Grow What You Can

During both World Wars folks were encouraged to grow whatever they could.  Victory gardens were encouraged.  Many folk across Canada still have a home garden while many more have turned to indoor hydroponic gardening.  Given the current geopolitical events, high inflation rates heading towards  hyperinflation, quickly rising food prices, and increasing warnings of food shortages the advice is to grow what you can.   My belief is everyone should grow whatever they can.  A surprising amount of food can be grown in a 4' x 4' raised bed or containers on balconies.  Herbs and salad greens can be grown on window sills.  Both sprouts and microgreens are easy to grow indoors and require very, very little space.  

My gardening efforts are both indoors and outdoors.  I grow outdoors on the deck in containers mainly using the Kratky method (passive hydroponics) that is very low maintenance, high yield gardening perfect for greens, tomatoes and some herbs.  A large pots of herbs, strawberries, beans and peas I use 2 wide mouth mason jars for my sprouts and grow microgreens in a 10" x 12" tray.  Two repurposed clear plastic take-out clamshell containers serve as mini greenhouses to start seeds or grow extra microgreens as needed.  The lower bathroom bathtub is filled with deck plants overwintering soon to be moved outside.  The lighting for those is tied into our home automation system.  I use watering spikes in some outdoor pots but others are on an automatic watering system while the indoor pot are on a watering system tied into our home automation as well.  I also have a 6 pod Aerogarden that is also surprisingly quite productive. 

Seeds are by far, less expensive that the starter plants so I tend to start whatever plants I can from seed.  I prefer heirloom seeds to hybrids as they breed true so can be saved from mature plants and I prefer organic seeds for sprouting or microgreens.  Seeds at Home Hardware, Canadian Tire and Walmart range in price $0.99 to $3.50 per package.  Seeds at Dollarama (Canadian origin) are 3 pks/$1 or $0.33 each.  Dollar Tree seeds (USA origin) are 4 pks/$1.25 or $0.31 each.  Sprouting and microgreen seeds are exactly the same as what you would plant in the ground or containers but they are bought in bulk.  I buy from organic sprouting seeds from Mumm's (Saskatchewan) and organic mustard seeds from Splendor Garden (Saskatchewan).  Splendor Garden also has bulk herbs and spices.  I get grains like wheat berries, kamut kernels, and etc., directly from organic flour mills.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022