Posted on 09/04/2015 2:37:11 PM PDT by Kartographer
I’ve been learning how to grow microgreens. Can be grown indoors all year, need only ambient light and not even soil! Most take only 7-10 days until they’re ready to harvest. They’re 4-40 times more nutritious than their mature counterparts, so for fiber and vitamins I’m including them in my preps. My favorites are broccoli, pak choy and sunflower microgreens.
bmfl, thanks!
BMfl, thanks!
Thank you very much for this info. I have printed it off to show Hubby, and to take with us when we are able to do some shopping for a system.
I do have some raised beds, and I do some improvisation for growing winter veggies - cool weather crops. I don’t use the hoops, since I don’t grow anything that tall. Certainly we could look at expanding that if we ever needed to grow huge amounts of stuff in the winter.
Indoors in a 2 x 6 space in front of a patio door, I grow plants that are warm weather plants, such as tomatoes, peppers, and lemons. I just want to have a few more of those things and also be able to clear the area in front of my door to make more room and less clutter in the house.
We are already well on our way to preserving quite a lot of food to get us through the winter, so the winter gardening is not and would probably never be our largest source of food supply.
We set up both of our back patios so that we could one day build sunrooms. However that is a major expense, and just not affordable at present. Even building our own is too costly. So this is a compromise that’s good enough for now, I think.
If we win the lottery, then that’s a whole nother ball game.
I have never really tried the planting in circular mounds. My grand daughter likes the Italian Roma beans, and they are bush beans.
I do inter crop these three some times in my raised beds. They are 3’ x 8’. So I have three rows. I plant the back row in corn with one seed in the middle of a sq. ft. The middle row, I plant the seed diagonally from those.
Still in the middle of the sq. ft. measured from front to back, but midways between the other seeds. In between each of those I plant beans till I get to about a quarter of the way along the length and that’s where I put a squash seed, and again at the 3/4 mark.
Then I plant the next row of corn, and again plant some beans in between the corn. Seems to work and I’m able to get plenty of green beans harvested at the same time.
I’m responding to this question about tattler lids and to those that replied to it, because I’ve had the same issues with tattlers not sealing. I called the company and have been experimenting and think the answer lies in the ring tightening.
The ez seal is ‘supposed’ to be as easy to use as traditional metal-with-the-seal-attached lids. And either the method used with the old tattler (tighten ring, then back off a quarter turn, tighten rings after taking out of canner) or the traditional lids should work.
However, the company spokesperson said since the tattler lids are thicker than the metal lids, the lids need to be on loosely in order to ensure that venting can occur. If tightened, say as much as the metal lids can handle, the jar won’t vent properly and therefore, won’t seal.
So it kind of depends on one’s technique- if you put on your metal lids loosely, you can continue with that method with the tattlers. For those if us that put the rings on tight, we’ll have to back them off a quarter turn, just like the old tattler lids. The traditional lids are pretty much idiot-proof and will seal most of the time no matter what you do.
I canned 2 batches of apple pie filling, each with half tattler and half traditional luds. I adjusted both the same, backing off a quarter turn after getting them where I normally did with the metal lids. All sealed just fine. Next batch the same except I used applesauce (could re-process that without it getting over done) and keeping the rings on hand-tightened with out backing off. All 3 metal lidded jars sealed fine, but 2 of the 4 tattler did not.
Perhaps not a big enough sample to be definitive, but I know where to start when canning with tattlers next time. I’ve also read of seal failures with tattler while in storage, so I’ll be watching that as well. The lids are more rigid, so perhaps they resist drawing in a vacuum, as is evident when the metal lids get a bit concave with a good seal. I noticed a few of the tattlers being slightly concave just a teeny bit but most weren’t at all.
Thanks for the info. Interesting about tightening and backing off a qtr. turn. That’s the way I almost always do it when I’m not thinking about it-force of habit.
That’s the way my Granny used to do it, so I learned it a long time ago, and never knew why she did it that way.
Thanks for that info.
I had heard it too, but after the failures I had, have been a little leery of using them again.
I’ll have to try them again with that method.
Let me know how it goes for you!
Sorry to be slow responding...Thank you for the update and great information...I will print and add it to my folder.
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