Veggie patch from kitchen Scraps!!

When I began my patio gardening back in California two years ago, I began growing greens and few veggies from my kitchen scraps. I wasn't ready to spend money on something which I wasn't sure of growing with minimal sunlight in a patio. Growing Fenugreek (Methi), Tomatoes, Potatoes, Onions, Chillies, Chamomile, Garlic are simple and easy for me!!

Here are few veggies growing this year in my garden....

Fenugreek: 2 Tbsp of methi seeds are good enough to get a decent sized patch of greens in about 10 days. One of the easiest greens to grow. Needs direct sunlight.

Fenugreek leaves

                         
Tomatoes: I do not use Tomatoe seeds in my cooking, they usually end up in my compost pile. If I like the color or texture then I dry those seeds and plant them. Make sure the tomatoes or any other veggies are heirloom variety. The hybrid doest yield good crops or produce. I use organic tomatoes in my cooking. Needs direct sunlight.

Tomatoes

Potatoes: Not all Potatoes can be grown when you toss them in ground. Most of them are hybrid. I plant them when I see sprouts in them. They are cold loving plants. Grow them in fall and early winter outdoors.

Potatoes 

Onions: They grow in spring, summer and fall outdoors. I noticed a giant onion sprout in my shelf so I planted in my raised bed along with few green Onions from store. They are all blooming now and I use them only for their leaves. It was interesting to note that none of my green Onions had bulb below them. Not sure if it was hybrid!!

Onion bloom!!

Onions         

Chillies: Am great fan of Chile California because of the sweetness and its rich red color. These dried chillies are available widely in CA. Here in Ohio, only Mexican stores carries them. I usually discard seeds while cooking. I save them up for sowing later. They grow pretty big!! My sister who lives in London imports them from here. If you need deep red color with zero spice, these are the chillies to use. Haven't tried with Badgi or Kashmiri dried chilies yet!!

Chile California 

Cilantro: For some reason I don't have green thumb growing Cilantro. I have tried splitting the seeds in two by crushing them. Tough luck there!!

Chamomile flowers: Chamomile tea is my favourite!! Sprouts farmer market in CA carry them in bulk. Drinking 2 cups a day keeps your nerves calm.  It also calms the upset tummy and helps to fall asleep when you have a bout of insomnia. Growing them is pretty easy. I sprinkle these dried flowers used in tea on a ground and in matter of weeks you could see the blooms. Needs lot of sunlight.

Garlic: I tried growing from a garlic that sprouted in my kitchen shelf. They can be grown from spring to fall. They are not hardy unlike Onions.

I have had some success growing few more veggies got from grocery stores. Lemongrass, Chickpeas, Taro leaves, Basella Alba(Basele Soppu), Lemon and Orange plant(from seeds).

Lemongrass: Got few stalks from grocery store and kept them in a glass so I could see roots when they emerge. It took about 2 weeks for the roots to show up. Change water once in 2-3 days. Once the roots emerge, you could plant them into a pot or ground. They need lot of sunlight.
               

Lemongrass root

Taro leaves : Got two corms from Jungle Jim's. An Indian guy who was helping other customers gave me a tip to pick the ones with pink pointy tip. I picked one with pink pointy and another one without. Planted two of those corms in separate pots indoors in Feb. It took 2 months for them to sprout. The one without pointy tip never sprouted but got rotted inside the soil. These need lot of water and sunlight.

Taro leaves

Garbanzo Beans: I love eating them raw!! It brings back memories from childhood where the pods were plucked from plant and eaten. Indian stores in Cincy carries them in spring and summer. I planted few mature beans and it took a week for plant to emerge. 

Chickpeas

Basella Alba/Basale Soppu: My mom uses these greens in making Tambli. In one of our regular conversation when I told her about the availability of this, she suggested I could grow them from cuttings. Needs lot of sunlight. Mine has a stunted growth as it is indoors.

Basella Alba

Lemon/Honey Orange: Out of curiosity, one day I planted bunch of lemon seeds and Honey Orange seeds in a pot and kept them indoors on a sunny windowsill. I forgot about it as nothing happened for 3 months. When the temperature started to warm up saw these saplings emerge. Well, I can't tell the difference between Lemon and Orange plant :-)

Lemon and Honey Orange

The list does not end here!! If you have tried with any other veggies not mentioned here please let me know.

My garden pictures - Exclusively for Euphoric Delight friends

Many thanks for those who showered me with compliments. Not sure if I have green thumb or not but I do have passion to grow plants. As said earlier, I have 2 raised beds. The one with wooden sides gets only 5-6 hrs of sunlight. Bradford pear tree behind blocks most of the morning sunlight. So I have Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower,  Brussels Sprouts growing in them. They don't need much sunlight. My other bed has concrete blocks as fence and this gets 6-8hrs of sunlight. Onions, Zucchini, Dill, Carrots, Chards, Chickpeas, Chillies are growing.

The two raised beds are on southeast side of my backyard.

A friend of mine who recently moved to India gave few more plants that I have arranged on this table. I have a 4 month old chocolate lab so can't afford to let them sit in my yard. He will rip them in no time!!

I have tomatoes growing in Topsy Turvey planter(green) hung on one side of this pole. We have Deers who loves to munch on tomatoes. I have blueberry plant on the other side. Squirrels eat them too.

My front porch has herbs growing in painted canned tins.

I also have a perrineal herbs growing in a wooden crate. I recycled my neighbor's wooden crate that was dumped outside :-)

I have Apple Mint, Chives, Winter Savory, Lavender, Sage, Brown Fennel and Lemon Balm growing. I have put Petunias on the side openings, so looks colorful.

Also my daughter and I made this fairy garden in spring. 

I have Irish moss which is dark green growing with just evening sunlight. It seems to be doing good!! I used popsicle sticks to make fence. The dog and fairy were from a local nursery in fairy garden section. I love seeing those tiny figurines!!

What's growing in my veggie patch??

I was lucky enough to harvest some vegetables from my veggie patch recently!! The ride was not all smooth, there is always pest infestation challenge. I had slug eating the cabbage leaves, smearing few grains of salt over them helped control their population. My next challenge was the Cabbageworm, I sprayed a solution(1 tsp Neem Oil, 1 litre Water and 1/2 tsp dis washing solution) over the leaves and was surprised to see them gone!! Don't know what awaits next!! Now thinking of a store cabbage, I know how many pesticides are sprayed over it!!

Kale, Cabbage, Taro leaves and Blackberry

Garbanzo beans pod, Green Pepper, Thai Hot Chillies and Broccoli 

Roma Tomatoes

Serrano Chillies

I was happy to share my harvested Kale, Brocolli and some Dill leaves with my very old friend who came to visit me over the weekend!! 

Harvested Kale, Dill and Broccoli 

Carrots

San Marzano Tomatoes

Zucchini

Cabbage, Red Cabbage, Lunch Box Pepper and Brussel Sprouts 

Red Chard, Roma/ Marzano tomatoes and Broccoli

My last harvest of the season were kind of surprise as I did not care well for my veggies. I have Mosquitos in my yard and it was pretty hard to go near plants. 

Fennel leaves, Broccoli, Peppers, Okra and Tomatoes

Pumpkin

Constructing a Hoop House

The idea to build this hoop house came to me well before Spring arrived but wasn't motivated to go out and build during cold days. Around March end, I headed to Home Depot where a staff helped me to come up with this kind of a structure as transporting 10 ft long pipes was not easy in my Ford Escape.

I have two raised beds with 8 * 4 ft and 7.5 * 4.5 ft in dimensions.

Materials needed :
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a) 4 of 1/2 in * 10 ft PVC pipes (I then had 6 of 3 foot long pipes which makes the inverted V shape and are joined by 90 degree elbow, I had 6 of 2 foot long vertical pipes that hold the ends of inverted V and are connected by 45 degree elbow, 4 of 4 foot long pipes for ridge-lines connected by connector)
b) 6 of 45 degrees elbows
c) 3 of 90 degree elbows
d) 2 connectors
e) 20 count zip ties
f) 6 Iron Rods 2 ft long
g) Easy Gardener Bird Netting 14 * 45 ft ( covered 2 of the raised beds structure)
h) Caps to close ridge-lines open ends

How to Build:

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1) Hammer the Iron rods at 4 corners of the raised bed and one each at the center on the long side of the bed.

2) Insert 6 of those 2 foot long pipes on these Iron rods, now attach 6 of those 45 degree elbows. Make sure atleast 1 foot length goes into the bed, this will keep the hoop house intact against strong winds. 

3) Using the 90 degree elbow connect two of the 3 foot long pipes to make 3 inverted 'V'

4) Attach each of these inverted 'V' to the their respective 45 degree elbow on both sides

5) I attached ridge-lines on both the sides and used zip ties to hold them in a place.

6) Covered the entire structure with bird netting and had bricks hold the loose ends of the net. 

I plan to use a plastic sheet during fall to extend the growing season. 

Growing Veggies in Raised Beds

Early spring I had to prep up my garden bed to grow veggies this summer. I knew my raised bed was rich with nutrients as the result of trench composting. I did add an additional one bag of compost which I got from Pipkins Market here in Cincinnati. Used a garden fork to shuffle around the compost and soil and let it stay for few days before I started transplanting my veggies from indoor to garden bed. I planted Cabbage, Cauliflower, Eggplant, Broccoli, Lettuce and Brussel Sprouts to start with. Surprisingly all my Cabbage saplings survived the transplant while none of the Eggplants survived.

I got few more saplings from Pipkins and transplanted them. I see them flourish in my raised bed now!!

If you are wondering what is that PVC structure around my raised bed, that is a hoop house which I constructed to ward off Squirrels and Bunnies. Read my detailed blog on how to build a hoop house.

I had another raised bed which was in a bad shape. Having seen some success growing veggies in my first one, I was more excited to clean this second one. I have Onions, Potatoes and Fenugreek leaves growing. Also have sowed some Carrots, Pepper, Zucchini, Peas and Cilantro. I saw a bunny munching up the bitter Fenugreek leaves so had to construct another hoop house for this second raised bed too!!

My Herb Garden!!

Arrival of Spring did its magic on me!! I have been storing the tin cans for about 6 months and had a rough idea of making a herb garden. Everything fell in its place when I got an idea to use a wooden pegboard for displaying my colorful tins. I had 2 boxes of pegboard hooks from Menards during the fall sale(under $5 for 50 hooks) and put them to use.

I washed/peeled labels from tin cans and drilled 3 holes at the bottom of each and one on the side for the hook to pass. Later each one were painted with acrylic paint and coated with a Sculpey glaze. I have no clue about the rusting of tins, however one can apply anti-rust spray inside. I skipped this part as of now!! In total there were 15 cans and I planted Basil, Rosemary( can grow from cuttings), Dill, Chives, Fenugreek, Cuban Oregano (Ajwain), Lemongrass and Garlic.  Now my porch is decked with this colorful herb garden!!!

My neighbor discarded a wooden crate and I wanted a separate section for perrineal herbs. I lined up petunias on the side opening of the box and filled more dirt and planted Brown Fennel, Lemon Balm, Sage, Chives, Apple Mint, Provence Lavender and Winter Savory.

Come this winter, this box will remain out and I will be thrilled if these come back to life next spring!!

Whelk Shell Planters

The thought of finding little treasures on the beach excites me. I can do hours of shelling!! My first shelling experience way back in 2013 was awesome on Sanibel Island in Florida, I had a huge collection of shells and whelks. Our recent trip to Outer Banks in North Carolina gave me ample opportunity to find some nice whelks and clam shells. I probably ended up walking several miles with my daughter (who only wanted to look for a sea glass) on those beaches. She was on a serious mission to find a Blackbeard's treasure!!

Pea Island Beach

Most of the homes in Outer Banks proudly displayed their finds in the yard. I was determined to find few for my yard too!! I was hell-bent on finding one complete lightning whelk. After hours of searching, I settled for few broken ones. Wanted a more artistic display of these huge whelks, so I went around looking for some perennial succulents to grow in them.