Microgreens

We've been seeding greens in previously planted SIPs up on the roof. I like to give them a good start in the full, late-season sun before bringing them down and replanting in the raised bed/low tunnel with winter cover. Up top, lotsa mustard greens and some arugula.

Ruby red chard from Bountiful Gardens,

still awaiting their first true leaves

I've always savored these intensely flavored tiny greens, and apparently there's also every nutritional reason to love these babies:

Gene Lester, a researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his colleagues at University of Maryland, College Park, have conducted the first scientific analysis of nutrients in microgreens. The results, Lester tells The Salt, "totally knocked me over." The researchers looked at four groups of vitamins and other phytochemicals – including vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene — in 25 varieties of microgreens. They found that leaves from almost all of the microgreens had four to six times more nutrients than the mature leaves of the same plant. But there was variation among them – red cabbage was highest in vitamin C, for instance, while the green daikon radish microgreens had the most vitamin E.

 Fetal kale

 

As young as these mustards are, they explode with flavor and make an ideal bed for just about anything on the menu.

Add a few roof tomatoes.

Top with some sauteed Jimmy Nardello peppers, garlic, and scallops and you get...

My idea of a perfect lunch

Hive Comes Alive: January in Chicago + Low Tunnel Update

Honeybee on basil

Aug 30, 2010

In Chicago it's 40 degree F on January 27, but bees and humans alike share a little joy in the strengthening full sun. That's all it takes.

I went to the roof, where it was 75 in the unheated greenhouse (it needs organizing, but today's not the day). I'd seen some real bee activity on my bee monitor downstairs and thought I'd grab a quick vid. But as I drew closer the bees signaled their dislike by sending out a couple of peevish scouts to push me back.



No harm done--they apparently just don't recognize me in the dead of winter as they do in summer. Wondering about that wooden post in the video? Just 7 days ago it was measuring snowfall (we ultimately got near 7 inches).

Downstairs, full sun on the hoop enclosure too--far too warm in there for cool-loving greens, so I opened it up.

Attaching a piece of conduit to the edge of the Agribon fabric (shown in this post) really does make it easy to lift the fabric as a single entity and rest it on top of the hoops. These plants were happy to just breathe.

What a joy seeing this deep green parsley popping out with all the other usual suspects--tatsoi, mustard, arugula, kale. I'm kind of winging this whole low tunnel effort.  Fast Grow the Weeds gives me a clue:

I planted ... kale and salad greens back in late September.  These will be completely harvested by late March and then I’ll convert this greenhouse into a seedling nursery. 

Guess I'll follow suit. 

 

But instead of thinking about it, I picked a salad.

Winter Garden Trial

Today it was 25 degrees in Chicago. We expect to have a severe winter storm with 6" to 8" inches of snow by midnight. Yesterday it was 50 degrees and you wouldn't have known it was Jan 11th. Either way, our winter garden is still showing signs of life. Here's proof that you CAN grow a winter garden in Chicago. Growing anything makes me happy no matter what season it is.

Under the low tunnels the greens are doing well. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about the unusual amount of heavy snow we are going to get tonight, hoping the weight of the wet snow won't bring down the low tunnels.

Fancy red lettuce and spinach

Mache

Mustard Greens

Lactino Kale

Not everything faired as well... but that's ok. After-all, I have to remind myself that it's a winter garden trial.

The beginnings of a winter garden.
A different time. Another season.
October 23, 2011

A Low Tunnel for Greens in Fall-Winter-Spring

The next logical step for the raised bed Art built for my birthday in spring 2011 was to structure a low tunnel over it so cool-weather greens can grow in winter...or at least thrive longer in fall and start earlier in spring.

We looked to Johnny's Seeds for the bits we'd need. First, a bender to turn conduit into hoops-- worthwhile, easy to use, and eminently shareable with your neighbors.

Art holds up hoops so I can visualize where we'll position them. Then he secures them. I need to be able to get inside to clip greens.

You can see the sun on that nice southern brick wall below, our neighbor's building. All credit to Eliot Coleman and his Four Season Harvest, which opened our eyes...

Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat.

Now for the Agribon, which we laid out on the deck to cut and then tossed over the arches.

We used these Johnny's snap clamps to attach the fabric to a long run of conduit to weigh down the edges.

The conduit concept worked well, and I hope to be able to lift the edge as a single unit when I want to get in there or give the plants some air.

The clamps also keep the fabric taut on the hoops, to hold snow.

I probably wouldn't purchase these plastic clamps again. In the cold weather they're difficult to manage and apply...even in not-so-cold weather they were a pain. Got to be an easier way.

First Chicago snow (late for us)

Dec 8-9, before I got the plastic on

 

Looks cozy in there

Art decided to make a low tunnel on the roof

for storing buckets in winter.

It might also come in handy this spring for starting seedlings.