Monday Harvests 1/11/10

Warning: Objects may appear larger than reality! (This is a mini-colander)

This week I harvested two things from under the lights indoors. They are probably the only harvests I will have from indoors since my lettuce seeds never took off and my peppers have been infested with aphids and sucked dry. One has died and the other is on its way. I could have saved them if I had done something about the aphids a few months ago, but now its too late. I won't show you what they look like, its embarrassing. This is the one cayenne pepper that set before the aphid attack began. It just turned red. So now the only thing that is really producing under the grow lights in the herbs, rosemary, thyme, and basil. The funny thing is that we don't use the basil because its not a winter time flavor. Occasionally I remember to toss it in pasta sauce, but often it is forgotten.

My ginger died back recently and so I harvested the root this weekend. The main piece I planted back in June was no longer edible, but the off shoots where the leaves were created these two small pieces. I think if it had gotten more sun this summer and I had been more diligent about fertilizing it, they might have gotten bigger. They only weigh 1 1/4 oz. I haven't decided whether we'll eat it, or if I'll save it to re-plant and hope for better returns next year.

Maybe this week it will warm up so I can pick a few greens from the cold frame.
You can see what other gardeners are still harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.

Indoor Garden

Last year I brought in two Swiss chard plants for the winter to experiment with continuing the growing season indoors. Since I have the cold frame I decided I'd leave the chard outside this winter. However, when the first threat of frost came a few weeks ago, I decided to move my peppers, basil, and herbs indoors. Here they are in their pots on Sept 19th.
Three basil plants,
One red cayenne pepper plant that had already fruited but looked like it would being to bloom again.
One poblano pepper plant that had just set its first few peppers.
I know that the light I get at my windows isn't nearly strong enough so I decided to put the pots under the seed starting light set up.
These peppers have come full circle, starting under the lights and finishing under the lights. They have been doing well under the lights, though the poblano pepper only gets light on the lower leaves because it is too tall. The red cayenne has some buds developing. The pepper below on the poblano continues to grow. Both the poblano and the red cayenne also recently bloomed. I'll have to make sure it they get pollinated.
I also moved in the herbs from the front porch. In the picture below you can see the ginger (left back) sage (left front), rosemary (back) & thyme, (front). The rosemary and thyme in the center were purchased and the ones on the right were started from seed. I hope they overwinter so I don't have to purchase new plants next year, and since the rosemary is especially slow growing from seed.
As I look back at the other parts of my indoor garden last year, I realized that I brought lettuce in as well. Currently my outdoor lettuce is mostly going to seed. I think I can probably fit a window box sized pot or two along the back here and start lettuce indoors. Wouldn't it be great if I didn't have to buy lettuce this winter!

Indoor Garden

My swiss chard indoors seems to be doing well, though not making huge growth. I've densely seeded lettuce seeds around it and we'll see how these leggy seedlings make out.
I also have a pot of cilantro seed (not pictured). I've had cilantro do very well indoors before.

Tonight we harvested the lettuce from my indoor window box. I'd noticed it was getting a bit leggy. We trimmed most of it off and hopefully it will leaf out again. The one odd thing is that the red leaf lettuce has lost its red color. All the lettuce is a pale green. I wonder if that means it is not getting enough light. My window faces south east, and we've had many cloudy days in the past week. Below are the leaves I harvested. You can see the color they had when I planted them indoors in this post.

Transplanting Seedlings

With the cold weather setting in, I'm doing a few things backwards. Usually one starts seedlings indoors and then transplants them outside. I'm doing the opposite. I dug up lettuce seedlings that are not making much progress outside and am moving them inside. When I went out to transplant them into a window box, I waited until 10 in the morning so that the chill would be out of the air. However, when I went around to the garden I found it still in the shade of the house and covered with frost. I attempted to dig up the lettuce, but the ground was pretty frozen for the first few layers.
I waited an hour and came back when the sun had melted the frost and warmed the soil a bit. As it was, I was pulling up chunks of frozen soil, which gave the advantage of holding the roots and soil together. I filled my window box mostly with soil from the garden, placed the seedlings on top, and then added some potting soil to the mix.
Though my south-east facing windows don't get full sun the warmth should give the lettuce an advantage for growth. It seems as though the garden isn't getting much sun these days anyways. In another experiment in indoor gardening, I've also planted lettuce seeds around my potted swiss chard. We'll see if they sprout.