Did you know that radishes will grow over 4 feet tall?
I planted a pot of radish seeds in the greenhouse this December. The seeds took a month or perhaps even 6 weeks to germinate in the cold temperatures. While they were growing, I was actually able to eat 4 or 5 small ones, pulled out in the name of “thinning” before the majority of the plants started to grow seed stalks. I guess the winter weather was a bit too much stress for them.
Instead of just throwing them out, I decided to let the radishes go to seed…as an experiment.
The seed stalks kept growing and growing and growing. After growing about 4 feet tall, the stalk in the center of each radish opened up a flower very similar to what a bolted broccoli looks like. Some of my radishes grew white flowers and some grew pink flowers, although all the seeds came from the same packet. Some are still flowering now, almost 6 months after putting the seeds in the ground.
Now that most of the flowers have died back, seed pods are beginning to grow. They look like tiny green beans at the moment. I’ll update this post when they have grown up and dried so I can harvest the seed.
Finally!
I planted the Kale seeds I received in the mail from Robin shortly after Christmas. I had a heck of a time with poor germination, but I finally have a tray of them rising up! Thank you again Robin! I am very much looking forward to trying these. I’m going to give them a little bit longer to get established before I throw them out in the cold greenhouse (gradually, I’m sure).
I think I’ll get to eat some of this lettuce this month. I started this bunch under lights indoors and then set it out in my attached greenhouse.
There was an incident that ruined half the lettuce in the container (melting ice, water, plastic roof, heavy, spill, mess) but it has been bouncing back.
Here is a shot of the biggest bunch, taken in noon-time sunlight today on my lunch break:
Lettuce in January!
It’s awesome!
Update:
Two weeks later...
Two weeks later . . .
Rapidly approaching the end of the month and I think I’ll have a fresh salad tonight! Brought to you by winter container gardening!
Did you know that grocery store green onions will grow back the part you ate? Neither did I until about a week ago!
In the picture below you see the white part at the bottom of a set of grocery store green onions. I cooked a delicious recipe for Christmas dinner and ate the tops. I planted the roots in a pot under my grow lights.
I replanted the unused ends of my green onions.
After only 4 days, the greens were already growing back (below).
After 4 days
The picture is a bit blurry, but you get the idea. Already the tops were growing back about a centimeter on most of the onion root ends.
After 11 days
After 13 days
After 20 days (they were inside this week due to extreme cold)
Update: late February…
I harvested the greens again after 6 or 8 weeks. The bottom white part of the onion had grown weary. It was thin and lifeless and I knew they wouldn’t grow much for me if I tried them again. Some were barely hanging onto the soil and most hadn’t grown any new root length that wasn’t there already . I’m not sure if it was a need for fertilizer or a need for better lighting, or if this is just a trick that works once per set of onions. I chopped and dried mine and put them in a glass jar to use later in soup.
The radish seeds I sowed in the greenhouse in a pot on December 5th started to show their heads last week. Yesterday many had come up!
There were several consecutive nights of 0 degree weather outside (in degrees fahrenheit, 32 below freezing), and the greenhouse got as cold as 19 by morning once, but the radishes seem to be doing well!
Shortly I’ll be moving some other seedlings out there…things I started inside under my grow lights. I could keep them inside and just grow them under the lights, but this is an experiment after all! I want to see what works!
I’ll be VERY happy to start some Kale seeds this week! Thanks very much to Robin for sending me those! I owe you!
Upon the advice of one of my commentors (thank you again!) I ran my nearby clothes dryer vent down into the greenhouse. Currently the outside world is 37 degrees but the running clothes dryer is keeping my greenhouse air about 30 degrees warmer. It’s also so humid in there that it’s literally raining. The floor has a drain, so no worries!
What a fun experiment this is turning out to be! The lettuce seeds sown indoors are sprouting nicely. The radish seeds sown in the greenhouse are taking their time germinating in the cold. I saw a chart that said they’d take a month or so with the temps I have been maintaining.
Would anyone be willing to put a few of last year’s Kale seeds (any variety) in an envelope and mail them to me? I don’t have any (didn’t try it in the summer garden) and stores around here don’t stock seeds in December. I would really appreciate your time and effort.
I don’t know if you can see it in the picture above, but the greenhouse might be warming up to itself a bit!
I have had my little greenhouse enclosed since Sunday, and after four days of nice bright sunshine warming the thing up to as high as 90 degrees, there is now a 7.4 degree difference between outdoors and the greenhouse at 11 p.m, several hours after sunset.
Update 7 a.m.: outdoors 29 F, greenhouse 37 F. I do have 5 gallons of 90 degree water in there, heated by a 200 watt aquarium heater. Perhaps that explains the difference.
This is the finished product. I capped our walk-out basement stairs with a very simple greenhouse made of scrap wood and 3 mil painting dropcloth. This should help me extend the season a bit.
Just open the door from the laundry room and you’re there.
This afternoon the outdoor high reached 42. The greenhouse was 81. It seems promising. I’m going to start some butter crunch lettuce seeds in the containers on the steps in the pictures. I just need to figure out what to do about nighttime freezing. I wonder how much help a 5 gallon bucket of water warmed with an aquarium heater would be?
I made a little greenhouse of sorts today. I didn’t get it done before dark…not completely done anyway…so I didn’t take pictures yet.
The lowest level of our house is a walk-out basement about half as far in the ground as a full basement. As I open the laundry-room back door and walk out the ground outside is at mid-stomach level.
At these stairs, I added a simple 2×3 roof and framework covered with 3 mil plastic. I haven’t sealed it up tight at all, but tonight it seems to be a few degrees warmer than the rest of the outdoors (33 vs 28 degrees).
Hopefully I’ll add pictures soon.
