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| Kumquat tree in sunroom with ripe kumquats |
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Winter doesn't mean you can't eat fresh, homegrown edibles. There are many edibles that grow well indoors and different ways of growing them from sprouts to herbs to greens to fruits.
Something easy and nutritious are sprouts. I bought a simple, inexpensive sprout grower. You can also use a quart Mason jar. You can get seeds on line and in many grocery stores, nurseries, and big box hardware stores for growing sprouts and microgreens. I like buying a seed mix so I get a nice variety of taste and nutrition.
Right now, I'm growing basil, a Cayenne and Chipetin ancient pepper, moringa (for high protein greens), kumquat, Meyer lemon, lemon, Red Malabar spinach (a tropical vine whose leaves are used as a spinach substitute), and a bay tree. All of these were growing outdoors and I brought them in for the winter.
The ones that I can harvest from right now are the basil, bay tree, moringa tree leaves, Red Malabar spinach and kumquat. Kumquat trees are very prolific; they produce fruit year round. I just harvested all the Cayenne and Chipetin peppers a couple of weeks ago. The Cayenne is flowering now so should have peppers coming again next month.
I just started two new varieties I have not grown before, Jigsaw pepper and Orange Hat tomato. Both are very compact and get less than 12" tall. Jigsaw pepper is a pretty purple colored fruit with lavender, white and green variegated leaves. Supposed to have great taste, too! I have had really good luck with small pepper plants doing well indoors year after year.
Tomatoes are tropical plants, too, but my luck in overwintering them has not worked out in the past. This new variety I got is supposed to do well indoors and produce many small orange tomatoes. It is fun to try!
There are other herbs that grow well indoors like mint, rosemary, chives, chervil, thyme. You can get indoor herb kits or seeds at many big box stores right now or order them on line. Since daylight hours are getting longer, seeds like to sprout. You just need to give them a bright sunny spot to keep them growing.
I have thyme outdoors that I can harvest from year round. The Egyptian walking onions I have in a pot outdoors I can use for chives and they keep going all winter.
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| Microgreens growing in reused salad container |
Sprouts are a powerhouse of nutrition and so easy to grow indoors year round. There are all kinds of seed sprouting kits out there. The one I have that I really like is 3 levels so you can have one that is fully sprouted that you are using with 2 in various stages of growth so you always have a ready supply of sprouts.
With a simple sprout grower, you can have nutritious sprouts of many different veggies, beans, and/or grasses in 3-5 days. All you do is put a teaspoon of seeds in the grower and water it twice daily.
There are many options for growing sprouts. For more details, check out this blog Indoor winter gardening-grow sprouts, microgreens or wheat grass!
So just a few ideas for what you can grow indoors while we look forward to spring!
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