Winter Growing Season

The winter growing season was a smash! The lettuce did quite well, and I harvested about eight salads that fed four to six people each from February through April, about two-and-a-half salads per month! The first six of those salads came from the clay pebble bed that had densely planted seeds. The dense planting stimulated quick, vertical growth. It also ensured that plants did not grow woody stems, keeping the growing tip low, just above the surface. I harvested this like mowing a lawn,, cutting at about 2” high straight across. The plants responded well! For the first two months I harvested at a staggered pace, which kept the demand for nutrients relatively constant because some plants were in the high demand regrowth stage as others grew slowly near full size.

Mixed lettuce in clay pebble bed on 2/18/2011 (top) and 3/26/2011 (bottom). 
Gray coloration on bottom is due to grow light being off. Note that the gravel 
grow bed seen in upper right of both pictures has significantly smaller plants.

Meanwhile, the gravel grow bed which had plants spaced about 6” apart, as recommended on the seed packet, grew very slowly, so I did not harvest until late March. The plants did bush out nicely, each producing far more lettuce per plant than the dense plantings of the clay bed. The bushy lettuce led to woody stems and larger leaves, which I found could only get a few harvests per plant before the leaves got too tough or bitter (lots of white sap in them). 



Gravel grow bed on 4/28/2011 before the last harvest.



Conclusion: unless I need pretty heads of lettuce, I should plant the seeds dense and harvest often.

And what about the other plants in the system? Well, the chard...
....and hot peppers grew excruciatingly slowly, although they looked healthy with deep green leaves. I think that my problem was the height of my grow light. I just kept the light at the same height I used last year, which is about 24” above the plants. Research - that I should have done last fall - has revealed that with my 250 watt metal halide bulb (used for vegetative, as opposed to flowering or fruiting growth) should hang between 10”-14” above the plants. As of April 30th, I have lowered the light and will see how the plants respond (I can only get to about 17” otherwise some of the plants don’t get direct light). The temperature in the basement has been about 65^oF all winter, which should be great for the cool weather chard and lettuce. The cool temperature and metal halide bulb are not ideal for the pepper plants, but hopefully I can transplant them outside soon. Perhaps with a lower light the lettuce would have done even better, too!

A note on system nutrients: from January to mid-March, the system contained >80 ppm nitrate – that’s a lot of plant food. At about that time, I took a vacation which led to two growbeds full of adult lettuces and the nitrate level plummeting to <10 ppm. I have since uprooted all the lettuce and am letting the chard and hot peppers grow alone in the bed. I’ve also started with some tomato and bell pepper seedlings! Hopefully the nitrate can rebound quickly and I can use the water to kick start my outdoor system.

Both grow beds full of adult lettuce on 3/26/2011, draining the nutrient levels.

On the fish front, all seems well. The two biggest, Moby Dick and Salamander, are looking good and the little 1” feeder fish have grown to about 2.5”. Shackleton is also alive and well (stories on these three fish soon to come!). Somehow, my snails have survived too. Last summer I took an apparently pregnant snail from a local lake, and soon the pond soon was covered with up to 30 snails new. When I moved growing indoors for the winter, I though there would be insufficient algae growth to support them all, so I put the majority (about 20) back into the lake. I kept a few to see if they’d survive indoors, and thankfully they did!