Windowsill Garden: Lessons Learned

So how did our garden grow? Check out the beginning, February, and March updates. 

Our windowsill gardening experiment lasted a mere three months this winter, but in that time we learned a few things.  Some of our plants grew strong and hearty, and others fizzled.  As amateur gardeners, we didn’t expect everything to work perfectly, but I think experience has taught us a few lessons. 

1. Some plants will thrive, with or without your best efforts.

Our parsley plant is the prime example of this lesson. We abandoned it when it was barely sprouted (we forgot to take it home over Christmas break!), and it survived.  It is thriving now, and I hope that it continues to do well in the future.  I take no credit for its health.  

Our green onions, which I wrote about here, did great in the windowsill and were basically effortless to grow. Again, I don’t feel like this is any sort of spectacular green thumb of mine, but rather a plant doing what plants do. 

2. Some plants will utterly fail, even with your best efforts.

Our chives basically failed to germinate until last week. I think this was because I followed the package directions to sow the seeds on the surface of the dirt, when they need a little cover to keep them wet enough to germinate. We had a similar issue with the tom thumb lettuce.  Those two, however, I think we can chalk up to experience.

Our cilantro is another story. It was one of the first things we planted, with the parsley, but it didn’t survive abandonment. We re-planted, barely got one sprout (about a month later), and that sprout quickly died. We tried again with new seeds, which are germinating decently. It might take us a while to get cilantro growing well for us!

3. If at first you don’t succeed, try again.

See lesson 2 – each time something failed, we tried again. Usually, we adjusted our approach.  Usually, it seems to have helped. We've planted cilantro three times - maybe this time it will stick around.

A corollary to this lesson is that you must be flexible. Things won’t necessarily work as you planned, or as you want them to. Accept that fact, and do the best you can with what you have. 

4. Small space = small yield.  Therefore, herbs are a great choice.

We tried growing some lettuces too, and some micro greens and sprouts.  The micro greens worked alright, but I think we would need to use a much larger container to make them worthwhile in the future. Sprouts were fun, but I didn’t really keep up with them. They were enough to top things with, but we barely grew a salad’s worth altogether. I don’t think we got our money’s worth out of these things, but we might have if I committed to containers with a larger surface area. 

 

Although the parsley was the only herb we really got to take off, it has worked well. Because we only use a few tablespoons at a time, the plant can keep up with our demand quite easily. And financially speaking, fresh herbs can really get expensive at the grocery store, so growing your own can actually save you money. Plus, I find freshly picked herbs are the tastiest.

5. Keep it simple.

Stick to things you know you will use often, and focus your space and energy on a few plants. You don’t need to grow the whole produce section at the grocery store. I’d also advise not growing things you don’t eat a lot – I don’t eat tons of salads in winter, and I didn’t find many uses for my sprouts other than mixing them into salads. 

Next year, I’m thinking some herbs, and maybe microgreens – but that’s a big maybe. Our windowsill gardening future might be all about the herbs. And that’s fine – it’s simply what we use. 

6. Don’t start in January!

I think windowsill gardening will work much better in the future if we start around, say, October, and the plants get some real sun before toughing it out through the darkest months. If we go into the winter with more mature plants, I think we’ll both have an easier time of it and see a better return. 

There are still some issues that I haven’t figured out.  We had some problems with things growing very “leggy” (long and scraggly), and I think that was partially due to the fact that our windowsill wasn’t super-sunny. With the weak winter sun and short days, the plants simply didn’t get enough light. We added a UV bulb, and that helped quite a bit. But some things, like the tom thumb lettuce, grew very leggy anyways. It’s an issue I’m hoping to read up on so I can address it in the future.

Now that things are warming up, we’re looking forward to starting our outdoor container garden! Next week, I’ll be talking all about our plans for that, including our containers, space, seeds, soil, budget, and progress so far.

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Windowsill Garden: March Update

We started our windowsill garden back in January, and I last updated you about a month ago. 

Toward the end of February, we moved everything to a wire shelving unit with some grow bulbs we had set up for seed starting. I suppose this defeats the purpose of a windowsill garden, but I honestly didn’t see a huge difference between growth when we provided a UV bulb on the windowsill, and growth strictly under grow lights.  I've since moved most of the plants back to the windowsill, as the days get longer and the sun gets stronger.

I’m not sure our windowsill is sunny enough for starting plants in winter – with short days and weak sun. In the future, we’ll hopefully be working with some older plants, and we won’t be trying to start young, needy plants during the shortest, coldest days of the year.  If you’re planning to start a windowsill garden, I wouldn’t advise starting in January!

Our spider plant, for example, did great on the windowsill and put off a few more flowering stalks with baby spider plants on the end. So, I think a more mature plant would survive the shortest winter days, even if it didn’t do a ton of growing, but a young plant just can’t quite get moving in the weak sun. 

Here’s how the individual plants are doing:

The green onions are thriving.

The parsley is still thriving:

The cilantro and chives have started to germinate. We planted new cilantro seeds (from a new packet), and these ones are looking better than the last. I put a little soil over the chive seeds, and it seems to help germination (the packet said to sow them on top of the soil, which did not work). 

The tom thumb lettuce sprouted after I planted some new seeds, went wild, and I trimmed them back. They grew very scraggly, and I’m not sure what I need to do to get them to grow more compactly. It’s an issue I’ll be working on in our outdoor container garden. It also looks like something might be eating the lettuce leaves (although that might also be decay from sitting in the dirt).

The microgreens and other sprouts continued to do about the same – I harvested some of them, and the rest are doing fine. We’ll be eating the last of these soon; I don’t plan to include sprouts in the outdoor garden.

Our swiss chard is really starting to look good. Although still tiny, it has begun to produce more leaves on a regular basis. The plants are only a few inches tall, probably because of the small pot they are in (a 6 inch pot). I’m considering just transplanting it outside in a larger pot, rather than starting over, but I need to do a bit more research (it might just bolt more quickly).

So what did we learn from this experience? Next week, I’ll talk about our lessons from windowsill gardening. Most importantly, I learned that I don’t have a black thumb, as previously thought – I’m just not sure that I have a green thumb yet either!

Soon, I’m going to focus a lot on our garden plans for the spring and summer. With the super warm weather we’ve been having, I might be starting things outdoors a month sooner than anticipated! I’ll discuss our containers, space, seeds, soil, budget, and progress so far. Look for those posts the week of March 26^th! 

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Windowsill Garden: Green Onions

I wanted to give you a quick update on one of the most surprising and successful aspects of our windowsill gardening experiment. I'll be writing a more detailed update with an analysis of the whole experiment soon.

I found an idea on Pinterest that seemed almost too simple and easy to be true. By placing the white ends of green onions in a glass of water, we could grow new green onions. This meant that we would have a steady supply of fresh green onions for practically free, considering we usually just tossed those root ends. After only few days in the water, the onions showed some promising growth:

And now, a month or so later, we've got more green onions than we know what to do with!

I'm working on figuring out what the best technique for harvesting is. It seems that we need to cut as close to the white part of the plant as possible; each root piece sends up several stalks of onion. The root systems have grown to provide a stable base at the bottom of the glass - one of the initial challenges was keeping the pieces propped up (not just floating around in the water!).

These taste just as good as the ones we grew them from, and so far we've expended no more effort than changing the water every few days. I was worried they might taste somehow watered down thanks to being re-grown, but that hasn't been the case. We've been able to use the entire green stalk that we harvest (I usually discard part of the greens from the store because they are too wilted).

We used the onions in this orange wheatberry salad, and in a few other dishes so far. This is definitely something I would suggest trying - although green onions aren't expensive, you can grow your own for practically free!

Do you have any tricks like this? Are there other kitchen scraps that can actually be re-grown?

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Windowsill Garden February Update

It's been a while since I first told you about our windowsill garden, but we're still plugging away at this experiment! I say experiment, because as you will see, we've had some things that are going well, some things that we've managed to make go better, and some things that are clearly failing. (Ahem, cilantro.)

The picture at the top of the post is our spider plant. It grew a really long shoot that we thought would be a baby spider plant, but has instead been flowering for over a week! They are pretty little white flowers, that open and close each day. I'm not sure what will happen next, but the flowers are nice to look at. 

We've had some very cold days in the past few weeks, and the windowsill wasn't the warmest place. Aside from setting up a space heater in the room (because I work in this room, not just for the plants!), we also positioned a desk lamp over the plants to provide some extra light and heat. Since the weather has returned to more moderate winter temperatures, the desk lamp has returned to my desk.

We also added a UVB bulb (sold specifically for plants, Nick had it leftover from an aquarium), because I do not think our windowsill gets nearly enough light. The windowsill faces east, so we get some morning light, but it is not very strong (especially because it is winter).  I noticed that a lot of plants had sprouted, then stalled. They got their first two leaves, but didn't produce any more. Also, they were growing very scraggly/leggy - long and skinny, to the point some could not support themselves well. A brief amount of research indicated that insufficient light was more that likely the culprit. We added the UVB bulb less than a week ago, and we've already seen a huge improvement - the plants are all producing new leaves and just seem stronger.

The UVB bulb is in a cheap strip light that we have propped up on some boxes. Not exactly glamorous, but it works for now. (If you're trying your own windowsill garden, and think you might need one, fortunately neither the strip light or bulb cost very much, and you should be able to find them at Wal-mart or somewhere similar.)  In the next month or so, we'll be purchasing some items for seed starting and the outdoor container garden, so we plan to keep the setup as-is for now and re-evaluate later. 

I have not planted new seeds for any of the plants. I think I may harvest most of the mesclun micro greens and broccoli sprouts this week, and add some new seeds there. I'm wondering if I need to add new seeds to other pots where we've had little or poor germination. I might, because I can always thin sprouts - but if there are no sprouts, we won't have any plants!

I haven't been harvesting many bean sprouts - mostly because I'm enjoying watching them grow wildly. I will probably thin them soon, and perhaps try planting a few other beans from the pantry, just for fun.

Things that are still going well:

Our parsley continues to thrive. I've been harvesting some of it (I used it in this tofu falafel) and it seems to be quite healthy.

We have one adorable Tom Thumb lettuce baby plant.  This is one of the pots I think I need to add some new seeds to, because none of the other seeds germinated.

The mesclun greens sprouts are now micro-greens level. I plan to harvest most of these this week, and replant some new seeds. Same thing with the broccoli sprouts, which are definitely grown a little past where I planned. I'm hoping that with the UVB bulb, any new sprouts won't be quite so leggy.

We also still only have one chive that germinated. It's healthy, but lonely!

Our swiss chard has finally started growing more leaves, and I'm hopeful for big improvements with the UVB bulb. 

The spinach looks very scraggly, but is improving with the UVB bulb. Unfortunately, it was one of the plants closest to the desk lamp I added for heat, and it looks like one of the sprouts may have decided to "bolt" or go to seed (this is usually caused by too-hot conditions). The wilted/shriveled looking leaves are actually the original sprout leaves, which withered away when the new baby plant leaves came in. 

The cilantro is in a sorry state. Although three seeds finally germinated, they shriveled and died shortly thereafter. The windowsill might just be too cold for them. I'm going to try re-planting this week, but we might not get any cilantro out of this windowsill. Perhaps I should just plant something else in that pot, to see if it will grow.

Finally, a neat idea I picked up on pinterest. If you place the white ends that you trim off of green onions (purchased from the store) in a glass jar with some water, they will grow new green onions. We started this a week or so ago, and the results are already quite promising! I've been changing the water every few days, and adding onion ends as we use them up. 

So, now you know how our garden grows! Next month, we'll hopefully be starting some seeds for summer, and with any luck, there will be an even bigger improvement in the windowsill garden. 

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Our Windowsill Garden

I know what you're probably thinking. "Um, Grace, it's January. Isn't a gardening post a bit out-of-season?" Especially if you consider that I live in Nebraska, and the ground is pretty much frozen solid right now. But give me a second here: we're not talking about dig-up-the-backyard-gardening, we're talking about windowsill gardening. In containers. Indoors.

I mentioned that we hope to start a container garden outdoors on our deck once the weather warms up, but freezing temps haven't put a stop to our culinary cultivation.  There are a handful of things that can easily grow on a sunny windowsill.

Now, I'm NOT an expert at gardening. In fact, I'm a total novice. We're just starting this experiment ourselves! But I thought I would let you know what we're doing, how it's going, and see if anyone out there has some sage advice (get it?!? HA!) for us.

Things that are going well so far: Sprouts!

Although we started out with some properly purchased packets of seeds, dirt, and even a few ceramic flowerpots, I decided to wing it completely with one of our containers. I took a handful of mung beans, which had been purchased in the bulk bins at Whole Foods, soaked them in water, and stuck them in dirt in a re-purposed (extra large) yogurt container (with holes punched in the bottom, because plants like that sort of thing). I didn't even bother really giving them enough space, because I had little confidence in the success of this experiment. But wouldn't you know it, these have been some of our most prolific producers! It took them a bit to get started, but now they've taken off. I can harvest a handful of sprouts once or twice a week - and I plan to put a few more beans in the dirt soon so our supply becomes continual. 

Speaking of sprouts, we've also had luck with broccoli sprouts. I'm trying to get some lettuce sprouts to develop a bit more into micro greens, but they're all growing well at this point. 

My swiss chard babies are just to the point I think I need to thin them. If I can get a few to develop, we can eat them while they're small, then dedicate the whole pot to one (hopefully thriving) plant.  Apparently, you can harvest the outer leaves of the mature plant, while the inner leaves develop, creating a steady chard supply.

Parsley has done well for us - not even kicking it when we accidentally abandoned it for almost two weeks (we were home for the holidays! Oops!).  But our cilantro hasn't sprouted yet. I'm starting to have doubts about it. 

In the "requires patience" department, we have one (single, solitary, uno) chive that has sprouted. It looks quite healthy, if a bit lonely. Hopefully a few more spring up here soon! Our Tom Thumb lettuce seeds show signs of germination, but no sprouts yet. 

Come spring, we'll be starting some seeds indoors, then setting up a container garden on our deck. I'm hopeful we can get some herbs to grow. I've also purchased an ambitious variety of other seeds - if only a few other plants really produce for us, I'll be happy.  I figure, because this is our first year, experimentation is the name of the game. Give a variety of things a try, and figure out what will actually grow for us. 

My [admittedly ambitious] Seed List: 

• Herbs: 5 (FIVE) kinds of basil, cilantro, mint, dill, parsley, chives
• Lettuces: Kale, spinach, swiss chard, butter lettuce, tom thumb lettuce
• 2 kinds of bush beans
• Black Krim tomatoes
• Squash: patty pan squash, and "ronde de nice" zucchini
• 2 kinds of carrots
• "Little Fingers" eggplant (tiny eggplants!!!)
• Belgian (sweet) red peppers

Overkill? Probably. But if even half of it grows well, I'll be pleased as punch.

I've been using this book: (Grow Great Grub: Organic Gardening For Small Spaces, by Gayla Trail) for guidance in container growing. It's very clear and thorough, and I'll let you know how the advice pans out for us as the experiment continues! 

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