Grow Kale!

Let's talk about kale, even if you don't like it. First of all, if you're not growing it already, you should---it's impossible to kill, very productive, and you can grow it indoors all year 'round. Before we had the greenroom, we grew kale indoors in a planter in a sunny window and harvested tons of it and the plants lasted a few years. It also grows outside in almost any climate, but if you live somewhere with a cold snowy season I'd just recommend doing it indoors only so that you can harvest all through the winter.

Hot Greens Dip

Make this unholy mixture of healthy greens and molten cheese with whatever greens you feel like you “should” be eating for their healthful properties: kale, chard, spinach, broccoli greens, Chinese broccoli, radish greens, and so on. Go ahead and turn it into something you’ll actually like: this is a delicious, warm and satisfying dip to be slathered on French bread slices or eaten with tortilla chips. I make this with far more greens than any other spinach-and-artichoke type recipe calls for. Just keep packing the greens into this dip until it almost feels righteous.

Pickled Radish

This makes a delicious pickled radish, great for snacking on as well as for garnishing hamburgers and hot dogs and veggie burgers. I've served them with Vietnamese style vermicelli noodle salad and with homemade chicken pho. They also make great gifts, with their sparkly pink prettiness, to your fellow pickle-loving friends.

Crunchy, spicy pickled radish.

Stuffed Anaheim Peppers

I highly recommend making stuffed peppers out of slightly spicy Anaheim chiles instead of sweet, boring bell peppers. See if you can find very large chiles to minimize the labor. Use whatever greens and vegetables you like – we had chard and broccoli from the greenhouse. The little cherry tomatoes in this are the best: they burst open with a hot explosion of flavor.

Large Anaheim peppers are the perfect container
for stuffing.

Greenhouse, Heart of Winter: Year 1

To wrap up the first year of gardening in the greenroom – March 2013 to the present, May 2014 – I wanted to write up our greenhouse growing successes and failures. This first year was highly experimental, especially growing through what I’m calling the “heart of winter,” and I think we learned some very interesting things that will help guide next year’s plantings, both the timing and the varieties. I’m more interested in “heart of winter” greenhouse gardening than mere summer-season extension gardening because this is all the fresh garden produce we get during the middle of winter. Shoulder season (spring/fall) crops and using the greenhouse to extend the summer season will be discussed in other posts; this is all about what we tried, succeeded, and failed to grow during the coldest and darkest months of the year.

Attempted crops for the heart of winter greenhouse season included basil, beets, Brussels sprouts, chard, cucumber, kale, lettuce, okra, peas, peppers, radish, tomato, and a few herbs. The short version: we’re going to become radish farmers! Much, much more detail is given below.

“Heart of Winter” Summary:

Successes: Beets, Chard, Coriander, Kale, Lettuce, Radish, Tomato

Semi-successes: Basil, Broccoli, Leeks, Hot Peppers

Failures: Brussels Sprouts, Cucumber, Okra, Parsley, Peas, Thyme

Our Greenhouse

I'll start by describing the greenhouse design and building process, and then briefly show what we've grown inside during its one year of operation to date. Later posts will cover our greenhouse growing techniques, successes, and failures in much greater detail.