Year Round Gardening Mini Class

 These are the notes taken from the Year Round Gardening Mini Course

Introduction:  The objective is to grow 365 days of the year.

Year Round gardening is focused on Fall and Winter Gardening.  However, to achieve that, the gardener must begin seeding in late August.  And in order to be able to do That, they need to have preparations ready in June and July.

• Crop selection, sourcing seeds
• Seed starting materials
• Location preparation
•  

  If you live in zone 8, 9.  Winter gardening is probably not particularly difficult.

Yes, you will need hoop houses, some winter protection. But not extreme measures.

Key Principles

1.  Crop selection.  Over 30 different crops that you can grow over the winter.  But. 7 crops that are considered the base crops.

2.  Timing.  When are you getting these crops started and how will you manage them. 

3.  Protection.  How do you cover the crops and protect them from cold temperatures, wind, precipitation. We're focusing in low input interventions.  We're not talking about adding heat, light and high intensity measures.

Part 1.  Crop Selection

Base Winter Crops

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Swiss Chard
• Mache
• Bok Choi
• Kale

 

Lettuce  This is the least cold hardy of the winter crops.  Usually lasts until temps get down to 25 F.  Probably the one you want to eat earliest 

Spinach  The "workhorse" of the winter greens.  You can get as much as 8 months of harvest from one planting.  Start spinach about the 1st week of August.  Start harvesting in Mid October.  Some  years, you can harvest through until early May.

Swiss Chard.  Can be eaten young in salads, or as a cooked green.  

Bok choi and Asian Greens.  Not quite as hardy as Spinach.  Except for TatSoi.  The smaller leaves are as hardy as spinach.

Carrots:  Carrots benefit from cold temperatures, making them more sweet.  These are very hardy. and will last in the ground for the entire winter

Complete list of Winter Hardy Crops:

Part 2.  Timing

The key with winter growth is often not the temperature, but the day length.  Even if the hoop houses or cold frames keep the temperatures above freezing, plants often restrict their activity once the daylength reduces down beyond a certain threshold.  While they continue to live, they typically don't add any new growth during this time. 

This means that we need to have these fall and winter crops developed and "grown out" to the point where they can simply persist through the winter without relying on them to add much volume.  They have to be large enough to harvest, before those 10 hour days arrive.

The are about three months when day length decreases below the 10-hour threshold.  Typically from mid November through the end of February.  Starting again in March, day length increases to the point where plants can begin to be productive.

As Fall progresses, temps get progressively cooler, day length gets progressively shorter and plant productivity decreases.  Therefore, you want to sow early in the fall to make sure you have enough productive hours to establish your winter vegetables. Typically, you need to add 15 days to the expected time to maturity found on the seed packet, due to this decline in productivity.

As a general rule, begin planting about 2 months before the first frost date in the Fall.  So if your first frost date is October 1st, then you must begin planting two months earlier, about August 1.  And you have about a two-week window to get all your seeds started.   

Similarly, if the first frost date is November 15, then you should begin seeding on September 15.

August and September can be very productive months for the Summer garden, and there might be little space outside, so consider planting those seeds indoors.  This will also be beneficial for those plants that don't germinate well during the high temps of mid summer.  It may be cooler and moister environment indoors instead of the baking heat of mid August.  then you can transplant outside in October when other crops have finished.

Leaf Mulch and Grass Clippings

Like most suburban gardeners, I have two resources in abundance:  Grass clippings  and Fallen leaves.   Every time I mow my lawn during the summer, I replenish my supply.  And every fall, the leaves from the maples cover the ground inches thick.  Here, we need to discuss how to best use these resources to nourish the garden and avoid buying materials from the store.

Grass Clippings.  

The first and obvious application is that I use grass clippings to mulch the soil underneath my vegetable beds.  The classic case is to cover the ground under the tomatoes with fresh grass clippings. 

This does two things:  

1.  The mulch provides a protective layer that keep the soil beneath it moist.  It protects from the baking sun in the heat of summer; it allows rain water or hose water to percolate into the soil slowly and not simply run off of the hard surface; and it keeps the surface of the soil cooler, preventing soil moisture from evaporating rapidly.

2.  It does an amazing job of suppressing weeds.  I am speaking directly from personal experience. Bare soil becomes a carpet of volunteer weed seeds that need to be addressed weekly.  But covered with a mulch layer of grass clippings, emergent weeds are reduced to a tiny handful poking through the grass barrier.  These are easily pulled and simply added to the mulch layer.

In addition to its two primary benefits, grass clippings slowly break down over time, adding nutrients to the soil.  At the end of the season, the mulch layer can be turned into the surface of the soil and will break down entirely over the winter.

The other thing I use grass clippings for is to add it to my compost tumbler over the summer as a green contribution.

Fallen Leaves.

The difference with fallen leaves is that they are only available seasonally, in the Fall.  And they don't decompose as readily so they have to be treated slightly differently.

Leaves decompose through an anaerobic process facilitated by fungi.  They need to be wet to produce leaf mold, unlike the aerobic process of composting, where air is incorporated into the mix.

Leaves by themselves are also useful as a top dressing mulch offering the same benefits as grass clippings for protection of the soil.  However, they have a much sturdier structural component and will break down much more slowly.  This makes them more long lasting, but a less available form of nutrients.

However, leaves will definitely improve soil fertility, introducing N, P, and K nutrients.  Leaves are the result of the trees extracting minerals from the soil depth and bringing it to the plant.  Some are deposited in the fallen leaves where they are available to enrich the surface soil.

Because of their particular structure, leaves improve soil moisture retention and also water drainage.  They add an organic element similar to peat in the soil profile.

Leaves and leaf mold are a much better habitat for worms and will attract worms to your garden bed.  Then, the worms themselves will aid in breaking down the leaves and incorporating them into the soil.

Create Leaf Mold

To create leaf mold, 

• In the Fall, gather the fallen leaves by using the mower to chop up the leaves and collecting them in the grass catcher bag.  If you gather some mowed grass at the same time, so much the better.
• Consider the species of leaves that you are collecting.  Generally you want leaves that are NOT waxy or tough. This would be trees like holly leaves, magnolia.  The needles from coniferous trees, Pine and fir species also don't break down rapidly. In addition, some trees have chemicals that are not good for your garden soil, such as black walnut and locust.  Better to leave them out, entirely.
  
• Depending on the structure of the leaves, you want to pour the leaves out onto the ground and mow them into the grass bag again.  This breaks them into smaller pieces with greater surface area.  Some gardeners recommend as many as 4 passes through the shredder.  This makes the leaf mold ready more quickly.
  
• Bundle the leaves into contractor bags.  Don't use the common flimsy 30-gal black trash bags.  They aren't sturdy enough to last the entire year, and will likely break down in the weather when left outside.  Instead, you want the thick black 40 gal to 50 gal bags that are 5 mil plastic or thicker.
• An optional step is to rake up a small handful of leaves from back in the woods and add them to the top of your bags as a fungal inoculant.
  
• Water the bags thoroughly and roll them around to distribute the moisture.  Close the tops securely.  You can tie them or use a drawstring that will allow a little air exchange, but for the most part you want them to retain the moisture you added in the first place.  You don't want them to dry out over the course of the year, because then the process will come to a stop. You will be left with dry leaves at the end.  A moist environment makes the process work
  
• Then leave them in a shaded place, undisturbed to allow the fungi to do their work.  What can happen is that the thinner bags break down in the sun and allows vines and roots to invade the bag, stripping the leaf mold of their nutrients before you ever get to add them to the garden. The holes allow too much air exchange, and areas of the leaves dry out, stopping decomposition.
• Instead: use thick contractor bags, water the contents thoroughly, close the top securely, stack them out of the sun, leave them undisturbed for an entire year.
  

This process typically takes a full year to render the leaves into something approximating a soil amendment.  Even if they haven't completely broken down into soil, the resulting leaf fragments will quickly be incorporated into the raised beds and add structure and organic material as they do so.

I typically gather 4-6 bags in the Fall and put them in storage.  I also gather another 1-2 bags to sit next to my composting station to add to the bins when I need brown material.  This is just a small fraction of the amount of leaves that fall each year, so I don't feel that I have to capture the entire volume of fallen leaves.  The rest of the leaves are mulched in place or go into the woods at the back of my house.

The stored leaf bags sit behind the shed until the next Fall, but I typically won't use them until the following Spring.  Then, I open them and use them to amend my raised beds before planting the spring garden.  This gives the fungi 16-18 months to decompose the leaves.

Note that in that second Fall season, I'm gathering another 4-6 bags of freshly fallen leaves to keep the cycle going.  Over the winter I have 1 batch of maturing leaf mold, and one batch of freshly gathered leaves.  This gives me enough finished leaf mold to add one contractor bag's worth to each of my raised beds every year.
 

Single Large vs Several Small - A hydroponic comparison

 There is a fundamental difference when comparing the two prevalent philosophies of large scale indoor gardens.  The Aerogarden approach is to created a collection of smaller, separate gardens with correspondingly smaller nutrient and water basins.  A larger garden is created by adding and/or stacking additional individual units.  The other approach, used by the Rise Garden, Gardyn, Tower garden and other similar units is to create a single much larger unit, typically on several levels, or in several vertical towers, but all controlled by a single basin of nutrients, and a single processer timer that controls the lights and pump.

• Cost:  In the end, the two approaches may end up costing the same.  A large Rise garden or a tower garden costs about $1000.  If you bundle together two or three Farm Aerogardens you'll reach the same price.  One of the differences is that with the Aerogarden approach, you can slowly build your system over time, and incur the costs as you are able, at your own discretion.  With the single large gardens, even if they have payment options over time, you still have to commit to a very large purchase price all at once.
• Size.  One of the failure points, believe it or not, is the overabundance of produce.  In any indoor garden, as it reaches its peak productivity, it can often produce more vegetables than a family can consume unless they plan their planting very carefully.  When the production of the garden matces the family's needs, gardening is rewarding, but when the gardener gets overwhelmed by more produce than they can use, gardening becomes a chore that leads to neglect.  
• An overgrown garden starts to decay in various ways, including restricting airflow that invites disease and bugs, plants that bolt or go to seed unnoticed, water reservoirs that run dry because they are neglected.  Gardens are unkempt, and not the elegant artwork that they once were.
• A set of smaller gardens allows the gardener to dial in the correct size of planting that will perfectly fit the family's needs without overproducing.  Individual units can be brought online or taken out of service without bringing the whole system down.
  
• Customization.  When you have an indoor garden made of individual machines, it allows you to handle individual batches of crops with precise care.  Individual gardens tend to be treated like individual raised garden beds, dedicated to a particular crop.  Large machines are not so easily divided up into discrete gardening sections and the result tends to be a disorganized hodge-podge of whatever plants strike the gardener's fancy.  This tends away from focused food production and into the novelty plant of the week.
• In one section, you have mature tomato plants that are currently flowering and fruiting.  In another section you have brand new seedlings, in a third section you have newly sown seeds that haven't emerged yet.  How do you balance the nutrients for all three sections within a single reservoir?  With the single large garden, you can't make these kinds of fine tunings; you have to go with one single nutrient solution that circulates throughout the system.  With the Several Small approach, you can customize each growing unit to the plants within it, at the stage of the life cycle that they are at.
• A similar situation is true for the level of the lights.  Typically with a large garden, the lights are at a fixed distance from the plants.  This often results in spindly growth and leggy seedlings, while the mature kale next to them soaks up all the light.  With individual gardens, you can adjust the light height to the specific crop growing in each garden.
• Large gardens typically have a shared nutrient solution, held in a common reservoir.  This leads to other challenges as well.  Because of the large reservoir, it is difficult to change the water.  Actually performing a water change is a major undertaking, with buckets of water being carried back and forth, with the resultant nuisance of spilling.  Because of this, a complete water change is very seldom completed, and instead most people simply fill up the reservoir to replace the water that is lost.
  
• Then, you have the challenge of mixing the nutrients appropriately for such a large volume, with the need to get the concentration exact or risk burning or starving your plants.  This challenge is compounded when you complete a partial water change and the math gets more complex.  Then, because of the large volume of solution and the varied environments of that same water, you must carefully balance the pH to avoid a build up of nutrients.  Any disease or unwanted substance that gets into the water is immediately shared with all the plants in the system.
• With the Several Small approach managing the reservoir and nutrient solution is a much easier affair.  First, a complete water change is as easy as emptying a bowl into the sink.  Because of the small reservoir size, complete water changes are easy, not particularly messy, and can be performed routinely on a monthly basis if necessary.  If something is out of balance with the nutrients or with water quality, you are never more than a quick rinse away from a fresh start with a new solution.  The water size is small, so nutrients are simple to add with a few capfuls.  
• Several small gardens can be easily located in various places in your house.  Large gardens typically have to have a dedicated large area in which they reside.  This is a major footprint in your house and has to be planned as a focal point.  The resulting light can often dominate a space like a kitchen or dining room and can be overbearing in a bedroom.  It should also be relatively near to water to facilitate the large water changes required.  With several small gardens, they can fit on a counter top, at the end of a bookshelf, on a small table that can be placed anywhere.  The lights for individual units, while bright, aren't necessarily more than a table lamp
• Pests.  When a large unit attracted unwanted insects like fungus gnats or aphids, they will immediately spread throughout the garden, since all the plants are in close proximity.  With individual small gardens, the infestation can often be contained to a single garden, which is mobile and can be isolated.  That individual garden can then be treated aggressively without subjecting other crops to the same treatment.
  

A Hydroponic Homestead Timeline

 

A Homestead Timeline

The following timeline presents a way to start up an indoor garden with a minimum of time investment and complication.  It is organized in this way so you aren't overwhelmed with starting a dozen gardens on the same day and monitoring their progress all at once.

The expectation is that the recommended steps will be completed near the beginning of the week, preferably on the initial weekend.  Saturday and Sunday begin the week.

This gives the basic outlines of each step.  However, there are numerous other fine details that you should incorporate at the same time.  Not everything is mentioned here.

 

Week 1. Lettuce and Hardy Greens

Plant Lettuce in a 9-pod system.  If available, plant two different lettuce varieties so you can compare growth, taste, longevity.   Use 4 pods for lettuce and 2 pods for the aromatic of your choice.  Do not add nutrients at this point and cover the empty pods with spacers.

Plant Bok Choi in a second system.  The size can be any that you have.  Plant them in about half the pods you have available;  in a 9 to 12 pod system, plant them in 5 pods.  Cover the empty pods with spacers.  As before, do not add nutrients yet.

Most lettuce and cabbage will sprout within the first week.  Watch the pods and make a note of the day when the germinated seedlings first appear.  This is the kind of info that will be different from what you can find on the seed packet and is the first information to write down in your gardening journal.

 

Week 2. Start Tomato and Pepper

After 7 days, the plants in both systems should have germinated with visible sprouts.  If any have not, it is time to examine them closely to determine why.  Check for the growth of mold/algae that is inhibiting the seeds.  Also, check the seed packet for the expected germination period.  Many will say 7-10 days, but some can take longer.  The front of  your garden will likely have the number of days planted so you can compare where you are in the timeline and consider re-planting new seeds

In those systems where some have sprouted, its time to add nutrients.  Give only half of the recommended nutrients to these newly growing seedlings.

Remove the domes, when the seedlings touch the tops.  Set them aside to be used later.  Very carefully help any sprouts that are stuck under the labels.

It is time to bring a third system online.  This will be the garden for peppers and tomatoes.  If you have a 6 or 9 pod system, then you will plant one of each.  Larger Farm systems can accommodate 2 or 3 plants.  Follow the standard process for seeding the required number of pods, cover with domes, don't add nutrients yet. Tomato and pepper seeds take a while to germinate so prepare to wait for activity here, but this is also the reason to get this started early.

 

Week 3.  Aromatics

On day 15, gardens 1 and 2 will report that they needs nutrients.  Add the full recommended amount, and this time hit the "Plant food added" button.  This will bring the total nutrient concentration up to the standard and will last for the next 14 days.

Thin all your sprouts to one per pod. You should have two systems planted and growing well.

 Start garden 4.  Plant basil and dill in this garden, using about 5 pods and following the nutrient protocol.

 

Week 4.  Microgreens and Salad Menu

Start the weekly salad routine.  Each week, you should put a significant salad on the menu. If you don't have an occasion to use your produce during the week, at least you will have one healthy salad that will require the produce from your lettuce.  If lettuce isn't picked regularly, it will start to bolt, so you always need a way to use that lettuce to keep it healthy.   Look for opportunities to harvest early lettuce greens and baby bok choi.

Maintain your levels. For every garden, begin a regular maintenance routine once a week to keep it in top condition:

• Check water levels and refill even if it isn't at the minimum
• Check nutrient levels and add according to the schedule.  
  
• Evaluate if you need to raise the lights. Lettuce likes to be cool so keep the lights at least 4 inches away from the top of the leaves.
• Trim any branches that are crowding, or escaping from under the lights.
• Remove dead leaves.  Clean the surface of the garden.
• Harvest at least one leaf from every plant, and up to 1/3rd to be used in the weekly salad.
   

Start the Microgreens garden.  Microgreens are typically ready to eat in 7 to 10 days. Plan to harvest half of it for next week's salad.

Tomato and pepper seeds may take longer to germinate, so be patient, but look for germination.

Week 5. 

By this week, your lettuce will have been growing for 28 days.  This week it is time to make your first harvest of lettuce, taking the outer 1 or 2 leaves from each plant.  Clip a few leaves from the herbs in your garden as well, harvest up to half the microgreens, and enjoy your first homestead salad.

Lettuce and Bok choi gardens will report they need nutrients.  Add full strength according to the nutrient directions. 

Add 5 ml or 1 capful of Hydrogen peroxide to the basin. Keep the water level topped off.  The H2O2 will ward against the roots developing disease.  This isn't necessary when the seeds are just starting, but as they hang down into the water reservoir all the time, it helps to keep them clear.

Tomato and pepper seedlings will begin to appear.  Add half strength nutrients when you see the seed leaves.  Remove domes when the leaves touch them

 

Week 6. 

• Weekly Maintenance   (see week 4)
  
• Weekly Harvest
  

If the bok choi has been growing more slowly, it may finally be ready for its first harvest.  Gather 1-2 leaves from each plant for your cooking.  Identify a menu item, a stir fry or soup, that you can make each week that will require your bok choi.

It's also time to revisit the salad gardens and harvest what's ready, 1 leaf per plant.  Harvest the rest of the microgreens and replant.  Remember that harvesting is just as important a maintenance task as all the others.  A well harvested garden is healthier and easier to maintain.

Evaluate.  Evaluate the maintenance requirements of your existing indoor gardens and decide if you can support additional gardens.  Consider starting:

a root vegetable garden with turnips, radish, and beets.

a flower garden, with petunias or dwarf marigolds, both of which grow well in indoor gardens.

Week 7.

Harvest lettuce, basil, and the rest for your weekly salad.  This can be a more aggressive harvest if the lettuce is growing vigorously.  Lettuce that isn't harvested will flower and go to seed sooner than if it is clipped regularly.

Week 8. Harvest and Maintain.

At this stage, your gardens should be in regular maintenance and harvest mode.  At this time you can turn your attention to the tomato and pepper plants, which may be getting large enough to set flowers.  

• Actively pollinate any flowers you find.
• Trim excessive leaf growth to keep the plants contained and focused on fruiting.
  

Week 9.  

• Weekly Maintenance   (see week 4)
  
• Weekly Harvest
• Weekly Salad
  

Deeper Clean.  After two months you should consider changing the water in your gardens.  Remove the top and set into a plastic container.  Then simply drain all the water into the sink and rinse the tank.

While you have the top off, look at the roots to see if they are growing into each other or getting tangled with the pump or water gauge.  Using scissors, cut the two root masses apart from each other.  Trim the bottom fourth of the roots that are touching the bottom of the tank. 

Add H2O2 to the basin and fill with clean water.

Add nutrients following the program

 

Week 10.

• Weekly Maintenance   (see week 4)
  
• Weekly Harvest
• Weekly Salad

Note that the tomatoes are only about 50 days old at this point.

Week 11.

• Weekly Maintenance   (see week 4)
  
• Weekly Harvest
• Weekly Salad

Week 12.

Once the lettuce has been growing for 12 weeks it may show signs of bolting.  Some varieties will continue to produce for several more weeks, while others may be about done at this point.  Keep an eye on both the lettuce and cabbage and document their life span in your garden journal.

Create a Seed pot kit with 9 baskets, sponges, stickers, and domes.  Have this kit pre-assembled and ready to go, so that you can minimize down-time when a garden needs to be replaced. 

You should see tomato flowers and some peppers may begin to flower as well.  Tap the stalks to assist in pollination.

Tomatoes may be ready in the next two weeks, while peppers probably need 4 more weeks to mature.  When they are ready, add them to the weekly salad and keep them harvested.

 

This is the end of the first cycle.

At this point, any of your plants may begin to bolt or may stop growing vigorously and you should consider replacing them.  Other plants, such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, will continue to grow if trimmed and harvested regularly.

When plants actually bolt or slow down,  return to Week 1.  Renew and Replant each of the indoor gardens in the order given, changing the water and washing out the bowls to give them a fresh start.

Alternatively, if you have another aerogarden, use it to start seeds for the replacements.  When the existing plants go to flower, remove them and replace with the prepared seedlings.

Hydroponic Homestead

 Many people view their aerogardens or hydorponic units as novelties.  "Isn't it interesting that I can grow lettuce or basil indoors, under artificial conditions..."

But how well does the system perform when you want to rely on it to provide you with nutrition during the long winter when your outdoor garden has been put to bed?  I want to find an answer to that overall question and ask a few more along the way.  

• Can I grow a winter indoor garden that will significantly supplement my food supply?
• What investment in equipment is required to make an appreciable return?
• what species and variety should be planted and in what garden?

 With this goal in mind, we have 4 steps to prepare a indoor homestead garden:

1.  What to plant.  There are 5 distinct types of plants that should produce well in an indoor garden.  In addition, there are specific varieties that work with our hydroponic units

2.  What equipment do we need to support the plants.  Here we talk about the kinds of indoor hydroponic gardens we can choose from and how many we need.

3.  What are we going to do with the produce, once its ready to harvest.

Plant Types

With the indoor hydroponic garden, I like to identify four types of edible plants you can grow.  A fifth type is also key to success but its not what you expect.

1. Lettuce grows easily and prolifically in hydroponic systems. It seems like having at least one garden dedicated to a Salad Bar is always a good investment.  If you intend to implement a hydroponic homestead, the easiest place to begin is to grow and eat lots of lettuce.  These are reliable and typically trouble free producers.

Plants typically take 30 days to reach productivity, and then may last for another 3 months with regular harvests of the outer leaves.  One major benefit is that while lettuce typically doesn't grow well in the summer heat, your indoor garden can grow lettuce year round.

Varieties that work best for me are Little Caesar, Buttercrunch, and Parris Island Cos.

 Lettuce will grow well in almost any indoor garden. Ideally, you could use smart system such as a 9-pod Bounty basic, with 4 lettuce plants and two aromatics such as basil or dill.  Lettuce doesn't require very strong lights, so a 20 to 25 watt system would be adequate.  Stronger light sources may actually bleach the leaves or burn the tips from excessive heat.

If you need to feed more people, I would replicate this with a less sophisticated and less expensive system such as the Idoo 12.  

After 30 days, I can reliably harvest one main meal salad a week for the next 3 months, accented by a few basil leaves.

2. Sturdy Leafy Greens.  These are the plants that add a solid crunch to your stir fries and add volume to your soups.  These are greens that need to be cooked before eating but provide a more substantial bite.  

Like lettuce, sturdy greens like Bok Choi do well with moderate light and don't like the high brightness of high wattage light systems like the Bounty Elite.  You will definitely get bleached and withered leaves, burned leaf edges with too bright a system.  Favor systems in the 20 - 30 watt range.

I use Bok  Choi varieties : Shanghai Green Choi, Burpee Pak Choi, and Bok Choi Milk.

In addition to bok choi, I also have had success with Purslane, Perpetual Spinach, and Dwarf Siberian Kale as sturdy greens.

After you've got the salad greens unit producing well, it makes sense to add the more substantial greens to a second unit. They may take slightly longer to begin harvesting, 30 - 50 days, and after that plan on a regular harvest every two weeks of the outer leaves.

3. Herbs and Aromatics.  These are the plants like basil, dill, cilantro, chives, and parsley that will grow well in an aerogarden but you don't need to plant them for volume as much as for taste.  If you've been using a few of these in the salad garden, you may decide you want to use these more frequently in your cooking.  These are the plants that will supplement the taste of the salad from your lettuce, and will accent other dishes.  You may only need to harvest them a sprig at a time, unless you are making pesto.

Look for Sweet Basil but also consider Piccolino Basil, Dwarf Greek Basil, Spicy Globe Basil.

For other herbs, consider Bouquet Dill, and Arugula Rocket.   Obviously, avoid anything with Gigantic  or Mammoth or Monstreaux in the variety name.

Aromatics can truly be grown in any size of indoor garden.  Basil can grow robustly and easily exceed the garden where it's planted.   Dill tends to grow tall and overtop the lights.  In both cases, the solution is aggressive harvesting. Herbs will respond to brighter light levels and longer daylength with greater production.  However, if you are overloaded with too much basil, shortening the day length will help moderate their growth.  The Bounty Basic, with 35 watt lights would be good for this group.

 

4. Fruiting plants.  My fourth category contains plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers.  These have different growing habits and space requirements than the others.  In the indoor garden, they may take 90 days to produce edible fruit, but once mature may continue to produce for a long time.  With the yellow cherry tomatoes from Aerogarden, I was harvesting at least a half pint every week.

The internet is replete with examples of people growing tomatoes in a 6 pod Harvest but many find greater success in the larger units.  Fruiting plants require the highest light levels available, including the Bounty Elite and the Farm units.

At this point you are ready for a larger system that can grow fruit-producing plants, like a Farm12XL  With its larger grow deck, bigger reservoir and a full service smart system, you can plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers with confidence of a decent reward.  At the least, plan on using the largest indoor garden you have for the fruits, and limit yourself to using one or two pods at the most.

5. Microgreens  The final category is not strictly a kind of plant, but it is a category.  Microgreens are famous for their fast production and quick turn-around, from planting to harvesting to replanting.   Easy and prolific microgreens include Mungo beans and radish seeds.  Mungo can be bought at Asian groceries for a few dollars a pound, sprout overnight and are ready to harvest in as early as 4 days.

 

Indoor Varieties.  

As all gardeners are well aware, not all tomatoes are created equal.  Some varieties are specifically bread for particular conditions, harvesting patterns, and disease resistance.  The same is true for plants in indoor gardens as well.  Some lettuce varieties will thrive in the unique conditions of a hydroponic system, while others will remain weak and bolt prematurely.  Each of the seeds you choose should be optimized for indoor growing.  Generally, dwarf varieties will do much better in hydroponics than others that are bred for outdoor gardens.  And specific varieties taste better than others, have better texture and have a better shelf life.  

It is the great challenge of the indoor gardener, to be aware of the varieties and make a note of which ones they prefer.  For me, Lola Rosa or Silvia lettuce, with their firm texture and green to red color gradient on their large leave makes a perfect aeroponic lettuce.  On the other hand, I find the more generic leaf lettuce tends to have a weak, limp texture with small leaves and is prone to bolting.

Orange Hat tomatoes are a dwarf cherry variety that stays small, is a prolific producer, and works well in hydroponic systems.  On the other hand, Hybrid Sweet 100s are a sprawling variety that grows well outside when staked, but can be leggy and bland in an indoor system.   No amount of heavy pruning will keep these cherry tomatoes well behaved and under control indoors and they will lead to constant frustration and annoyance.

As always, the gardener's journal of the performance of each seed variety will help you make better informed choices each time you sow a new garden bed.  The obvious lesson is always: don't keep planting poor performers, in hopes that somehow this time will be different.  

Instead, take advice from online sources that have specifically tested their recommendations in indoor gardens.  Be diligent in keeping records of the varieties that you do try and record their success.  Track their progress throughout the season to know which ones mature faster, produce longer, and taste the best.

The Goal

Our goal here is to go beyond simply having one or two indoor garden units that you view as primarily decorative or ornamental.  I assume that, like me, you are already familiar with a unit like the Aerogarden and have experience growing things through their normal life cycle.  

Instead, we want to look at what is required to actually create a productive garden with a useful amount of produce.   For me, this will require a minimum of four hydroponic units plus one for microgreens.  For better productivity, we can expand the plan to use 8 indoor gardens.

These units don't have to be the most sophisticated indoor gardens, either.  They can range from the largest AG Farm to the simplest Harvest, from the most customizable Bounty Elite to a plastic shoebox with an airstone.   Just as long as it can support plant growth.  Many of these systems can be the simple $50 gardens off of Amazon that I call Tier 1 gardens.  

Tier 1 Gardens

Let's talk briefly about Tier 1 systems.  These are basic units that are little more than a basin, a light, a pump and a timer.  These automate many of the basic processes and keep you from having to re-invent the wheel, and without having to break the bank with expensive digital devices.  They have names like iDoo, Mufga, Mars Hydro and can range in price from $49 to $100.  More expensive ones add other fancy features like a phone app, but we're looking for basic capabilities only.  What you get with the Aerogarden name is extensive engineering that makes the extra capabilities worthwhile.  Instead, these bare bones units don't try to do much more than provide a growing space.

So if the units are very basic in their function, why not just make your own hydroponic system instead of buying one?  It only makes sense if the cost works in your favor.  The fact is that hydroponic lights alone cost $30 and up on Amazon.  Then you add the basin, the pump, the timers, and the growing medium and you're already over $50.  Then you have to spend time tinkering with it to get all the pieces to work together and you're still left with something that looks like a high-school science project.  The manufactured units, even the basic ones, bring all these elements together in a discrete and integrated package that is easy to position, monitor, and maintain.

Many manufacturers try to make their product stand out by increasing the pod capacity of the grow deck.  Unfortunately, this actually adds very limited value, because they do little more than cram more pods into the same size growing deck.  Most units measure about 16" x 8", and offer 9 to 12 pods.  Depending on what you're growing, you may only be able to use 4-6 pods for plants to avoid overcrowding and stunted growth.  Squeezing 12 or 15 pods in the same sized deck won't allow you to grow more plants, and you simply have more pod spaces standing empty. 

Microgreens

In a productive indoor garden, one very prolific component is the garden for microgreens.  Microgreens are sprouted seeds that are ready in as little as seven days.  Each week, you can have a new harvest of greens to add to salads, stir-frys, rice bowls, and as a topping to many other main meals.  A good microgreens unit is not only very prolific, but it also is ready to harvest far sooner than the other units in your indoor garden, and gives you an emotional boost when you are still waiting 90 days for your first tomato. 

Microgreen growing units are available on Amazon for as little as $25 and can come in many sizes.  You can use specific microgreen seeds to grow for about $15 - $20 a pound.  But you can also use the seeds found plentifully on the grocery shelves, including lentils, mungo beans, and black-eyed peas.  Most of the beans found in the store will sprout, provided that they are fresh and their package is well sealed. One pound of these seeds sell for $2-3.

Set up of garden beds.

This is what my proposed setup looks like:

A.  One of the Bountys is paired with an Idoo 12 tier 1. In these two gardens I grow a salad bar of lettuce and aromatic herbs.  

B.  In the second Bounty I grow crunchy greens such as Bok Choi. If I had a second unit like this, I would grow another variety of sturdy greens, such as purslane or pereptual spinach.

C.  The third Bounty I use for a variety of aromatics and herbs. Classics here are Basil and Dill.  More adventurous varieties are Cilantro

D.  In the older Ultra, I use for starting seeds to produce transplants.  These are both to restock the other indoor gardens when plants begin to bolt, and also as transplant stock for the outdoor garden

E.  The Harvest is set up to grow microgreens.

F.  I have 2 Farm 12XLs, which together makeup a Farm 24.  In this double unit, I will grow a long-term stand of Tomatoes and Peppers.  With a bigger garden, I can grow up to 4 each of the tomatoes and peppers.  If I only had a regular-sized unit, I would grow just one of each.

For each of these units, we need to have electricity, but more than that, they need to be accessible for maintenance and harvesting.  Indoor gardens need regular attention, filling water, adding nutrients, pruning, harvesting.  An indoor garden where it is too much bother to check the water level or add nutrients is one that is in real danger of failing.  

Each garden also needs regular supplies, including baskets, grow sponges, domes and stickers; they further need nutrients designed for their particular type.

Harvest

This may not seem obvious but the point at which many gardens fail when its time to take in the harvest.  Unharvested lettuce is quicker to bolt.  Unpicked tomatoes cause the whole plant to slow down.  Overgrown leafy greens rub against each other, blocking light and airflow, leading to sad or diseased plants.The other danger is when plants grow too tall, and end up pressing against the light.  Their leaves are bleached, or they grow around the light and end up leggy and weak.

The cure for this is regular harvesting.  These gardens are typically harvested in a "cut and come again" style.  Instead of cutting the whole lettuce plant, you take the outer 2 leaves from each of the plants in the row.  This keeps all the plants growing strongly, because none of them takes a big hit, and it also increases the space between them, improving air flow and light to all the plants. 

Cook What you Grow

In order to be regularly harvesting the produce of the garden, you need to have a way to make use of that produce.  There's no point in growing a whole bed of tatsoi if you never cook with it.  So a key part of the indoor homesteading plan is to assemble menus that use the delicious ingredients you are growing.

This may mean that you actively research recipes for perpetual spinach, or bok choi.  You should have your favorite salad dressing on hand, so that you are always ready to enjoy your harvest of lettuce, basil, and cherry tomatoes.  And you have contingency plans in place:  What do you do when you have too much basil?  Pesto.  An abundance of purslane?  Chimichurri

But the idea is not enough.  You need to have a go-to recipe for basil pesto that you enjoy and that always works.  And you need to have a regular recipe in the rotation that uses your sturdy greens like broccoli rabe or spinach. In order to reach your goal of a homestead that sustains you, this is the information you need to put in place up front, before anything gets started.

Ready to Begin

At this point, you have identified the hydroponic systems you are going to use, and have located at least 5 of them.  Each of these has been given a specific role to play in this ecosystem.

Second, you have identified the types of plants you are going to use, from the four categories.  And more particularly, you have identified the varieties you need and procured the seeds to plant.  

Third, you have identified locations for each of these garden units and have provided supplies for germinating the seeds and feeding them with nutrition.

Fourth, you have prepared menus and recipes that will make good use of the produce you are about to create.

Finally, you have secured a journal where you will record the progress, successes and failures of each of these crops, so you can learn from them in the future.

Next, with all our preparation in place, we will actually begin all the indoor garden units and get a feel for what will be required for the success of our garden.

Homesteading: The 5-Year Plan

Take a minute to ponder something with me.  What would you like your living situation to be in 5 years.  Like many, you may have dreamed of living a more simple, or self-sustaining life, one where you rely on your own efforts to produce much of the food that you eat.  You've heard of the term urban homesteading, and it has a special appeal to you.

Let's take another minute to flesh out that vision a little.  I would like to have a well developed garden for annual vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, and squash.  I'd like to add a few fruit trees that reliably produce fruit I can preserve and make jelly from each year.  If possible, I'd expand that with a few blackberries or grape vines.

With the garden and orchard producing the food to live, I would need to skills to preserve that harvest so that it is more valuable than an occasional radish in the salad.  For me, this means water bath canning, and possibly pressure canning as well.  To get the most out of this, I would need to be able to cook with the tomatoes I canned, so I'll be on the watch for recipes that use the produce I'm preserving.

As I become familiar with the kitchen, I might want to expand into more artisan crafts such as baking my own bread and forming my own cheese.  I might expand into indoor winter gardening with hydroponics and microgreens.  And there are any number of additional possibilities just like these for someone who has begun the process.

As with all visions of this nature, it take inspiration and a plan of action to move from the dreaming stage to making it a reality.  How do we get there?  That's the question we're trying to answer here.

 Year 1.

1.   Establish 4 raised beds.  4 ft by 8, 10, 12 ft, depending on your available space.

1. tomatoes, interplanted with basil
2. Peppers, interplanted with dill
3. Rooting vegetables such as Radish, Turnip, and Potato
4. Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Marigold

 2. Buy 6 fruit trees:  2 mulberry, 2 fig, 2 of plum or your choice (peach, apple, pear, jujube)

        These should be planted in 14" pots and kept watered and fertilized generously.  For the first year you will grow the fruit trees in the pots  to give them a chance to develop into larger and more sturdy plants.  Over the winter, you will bring them into the garage or your garden shed to prevent them from experiencing deep cold temperatures.

While they are growing during the temperate seasons, you want to place the pots around your yard as test sites for your future planting locations.  Notice if they get enough sun, or are shaded by surrounding trees, walls or fences.  Because they are in pots, it will be easy to move them around to different locations to decide where they fit the best into the landscape.

During their first year, you will observe how vigorous their growth is and how they react to their assigned locations.  Vigorous trees should be pruned and developed into cuttings to try to get them to root.  Every year, you should identify two cuttings that rooted successfully and grow them in pots for eventual planting outside.  In this way, the two trees of each type that you started with will develop into an entire orchard

3.  Establish a mulching program.  Identify sources of mulching material, including obvious things such as fallen leaves and grass cuttings.  Then establish your practice for what you will do with them. The obvious answer is to chop them finely and use them for mulch in the garden and under the trees in your orchard.  If you have extra, after gathering them with the mower bagger, stuff them into black trash bags and get them thoroughly wet to aid in decomposing leaf mold.

4.  During the summer months, spend some time on preserving the harvest.  You want to make a start on the foundation of the pantry;  things like strawberry jam, peach preserves, canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, homemade ketchup and onion dressing.  There is a unique symbiosis between the garden and the kitchen, and each gardener has to find a balance between what they like to eat, and what they can preserve in order to make that a reality.   There's no point in  growing what you don't eat.  For each creation, you need to find a recipe and the other tools, often specialty kitchen tools.  During the winter months, you are researching dinner menus that use the materials that you have preserved.    If you have 12 jars of preserved cherry tomatoes, you need to know exactly which pre-tested recipe will also be approved of.

5.  Find a way to make your homestead easy to maintain, less complicated with special corners that require lawn professionals to handle safely. 

6.  During the winter, the focus changes slightly.  While produce is no longer growing as abundantly, in the winter it's time to research and formulate plans.   This is the time to research new growing techniques, for example for cultivating tomatoes, or fig trees.  This is when you search your library of gardening book, and of online videos and websites, with a Word document open in front of you to take extensive notes.  Then, you compile all the information you have gathered into a growing guide that covers all aspects of the life cycle of your chosen crop, and tailored to your specific growing environment, zone and microclimate.

Indoor Hydroponic Models: What's the Difference

 In the last few years of health concerns and teleworking, many have turned to indoor gardening as a way to enrich their stay at home lives.  The result is a proliferation of literally dozens of models, ranging in price from less than $50 to over $2000.  The question is, how do you  tell these models apart, how do you compare features, and how do you know what you are getting for your money?

To begin, lets look at one of the old standards of hydroponics, the pre-2019 AeroGarden Bounty.  This model represents the reference set of features that you expect when looking at the table top units.  Keep in mind that these indoor gardens are designed for an average user that is not particularly inclined toward indoor plants or even gardening.  It is designed to grow things with a minimum of technical expertise.  The Bounty was very successful and basically launched the industry, because it was so easy to use and reliable.  A wide variety of users were successful with indoor gardening because of this model.

The Bounty had:

• The Reservoir:  1-gal or larger bowl with a pump to circulate the water.
  
• The Grow Deck with the classic AeroGarden seed pod system.  This system covers the water reservoir with a solid deck into which you place plastic baskets which contain a peat moss grow sponge.  Seeds are placed in the sponge and hold the roots of the germinated plant, suspending them in the water of the reservoir below.
• The AeroGarden design adds an additional feature in that the pump moves the water over each individual pod instead of simply moving it around the bowl.  This trickle watering system allows seeds to germinate much faster, and makes the resulting plants to be less vulnerable to lower water levels in the bowl.
• A LED grow light typically elevated above the garden on an extendable mast.  The lights can be lifted 24" giving room for the plants to grow, but they can also be lowered to a few inches above the grow deck to help new seedling germination.   A Bounty Basic model has a 30 watt light, while the elite has 40 watts.  The lights are on a programmable timer.
  
• 
  
• Sensor and Reporting system.  One major innovation of the Bounty was an on-board computer system that controlled the timing of the lights and the pump, monitored water levels, counted the days since planting, and the days until you needed to add plant food.  It was this digital panel, which gave all the specific care instructions, that made the garden so easy to take care of.  You didn't need to read the condition of the plants, simply follow the instructions on the panel to add water or food.  The computer also had different light and pump cycles, depending on which types of plants were growing, and where they were in their life cycle. 
• This model was available for between $275 and $300.
  

If you go to Amazon now, you will find literally dozens of models that are below $100.  How do these models compare to the Bounty Basic.  As you might expect, these cheaper units look at each of the major features listed above and economize wherever possible. However, they also try to innovate on the basic design to set themselves apart from the crowd.

1. Most models now use the basic Grow Bowl/Grow Deck design.  For a while, some systems tried to modify the design of the pod, making it smaller or shorter or fatter.  However, over time each of these new designs were rejected in favor of the long, narrow conical grow sponge that AeroGarden introduced. Replacement supplies for this pod system are readily available from 3rd party suppliers and they have proven to be the most reliable design for germinating seeds and supplying nutrients to the plants.  If you are considering a system that doesn't follow this basic style, it should have a very good reason for its odd design choices.
   
2.  Where new models try to innovate is by adding more pod spaces to the grow deck.  The Bounty has a standard 9 pods on the grow deck.  Other models push that higher to 12 or 15 pods on the deck.  The problem is that they don't make the grow deck itself any bigger, so they increase the number of pods but place them closer together.  Unfortunately, without space to grow, planting closer together simply causes crowding and misshapen plants that fail to thrive. Growers often leave pods empty to allow for the remaining plants to grow bigger and receive more light.  More pods is not better, unless it is accompanied by a larger grow deck.  But then the overall footprint of the garden becomes larger and less able to fit neatly on the kitchen counter.
3. AeroGarden employs a drip irrigation system in the deck, so plants are watered individually.  In other systems, there is simply a straight nozzle that moves the water around the bowl.  This is clearly not as effective in germinating seeds and the garden is in greater danger if the water level drops too quickly before roots have established that reach down into the water.
4. The light system is a source of great variability.   Lower end models typically have 20 to 24 watts LED lights, compared to the 30 or 40 watts of the Bounty. The light mast may only extend 18" above the grow deck, limiting things that can be grown, like tomatoes or broccoli.  On the other hand, the light bar may only be lowered to 12" above the grow deck, greatly slowing new seedling development.
5. Most low end models have a very basic computer management system.  They may only have a timer for the light, that starts when you first turn the system on.  If that happens to be 4 pm, you will have to get up early the next morning to re-start the light timer.  Same thing is true if your power goes out in the middle of the night.  Most low end models don't have any sensor for water level.  Instead, they have a clear section of the grow bowl where you can look to check the water levels.  Similarly, cheaper models don't have a day counter to tell you when to add plant food, or how long the system has been in operation.  In short, all the care and maintenance feedback systems on the Bounty are missing from the low end systems.  If you are comfortable with making your own notes and keeping track of water levels, than this absence is not important.  But for many people, this is the key that makes the AeroGarden a success.
   

I find that indoor hydroponic gardens can be divided into three categories:

Tier I gardens have no communication at all

• These indoor gardens are little more than a bowl with a light and a pump on a timer.
• Basin size tends to be on the smaller size (less than 4 liters).  Light poles tend to around 12" and may not be adjustable at all.  Lights tend to be weaker, in the 20 - 24 Watt range but could be even less.
  
• Water levels are monitored by a transparent window in the front, or by nothing at all.  The best case is a visible float
• There are no customization options at all. You simply turn it on and it runs.
• Ironically, units at this tier level tend to cram more pods into the grow deck, even though the growing area cannot support it.  Expect 10 or 12 pods, or even more.
  
• Watch for pod baskets that are smaller than standard, and don't fit well into the grow deck so that they become loose and fall over as the plant matures.
• This is the majority of units on Amazon for around $50.  Examples are Idoo10, Lyko
   

Tier II gardens have minor customization and communication.

• Once again, the lights are on preset timers who's cycle begins when you turn them on.  You can't tell them when to start or stop, nor how long they will stay on.
• They still have automated  pumps that circulate water, but may have rudimentary feedback for when water levels are low, like a glowing light.
  
• The lights elevate to less than 18", typically.  and they may only lower to 8", leaving large gaps between the lights and the starting seedlings.  However, look for a few color profiles or plant types to choose from.  LEDs may increase in power to 30W.
  
• There may only be a rudimentary display, often nothing more than a few tiny LEDs.
•  Look for these in the $100 range, and build quality is possibly better with full sized and tight-fitting grow baskets.  Some of these may have wifi apps available, but look for these apps to be hard to connect and to convey limited information to your phone.
  
• Examples are the Aerogarden Harvest, and the Kimore Hydroponics.
  

 

I.  A full featured smart garden emphasized automation and communication.  With this type of garden you will have 

• a smart processor and interface that monitors the status of the garden and reports it to the gardener on a front screen.  On this front screen the user can control many of the program cycles for the lights, and pump, and can receive notices to add nutrients, or to advise when the water level is getting low.  Another critical piece of information is the number of days planted so you can know how old your plants are.
  
• a standard basin to hold the water, a grow deck above it, and a light on a telescoping pole.  The light pole typically allows for growing heights of greater than 18" and it may collapse to within 6" or less of the grow deck to aid in starting seedlings.
  
• The basin has a mechanism for reporting the level of water to the smart processor.  Typically the basin will hold 5 liters of water, but some can hold much more.
  
• a pump that circulates water, on a timer, with a variety of timing cycles depending on what you're growing and where in the plant's life cycle you are.  This pump reports to the smart processor
• A light that operates on a timer.  You can select from a number of pre-set cycles or can set your own.  You may be able to change the color profile based on the type of plants you are growing