You would need some grow lights. Peppers tend to be sun lovers.
Well then it is out of the question. I am looking for plants that can endure low light conditions on the side of my room opposite to the windows.
I have some Zamioculcas as well as two pots of spider plants and a parlour palm that are doing well so far on the shady side of the room. My ultimate goal is to have at least one potted plant per square meter of living space.
Yeah jalapeno and tomato are both sun+warmth hogs. You might be able to do some leafy greens in a cooler, darker spot-- spinach or lettuce or kale. Before we got the house we grew spinach in a shady spot on our patio and it did alright.
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yes ive learned alot and getting into the beds is key to keeping em gooing so hybrid imo
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Shade-grown green tea leaves?
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Have to look into that. I thought tea needs it sunny. I am currently looking into possibilities and wild garlic looks promising. I do not know however if it is dependent on the cold in the winter or if I can have it indoor all year. Would be great for cooking and salads.
Being shade grown forces the plant to produce more chlorophyll. This make the green tea even more green.
Some of the best macha is shade grown.
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October 2021 Update
Raised Beds Begin
So many bricks.
Starting a raised bed. The area around the bed needs to be slightly more level: in hindsight I should’ve dug deeper to start. I will be correcting that shortly. The plan is to make the beds two blocks high and fill them with wood scraps (hugelkulture), leaves, woodchips, e.t.c to decompose over the winter. In the spring it should be a nice layer of compost to mix in with our dirt.
Why Woodchips Rock
Earlier this summer I got a load of wood chips delivered, and have been layering them in this portion of the yard along with hay and cardboard for the last couple months. Even though that’s a pretty short time, you can see a huge difference in the quality of the soil.
A part of the yard with no amendments made:
(Ew it’s sandy and eroding everywhere)
Area under the wood chips:
(Look how lovely and dark that soil is getting!)
Grapes!
I’ve got grape vines! The trellis system is still under construction but the grapes came earlier than I anticipated. I have three Concord grape plants. Concord is an American grape variety that is supposed to be good for beginners and has a variety of uses, from eating to juicing to canning (unfortunately not a choice variety for wine, alas).
I’ve never grown grapes before (though we did have some along a fence in our yard growing up). Hopefully a rousing success?
Greenery Updates
My kale has started sprouting, FINALLY.
Spinach is doing nicely as well; they’ve got their first ‘true leaves’ coming in. I thinned these recently but it looks like i will likely need to thin them again soon. Also, they are maybe a bit leggy, like they’re stretching for sunlight, but I moved them into a warmer spot so hopefully that will resolve itself.
My lettuce is starting to get true leaves as well; I don’t think they look as healthy as the spinach but I kinda feel like I’m lettuce-cursed at this point so that tracks.
Peas! Got our first pea harvest this week. Not too many pods yet but enough for a small snack while I was in the garden. This variety can be eaten straight off the vine.
Forestry Finds
In perhaps the funnest update, I had a member of the Kentucky Division of Forestry come out and survey our woods on Monday. The forester who came out will write up a management plan for me now that she’s done the survey; but even just walking the woods with her was a super educational experience. Our woods are actually much healthier than I anticipated. Pictured: a persimmon fruit that fell from one of our trees. They are a native tree and the fruits are edible. They taste kind of like a really mushy banana? Interesting for sure. If you have this or a similar program in your state, I’d highly recommend it (it’s fo free too).
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Those cinder blocks look like a great idea.
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I love persimmons. The only kind that can grow up here are the Fuyu (Winter) variety.
Also save those pallets. They are worth their weight in gold and can also be used to barter and trade right now.
@kreestuh The year is nearing it’s end. Did your garden went into hibernation? Any great plans for next year?
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I have peas, lettuce and spinach out right now; but otherwise, yep, garden is mostly done! I’m focusing on infrastructure updates for next season now. I need to be moving blocks to build raised beds hnng.
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Not really gardening, but I did make a small firepit in the woods with some leftover blocks I had.
Also testing new tarp guyline for an upcoming backpacking trip.
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Peas and spinach is a great idea, I will do that next year!
Looks like a great place to hang with friends!
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if you are looking for gardening experiment for 2022 check out oyster mushrooms. started as a ww1 experiment for quickly farming as much food as possible as easily as possible and exploded. you steam rinsed clean woodchips to sterilize then bag em and inject some mycelium then put it in a good environment often a basement and wait. takes some research to figure it all out but oysters can be grown to a a mature batch every 1-2 weeks.
meanwhile im paying 5-10$ a pound at my asian grocery store because i dont have the space =/ but hey they are worth it
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A friend of mine just got into this after moving into his Dream home. Once you get it going, it seems like a pretty easy operation. He is also experimenting with other myceliae that grows on wood. He has separated rooms dedicated to each type.
I really like the idea of having a greenhouse or multiple. I feel like it’s getting cheaper and cheaper to build them with the ease of getting clear plastics and framing materials (outside of pandemic time).
Then you get to be able to control the temperature, humidity and even lighting if you like.
Plus for the nerds among us it can make for a fun automation project. (You might be able to turn it into a video)
Also, have you considered a grow area for mushrooms? We all know how much you love the 'shrooms. Definitely a more difficult thing to grow though since I hear you need to be very careful about contaminating the growth medium.
I was just talking to my husband about inoculating some logs the other day! I’ve been looking for a source of spores for oysters or chickens but haven’t had much luck outside of small box grow kits (which are great but I’d like to just throw them in our woods and see how they do instead). A family friend of ours tried oysters a couple years ago in their woods and got an ok yield, it’s definitely an experiment I’d like to try.
Not sure if you follow this channel but I like him. hes chill… down to earth
Totally different growing season than NA for sure though
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