Golden Wax Beans.... Indoors???

Golden Wax Beans!

I am SO surprised! I didn't think the beans would produce indoors, given how small the flowers are, and how difficult they are to hand pollinate! But the vines are covered in developing pods now (not to mention flowers).

I'm so pleased! Now to see if they actually mature and are edible.

Tragedy on the Windowsill...

Unfortunately one of the pots of basil fell to it's doom this morning. :(

Thankfully, the pot that fell was the one not doing that well, so I still have the one flourishing pot remaining. I've been harvesting the basil one snip here, one snip there, for the past week or two from that pot. Storing the snipped tips in the fridge (in a ziplock bag) until they can be used or dried. It's so much fun watching something grow from a seed to something that ends up in your fridge!

I lost the rosemary last month as well. It did really well for a while, then suddenly died and dried up. So no rosemary this year (unless I buy a plant at a nursery or something). I'm thinking of replacing it with some Lemon Thyme if I can find any. It's my absolute favorite herb of them all. It's just hard to predict who'll have it from one year to the next.

Oh well. That's the way gardening goes. Ya win some, ya loose some.

The Surviving Basil

Oh, and in other news. The Golden Wax Beans I planted two months ago are growing well. Three out of five beans sprouted (actually it was four out of five but one was all weird and I pulled it out). When it starts flowering, I'll hand pollinate and see what happens. :)

Golden Wax Beans!

Lastly, I recently picked up an old Oil Lamp for FREE at a garage sale. It's got no glass on top, needs a new wick, needs a bit of a scrub, but otherwise looks to be in great shape. There are at least five "antique" shops across from where I live, as well as stores that sell lamp oil, so I'm sure I'll be able to replace the glass easy enough. So exciting!

First Oil Lamp!

Two Tails (of Basil).

The Basil is continuing to do well. Though interestingly enough I've found there's a stark contrast between the pot growing in the living room, and the pot in my bedroom. I sowed two pots, just in case one failed for some reason, I'd have a back-up.

The plants in the bedroom (the one photographed the most) are larger, fuller, and generally look better. The ones in the living room are smaller, leggier, and fewer sprouts matured to this point. I'm thinking it's because early on in their growth, their soil was disturbed accidentally, and many died off and the survivors were stunted due to stress. It'll be interesting to see if they ever catch up to the other group in the bedroom at any point. Or if they'll remain small and leggy...

Here comes the Basil! (Windowsill Garden Update)

Look how big it's gotten in just five days! First true leaves are getting big, and the plants seem to be thriving!

The green onions! You can even see the volunteer leaf lettuce that started growing in the pot. lol

Speaking of Lettuce.... BAM. Lettuce Jungle! Yes, I deliberately seeded the pot a bit thick. ;)


And that's it for this update! I may be planting some "Pioneer" Peas in the next little while. They did really well last year, and were delicious. Will post photos if/when I get around to it.

Spring? Finally!

Well, it finally looks like the last blast of winter has passed. Temperatures are slowly creeping up to what would be considered "normal", it just took an extra month to get there!

My windowsill seedlings are doing very well. The Lettuce especially. The Radishes have been slow in sprouting for some reason, but given how poorly they did last year I'm not hoping for much. I plan on using the greens more than anything. The Basil is doing great! Excellent germination rate and fast growth, they've already sprouted their first set of true leaves (for the most part).

Interestingly, this spring has shown me something I never would have thought of when it comes to the whole "search for land" front. This winter, with it's excessive snow and then the major rain during the melt, there has been a major amount of flooding in the areas where I was looking at land. I guess that's the drawback at looking at land with good access to potable water sources... unless you build on high ground, there's a real risk of your cabin/cottage/house ending up looking like a boat! Especially if you want "waterfront views" from your porch! Yikes. So I guess the lesson in that is to look for land with a an area elevated high enough, in case of spring flooding. Somewhere to build the cabin, out buildings, and off grid power system where it won't all end up underwater (and you won't end up in an inflatable dingy with emergency personnel taking you to safety).

Spring 2013

Well slowly but surely, it's looking and feeling more like spring around here. We've had a long winter this year, and even now there is still snow on the ground in places... Quite the contrast from last year when we had temperatures around 25c (77f) in March!

Now's the time when all the seeds start coming out in stores. And people's thoughts turn to warmer days and green gardens. Everyone is prepping their seeds, getting ready for this year's gardening season. I love this time of year.

As for what I've been up to...

My green onions did very well over the winter. I'm very happy with how they performed! Even the ones that were cut and used have grown back so fast you can hardly tell them from the ones I haven't harvested yet! I give them an A+! I'll definitely be planting more in the future.

I've also  rooted some Rosemary cuttings for this year. Since the one I had last year didn't make it over winter. It got attacked pretty bad by powdery mildew...

As for my plans for this year. I've already seeded some more leaf lettuce, and will be planting the rest of my Radish seeds even though I failed to get Radishes last year. I eat the greens so it's still worth planting them. I also planted new seeds recently, a heirloom variety of Basil! I LOVE Basil... so this will be quite a treat if it works out.

Indoor Garden Update -Squash and Watermelons!

To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure how well this experiment would go... But so far, so good! Just look at the little watermelon that's growing in my window! Actually, the plant has produced a number of them now and is almost always covered in flowers.

And yes, even the Butternut Squash is doing relatively well. Though so far no fruit has been produced. Frankly, I'm just happy to see that the plants haven't just withered away to nothing. They're actually doing really well! So time will tell whether or not any of them produce. Regardless, it thrills me to see plants you'd think of as outdoor-only, actually doing well indoors.

Eventually this knowledge will come in handy when I either build a four-season greenhouse, or find another way to grow plants over the winter (grow lights and large pots perhaps?).


I think it's an important thing to learn....especially now given how bad food prices are getting.

Indoor Garden Update

Wow, it's been a while since I was able to update this blog.

Well, so far the Autumn crop of Lettuce I planted is doing well. As are the green Onions I started.

But most surprisingly, it's the Watermelon and Butternut Squash that are doing really well! The Watermelon in particular has been absolutely covered in flowers (both male and female).

I really wasn't sure how the Butternut Squash would behave when grown indoors, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. I had a brief scare with spider-mites but cutting off the effected leaves right away seems to have solved the issue. The oldest of the vines is covered in flower-buds, including a pretty obvious Female (the swelling under the bud itself looks like a squash in super-miniature!). It's fascinating watching how things are progressing...

Things here have been crazy busy the last month, so unfortunately I haven't been able to photograph the plants, but I will try to get a few shots in the next week or so to share.


Here's hoping things continue to do well!

"Unorthodox" is the name of the game here!

Indoor "farm" update!

Yes, you read that right. I'm growing edible plants INDOORS right now. Seeing as I'm dealing with a serious lack of outdoor space currently (thus why I'm working towards my move to the Rural homestead). And honestly, I'm curious as to what does well grown inside with minimal care... this is something I've been experimenting with since January.



Radishes all got pulled today. Not a single one produced (other than the edible greens), so I give them a D rating. I don't know if it's the variety or what, but they didn't produce any "bulbs", so I got no radishes out of the deal. Only reason why they don't get an F is because the greens are edible and tasty.

Lettuce is about finished. Some of it started bolting, so it all got cut and fed to the Rat and the Canary. (If I had my New Zealand rabbits already, I would have given it all to them.) Got a lot of good greens out of the deal, once we got the aphid problem handled. So I'd give 'em a B+ rating. Will plant more once the weather cools off a bit. It's way to hot even indoors for lettuce right now.

Peas are still going strong. I've had two mini "harvests" so far and the plants are workin' on a third. Even though I have to hand-pollinate (which is easier than I thought), since they're inside and have no insects to pollinate them. I'd give 'em a B rating.

My little baby Watermelon is growing. Which honestly is shocking to me. Given that it came from a seed inside a watermelon bought in a grocery store (only one of two I found in the whole melon!). I've also planted three butternut squash seeds, out of a bunch I have stored away. I want to see if they'll germinate. They look viable... so we'll see. Dunno what I'll do with 'em if they DO germinate...guess I'll let them grow until they decide to die on their own... given the pot is far too small for long term growth. If the seeds are good, I'll get a big pot and plant new ones. So we'll see how this goes. I LOVE butternut squash and it'd make me SO happy if I could get them to grow inside (I have no issue hand pollinating squash flowers).

Hooray for unusual experimentation in weird homesteading horticulture. lol