Last summer, we constructed a strawberry garden out of old wooden boxes. It worked, but it was quaint, and Liz wanted a real strawberry garden. And I like strawberries and gardens, and I was itching to finally use that saw that’s been sitting in a box in my garage since we bought the house, so this seemed like as good a reason as any.
So after procuring some 2x8s and a work table from Lowe’s, I had a perfectly respectable setup, ready to butcher some lumber:
My blood coursed with suburban manliness (and histamine–Spring allergies that did not appreciate the sawdust)! I really only needed to cut a single board in half, but it was the manliest single cut I could make!
The majority of the work was far less creative and primarily involved grunt labor: digging trenches and hammering stakes. But I had no intention of installing a garden that would shift and become unsightly, so all boards were carefully leveled and secured with corrosion-resistant deck screws:
Okay, it just looks like a box (because it is), but soon it’ll be growing delicious fruit and look way cooler.
More on the indoor growing front. Well, nothing really new, just more photos.
My attempts at growing basil inside have been technically successful, but basil really doesn’t appreciate the scanty light provided by fluorescents, lending me to believe, as I had suspected, that the photos of those green and busy basil plants on the boxes of grow kits to be bullshit. Even so, they managed to flower (which means they’re not happily making lots of leaves as they should):
One of the plants that’s historically been really easy to grow inside is sage. We have no need for more sage plants, but I started this one because it’s from the seed that my first sage plant produced–the one in the pot that I started from seed years ago that finally went to flower. I’ll probably gift this one:
After the aphids ravaged my pepper plants, I had been struggling to get a new one to germinate. Last year I learned that starting them around December/January gave them the time they needed to produce. But pepper seeds are lazy, and I had been becoming dismayed. Thankfully, I finally saw a sprout:
This is an attempt to grow an aloe plant from part of a leaf from a grocery store. I’m curious, though not terribly hopeful:
And lastly, here’s an assortment of things. There’s the rhubarb plant I’ve overwintering until I get it in the ground, as assortment of beans I was forced to plant as they were starting to mold, the poinsettia–awaiting next year’s festivities, an annual whose name I can never remember that we call “The Vegas Plant” (overwintering), and another potato–grown from salvaged kitchen scraps:
We’re fully in the winter slump now, but I still have my little patch of green.
When I brought my pepper plants inside to overwinter, I did not anticipate an aphid scourge. In fact, I’ve never experienced an aphid problem before, so the threat didn’t register. In the past, I once had a colony attack some bindweed, but as they left everything else alone, I wasn’t concerned, and in fact left the bindweed there as a sort of companion gardening plant.
The chocolate habanero
The trouble is, bringing plants inside and into a controlled environment seems to have eliminated all natural predators. So while I may have always had aphids, their populations were controlled to the point that I never noticed them.
But a few weeks ago, I noticed the colony on my peppers. This particular strain was bright red, so I noticed fairly quickly. But it’s hard to treat big bushy plants inside, and while repeated sprayings lessened the population, I never eradicated it. And the aphids, being amazing specialists, transferred to the other plants. So finally, I had to take extreme measures. I took every infected plant outside to die in the freeze, along with their unwelcome guests.
It’s very annoying to lose plants that I really wanted to keep. From now on, I’ll start new peppers inside in the winter and just let them die at the end of fall. It’s not like I had a shortage of peppers this year. Lesson learned.
–Simon
P.S. Before I wrote this, I was lazily browsing the internet at work. Seeking apparently forbidden knowledge on aphid eradication, my query was blocked:
From the moment hungry primal Man stumbled through the wilderness and said, “I guess I’ll eat that,” to the modern Man’s willful decision to forego the fried chicken sandwich and say, “I guess I’ll eat that,” lettuce has throughout history filled the necessary niche of food that we eat, but not because we want to.
That is, until we cover it in oil, spices, MSG, bacon, cheese…
If nothing else it’s a medium–an empty slate onto which to append things that actually posses flavor. So, inglorious vegetable, I salute you.
It was after one of these salad nights that Liz presented the depleted remains of the lettuce head and informed me that it was possible to regrow it by suspending it in water. Admittedly, it was one of the last plants I had ever considered growing, much less salvaging. But there was space under the grow light, so I figured why not? As Liz suggested, I used toothpicks to brace the mass, and placed the remains of the spent vegetable in a pickle jar of water.
I thought little of the project, but was pleasantly surprised when the lettuce head showed growth overnight. Sure enough, it was possible to restore this green ball of organic matter, and within 3 weeks, I had a leafy stem and roots.
I guess there’s enough to make a BLTLook at those roots
Since I’ve come this far, I might as well give it dirt and see what happens. You know, in case I’m starving and there’s nothing else to eat in the house and the grocery store is just too far away, and no one’s delivering pizza.
As they like to say in Game of Thrones: “The winter is coming.” Or…some damn thing to that effect. I dunno–I don’t watch that show.
But yeah, the winter is indeed coming. I had grown fond of some plants, and those plants are not fond of freezing temperatures. What was I to do? Why, take them inside of course.
Some of these plants will no doubt be fine hibernating in the dark basement. Other plants were never meant to go dormant, or at least I know that they won’t appreciate sitting in a dark basement. But from experience, I know most plants generally appreciate my grow light, or at least begrudgingly accept it, but…there wasn’t room for these large and established plants which I wanted to overwinter. Therefore, this necessitated…a project!
The existing grow light setup has two tiers. But the basement is deep and so there’s more than enough room for an additional tier–a large tier into which I can place tall plants. I would therefore leverage the existing frame and improvise a shelf, then mount a shop light from the ceiling above it. All things considered, it was a conceptually simple project. First though, I had all the former owner’s crap to contend with.
An old trick with which I was familiar–using jars to hold nails, attached by the lids to the ceiling. Or in this case, attached to a 2X4 which was in turn attached to the ceiling. I grabbed a hammer and stood on a chair, intent on prying the board down. I placed a steadying hand on the board, and it immediately detached, scaring the crap out of me as I struggled to keep it from crashing to the concrete floor. I sure was glad that I got around to removing it before it fell on its own. Sheesh.
The existing shop light was ancient and non-functional. It hung from fencing staples pounded into the joists. They should have been pounded in, rather, but instead they were only slightly pounded in. A gentle nudge with a hammer and a staple immediately fell out, causing the deceivingly heavy light to swing and detach the other staple, scaring the crap out of me as I struggled to keep it from crashing to the concrete floor. Attentive readers will notice a theme here, but fortunately for me and my basement, I didn’t need to rip anything else down. Then it was off to my favorite store.
At Lowe’s I grabbed a utility plug, a metal junction box, wire caps, appropriately-rated indoor wire, and a reasonably-priced shop light: $38 for a 4-bulb lamp. My intent was to wire the light so I could plug it into the power strip which served the other grow lights, because the strip was on a plug timer. I smugly reviewed the items I purchased, satisfied with my recently-discovered self-confidence in handyman residential electrical work, then realized the shop light was pre-wired for an outlet and I didn’t need all that other stuff. Almost disappointed at having been saved the trouble, I put it all back.
As I was doing so, an older lady asked me for help in identifying which type of outlet splitter she would need for adding additional plugs to a single outlet. Ah ha! My self-confidence was exuding now. I actually looked like I knew what I was doing! With self-confidence, I confidently identified something that would suit her needs, then strode confidently back to my cart. Confidence!
[I also purchased fencing wire, so there’s a teaser for an exciting future post about fencing!]
Back home, I strung recycled chain from the old shop light between joists. My intent was to hang the new light between the joists, thus maximizing head space. I also properly secured it with wood screws–something a little more confidence-inspiring than staples.
It was only when I brought plants downstairs that I considered in earnest their weight, and the fact that the aluminum frame was not designed to bear it from above. I searched in vain for a load limit, then decided to simply reinforce the cross beams with boards. The arches felt very robust, and I didn’t think they’d collapse. If it starts to show signs of strain then I’ll have to build something else, but I think it’ll hold.
That’s the chocolate habanero and bay plant up there
I later placed a standing fan next to the setup. Hopefully, I’ll be able to overwinter these. I enjoy being able to garden year-round.
It’s also really hard to search for articles on indoor gardening without being redirected to questionable sites, like “bigdanthestoner.com” or “iliketosmokeatonofweed.net”. I supposed if the DEA shows up, I’ll have a funny story to write about.
