When we first set up our grow lights, we planted a few flats of greens, sprouts, micro greens and wheat grass just to see what would happen. Well, it’s actually been really great! We’ve harvested enough for several meals (salads and greens for sandwiches) and have juiced wheat grass several times.
We learned that wheat grass (like regular grass) will grow back after you trim it! So, we actually got 5 trimmings from one flat! Not sure if that’s what you’re supposed to…maybe it loses some of it’s nutrients as the soil gets continually used?…but we did, and it tasted great every time! We did, however, decide that it was starting to look a little ragged around the edges so we surrendered our first flat of wheat grass to the chickens. We do plan to grow more, although I haven’t figured out how to weigh our harvests…cut weight? juiced volume? Ideas???
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| Yes, that spinach leaf IS growing in the shape of a cup! |
Also growing under our lights is a pot of bush beans. Tool Lady shoved some beans in a pot a few weeks ago to prove to me that they will actually grow indoors (I wasn’t so sure) and, of course, they’re growing happily indoors. Beautiful green leaves, cute little flowers, and yes, even beans. Amazing!
Ooh, very exciting! And I love seeing such green, growing things in the dead of winter. I start pretty much the same things indoors that Liz mentioned above–tomatoes and peppers being the most important because they need a long time in our relatively short growing season.
-Jaime
I’m definitely planting tomatoes and peppers under the lights! Our season is pretty short here, too. I also love to see so much green in the dead of winter! It’s very hopeful 🙂
Wheat grass is typically cut only twice and then thrown into the compost. It will grow back multiple times but I believe that the nutritive value decreases with each cutting. Upon the first harvest we used to let ours go to five or six inches before cutting. Its then weighed, bagged and sold by the pound. We never sold flats of wheat grass though. Setting up a small fan that oscillates around the sprouts and wheat grass will help with any mold that tends to collect in between the grass blades or sprouts, especially if you plan to sell it. The molds can be detrimental to those with compromised immune systems.
Thank you so much for the information, Angela!!! You are a wealth of information!!! We’re not thinking about selling them (yet), just enjoying having some for us 🙂
Those beans look great. As for starting things early I start – tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum, chillies, pumpkin, melons, cucumber basically anything that you want to grow for summer. One thign I would say though is that you want to make sure that it is warm enough outside at the point the plant is big enoughto go outside. Does that make sense? I have planted things like pumpkins too early and had plants ready to go outside but the night temps still too cold for them to grow.
Liz, thanks for all the recommendations! Last year I didn’t have any luck with transplanting starts, but I think it might have been that they weren’t strong enough to be out in the elements. Fingers crossed that this year will be better and hopeful that this lights will make all the difference!
wow! green beans indoors! that is so cool. they really look beautiful and healthy, too.
I know, right?! I’m curious to see how many we actually get!