New Growth - 2012 Style

It has been a month since we planted our lettuce seeds in our indoor hydroponic Aerogarden and now it is exploding with tasty leaves! We have been able to make several salads as well as invent a creative new recipe - Asian lettuce wrap sushi - from the lettuce that is growing in our tiny home office. The best parts of growing this winter lettuce inside is the lack of bugs and that feels so clean due to not growing it in the dirt. Even though I love this small hydroponic setup, it still doesn't change the fact that we would love a greenhouse/hoop house one day so we can grow in the dirt and on a bigger scale during the winter season! There is something I love about putting my hands in the dirt and getting messy that can't be replaced by a tidy system.

This craving for getting dirty led us to by a bag of organic seed starter mix and add to our indoor garden and growth. We got out the sugar snap pea, kale, rainbow chard, and brussel sprout seeds. We put together the seedling heating mats, seed trays, and clear plastic lidded containers.  Then, we went to work MAKING A DIRTY MESS! :) Thankfully, our vacuum fixed the mess part later! Now we have about 100 seedlings growing in our office in addition to the lettuce garden. Since we are using every square inch of our two-bedroom apartment already, we had to get creative to fit all of garden-starting endeavors in our space. One thing is for sure... we have the most well lit area for typing up this blog!!

Our desk and bookshelf are radiating light!

In addition to our "apartment gardening," we have also commissioned our friends, Kathy and Irv of ESP of MO, to help us grow some of our Spring crop seedlings in their greenhouse. We are excited about getting the farm started again soon and about making new connections with those interested in buying our organic produce.