It's February, a dark and depressing month. If you live in Saskatchewan like I do, it will be late May before you are eating your first crops out of the ground. Now is a great time to be growing a few things indoors. My favorites are herbs, sprouts and lettuces (see what I started last year).
Sprouts
These are my favorites to grow in the winter. The method is easy and you don't need to have a window for them to grow. Plus, they have a lot of nutrition in them for their small size, and they taste great because they are fresh. My favorites are pea shoots, but I also like quinoa and bean. There are places to buy whole sprouting kits, but we just use a glass pickle jar and some mesh. They are also a really fast crop.
Herbs:
I bring my herbs in at the end of each fall and eat them over the winter. My oregano usually gets aphids by December (and did this year) but my mint and rosemary grow well. Look for herbs that are cold tolerant and grow them in a south facing window that is well sealed from cold. I don't have that, so I grow them in a cold north window with the help of a grow light. Even with all that support, basil and other sun-lovers don't make it through the winter.
Lettuces:
I usually start these when I put my grow table up over February break. Lettuce is great because, like sprouts, you can harvest it more than once. When my lettuce is a little over 20 cm tall, I cut it back to about 8 am and eat all the baby leaves. You can cut and come back for more as often as you like when it is growing well. If you don't have a grow light, Feb. is too early to start lettuce well unless you have a very sunny window - you need to have heat and light for longer than you get them in a sunny Saskatchewan day through a window this time of year.
Are you thinking about growing indoors this year?
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