Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

I started growing stuff in my window sill in 1975 while living in a high rise tiny apartment in Japan.  US Military commissary had very little fresh produce except for things like potatoes, carrots and onions.  So I had my Mom send garden seeds and got flower pots filled with potting soil.  A friend told me not to pull the lettuce up, just clip off a few leaves from each one so they would keep growing and it worked great.  I tried carrots and they grew slowly but worth the effort to keep them going in several pots. 

In recent years I learned from another friend that I could cut off the root ends of several produce plants like celery, green onions and Romaine lettuce among others, and replant those ends and they would grow.  I have big huge window sills now so have lots of stuff growing to provide a fresh salad at least once a week. 

I even keep a pot of jasmine growing down in my basement by the big glass door and heater.  I miss jasmine from when we lived in TX years ago.  Brought 3 home and the basement one thrived so I baby it along.  Maybe when we get the greenhouse in a year or two it can find a new home.

I grow at least 9 varieties of lettuce and the ones we have to pick I grow 4 or 5 pots of to keep that variety going.   I grow a 6 foot window box full of green onions with ivy growing at the ends of the box.  I love having it in my kitchen window sill.  The lettuces are in their own pots in the double window sill in the family room and baby carrots and celery and a few odds and ends grow in boxes in the utility room. 

Unlike Japan, if we can get to the store we can find anything we want or at least most of what we want. We love butter lettuces and don't see them here in the winter so my daughters are happy they get a head each week home grown.  We can get snowed in for several weeks at a time here so having our little garden is extra nice during those times.  We have a year supply of dry goods and freeze milk in case we need it.  So being snowed in is ok and we actually enjoy our times alone. 

Have fun growing in your windows!   Whether you use seeds or use root ends from the stuff you buy it gives you fresh free produce to use all winter!  I do use Mittleider mix to fertilize my little mini garden. It works much better than Miracle Grow and other fertilizers that I used in the past.   Seeds take a lot longer to get going in the winter.  I usually start mine at the end of August so they are going good when we need them. 

Cherlynn

________________________________
From: "oowonbs@netscape.net" <oowonbs@netscape.net>
To: brchbell@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: [MittleiderMethodGardening] OFFLIST-Window gardens


Cherlynn,

As Jim dislikes OT, which means, non-Miitleider, I want to ask more, offlist.

I'm trying to do window sill gardening as an experiemnt, to eventually teach something akin tio, a salad a week, window sill gardening, and hopefully, using zero outta pocket. To be unPC, this is partially ghetto-directed, but would help instill science & gardening in kids. I have a list started for it in fact, but few have time or interest ion tedious experimenting or brain storming.

To date, I've mainly only gotten bunch onion bottoms going well.
And a tiny worm composter started.

BillSF9c
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I'm in zone 4B so a little colder.  We get way to much snow to bother trying to
grow outside but I do grow green onions, baby carrots, several kinds of lettuces
in my window sills all winter.  I don't pick the whole lettuce, just a few
leaves off each one so they keep growing and replace what I use.  It's not a lot
but we have all the green onions we need and a fresh salad once a week for the 7
of us here. We are considering a green house with a biomass rocket stove but it
will be a year or two for that.
 The biomass would be a grow bed so we should be able to even grown tomatoes if
we do it.   I learned to grow on the window sills when we lived in a high rise
apartment in Japan many years ago.  I've done it ever since. Cherlynn

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