growingfood

Greens in the Window

Free Projects, Homestead, Kitchen, Plants

For a bit of greenery indoors and a future meal from out windowsill, we have been growing pea greens. They are simple to grow, take about 10 days until harvest, and when it’s time to harvest, my kids snip them with scissors. Then we let them regrow for a second harvest!

I use Dwarf Gray Peas from Johnny’s Seeds, in a pinch you could use the pea seeds from the garden center (you won’t find Dwarf Gray, but it would still work), but I usually grow 1 cup of peas at a time so I buy them in large quantities. Pea seeds don’t need any soil, but they do need something that will retain moisture – I have used soil and fallen leaves and unbleached paper towels as a growing medium. I often use an old Pyrex pan, but plastic take-out containers and their lids both make great growing containers.

Day 1: Soak 1 cup of pea seeds in 2 cups of water — they will double in size over the next 12 hours.

Day 2: Find a wide, shallow pan – I use a 9x13inch Pyrex pan. Sprinkle some soil on the bottom, or use two layers of paper towels. Drain the peas and spread them in the pan. They can be tightly spread, but if it’s more than 2 layers deep, find a bigger pan or divide them between two containers.
Water the seeds.
Cover the pan with a plastic bag – this will create a mini greenhouse and keep in the moisture for the first two or three days of growth. Some air will help keep mold from growing.

Day 4: Remove the plastic. Give a little water if it looks dry.
Days 5-10: Water once a day, or twice if your home is very dry.

Harvest the peas when the leaves are open. You can harvest all the greens at once, or harvest over a few days. Use scissor to cut the stems, leave the roots in place and keep watering, they will regrow and you can harvest a second crop.

Home grown food definitely calls for my fanciest bowl and grandma’s salad tongs.

Sheep!

Homestead

Welcome to our homestead, my dear sheep.

Three ewes and a ram joined us yesterday, relocating from White Barn Farm Sheep & Wool in Gardiner, NY. I have dreamed of this day for years. But I also fretted about having livestock again — what if the coyotes go after the sheep? What if they run away? What if I resent the extra work? Am I going to curse them (or myself? Or my husband?) while hauling buckets of water in February?

I don’t know any of the answers, but we decided to go for it anyway. I have already visited their pen twice this morning – I went out at 6:30 just to make sure that they hadn’t broken the fences overnight and escaped.

The kids keep climbing in and out of the yard – checking water again and again. I have implemented a new family policy, too: all complaints must be submitted to the sheep. I sent Eli out to tell the sheep that he didn’t like what we served for dinner last night.

Names are still being decided – the list is so long now!

Relax, and let the kids into the garden

Dirt Magazine, Family, Plants
Two young, blonde-haired kids, sitting in a garden bed.

My children start “helping” in the garden in February. Before I order seeds, I go through my box of seeds from previous years. As soon as they hear the rattle of the seed packs, my kids want to do some planting. So we go to the basement and as I sort, I hand off the seed packs that I deem too old or unlikely to get space in the garden. My two boys enthusiastically plant these castaways in pots and these seedlings get the place of honor in our sunny window. There they grow and die, and then they make way for the ground cherries, broccoli, and tomato starts.

You can imagine their excitement when it comes time to actually play outside, in the soil. They are eager with their shovels and generous with their seed spreading — one seed every four inches becomes four seeds every inch. Heck, last year someone seeded the entire radish pack in one fell swoop. Whoops.

Clearly, they have both earned themselves a garden plot of their own. They can plant what they want, then can tend and decorate it as they please. My 6-year-old always has plans bigger than his plot, but we figure it out. I remind him that there will be another patch of green beans just six feet away, so he is welcome to snack on those, too. Three years ago that same kid planted some eggplant seedlings in our dirt pile (the one he plays in). I planted four of those same seedlings in the garden, which is encircled by a seven-foot fence. Guess whose plants were eaten by aphids?

And my son’s plants? The ones that were six feet from our driveway, open to chickens, deer, groundhogs and rabbits? His plants produced half a dozen gorgeous looking eggplants. And, as kids are wont to do, he picked them when they were only four inches long, wanted me to make them for lunch right away, and then remembered that he didn’t really like eggplant.

But who can complain, it’s his garden plot, his harvest, I ate them up and sent my compliments to the farmer. Boy was he proud.

The kids’ gardens are now in the big garden, right in the raised beds. It’s hard to share space when it never feels like there’s enough of it. But I know that they will want to run out every morning to check on their peas or watermelons, even if it means I have to plant fewer cucumbers or zinnias. As Ben Hewitt, a homestead writer, has said, “Relax. Lower your expectations. You’re not just growing a garden. You’re growing little people. One is just slightly more important that the other.”

Originally published in Dirt Magazine, April/May 2017