficial I think.
Is a plant can grow under the light of Led instead of sunlight? It's new thing for me.
Yes they can, I grow cannabis and these greens under artificial light and they love it.
Wow these are great. Nice indoor "garden". I wish I had a spot where I could grow some vegetables or fuits.
Thank you for your witness vote!
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Hi, nice vegetable garden in the basement, the ladybug is a great ally, have a nice day.👍👍👍
Hey there, yeah man they are doing well.
hah yeah that asian lady beetle does help to protect my plants... you too!
I have always wanted this money but the facilities did not support me @solominer
Not sure what you mean... but thanks for the comment.
I always wanted to have this kind of Garden, inside the house. You shared a unique and fascinating post My friend and I really much appreciated it.
The vegetables you planted inside grows very healthy using those LED lights. This post of yours contains lots of lofty Ideas on about planting inside the house. Thank you for sharing this.
Ah thank you, glad you found my post interesting.
Yes my friend. I have lots of ideas I learned from your posts. Thank you very much for sharing it to us.
Wow! I love all of your crops, they look well taken care of.
Much appreciated...
Wow... you make extraordinary use of the room with plants in it
Thanks, those shelves do help.
Hello solominer!
It's nice to let you know that your article won 🥈 place.
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