Homesteader Next Door

If you are thinking…GROSS, don’t write them off yet. If you already love greens, this is the time to ensure you have as much as your heart’s content.

The Hubster has never been big on greens unless you consider iceberg lettuce and then he would tolerate it if I covered it in creamy salad dressing. But that was before we grew our greens and he could tell the difference between, limp, day or week-old grocery store lettuce and a fresh leaf pulled from the garden and put right onto his sandwich. Amazing! So, if you have had a lackluster relationship with greens, give them another chance and commit to trying them in some new and unusual ways.

The science shows that eating a diet rich in leafy greens can reduce obesity and prevent heart disease. They can be rich in lutein, beta-carotene, Vit K, Vit C, Vit A, and B9, in addition to others. Even calcium! Collards can promote healthy bones.

2020 has been a rollercoaster year. I’m not sure what else 2020 has in store for us but, we have been handed a big pile of figure-it-out when it comes to jobs, resources, and everything else we need to live. Obstacles include access to affordable vegetables for most people. We have grown a substantial portion of our food for many years but have ramped up our efforts so we may accommodate our family as well. The truth is that as the contents of our wallets shrink, we have to figure out a way to provide good, healthy food still. The good news is that even if you only have a sunny stoop or a small patch of dirt, you can grow greens quickly. Add a few inputs and a grow light, and you can grow them on your kitchen counter. With a single packet of seeds, you can raise a season’s worth of greens for your entire family.

When times are good, I prefer to order my seeds from Baker Creek Seeds, and when they are lean, I pick them up on the cheap at the dollar store. Though I aim to grow organic, I’m not a purist in the sense that it is more important to feed my family than to risk going hungry if I can’t afford the expensive heirloom seeds I prefer. It is also why I save seeds from year to year but that is another post.

We are in the inconsistent Virginia zone 8a. It’s fabulous that most greens do well here once the heat of summer has abated. September is the perfect time to direct seed or start more transplants under lights. We started the first direct-seeded greens last month and have been harvesting leaves as we need them. Today, the rain drove me inside, so I took the opportunity to start several flats of greens. Spinach, Collards, and Lettuce are on the menu! I chose these to do in bulk because they are all yearly winners, and most of my family loves them. The plan is to eat as much as we can fresh and preserve the rest.

Lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson)

Black Seeded Simpson is a super easy first lettuce to grow! It can be grown in a pot on your doorstep, in a raised bed, in the garden, or even in the flowerbed of an area of dapple shade. It has a loose-leaf habit that makes it nice for sandwiches or salads. It can be planted over and over through the year (except for the warm months). Did I mention it grows FAST! So you start eating quickly. The seeds are tiny, and you only need 3 per cell if you are starting them indoors. A package goes a long way. Once they emerge, you will be thinning them to 8″ apart anyway. Pop those tiny seeds in the soil 1/8″ deep and keep moist. The plants fully mature in about 45 days, but you can start harvesting earlier.

Collards (Creole)

I love collards. I could eat them every day. My favorite is when they are cooked way down and have a little vinegar drizzled on them. Yum. However you like to eat them, they pack a nutritional punch. Remember the Calcium? They also are rich in folate and Vit K (heralded for its effect on blood clotting). They tend to be a bit bitter, and some prefer them after a frost or freezing weather hits them.

These are also well-suited to containers or the garden. It takes them about twice as long to get to maturity as lettuce, but the plants will be huge if you are not picking and eating them along. The tiny round seeds are to be planted 1/2′ deep in the soil. When transplanting them outside, give them plenty of space to grow, 2-3ft is best, or a BIG pot. I like the 28-gallon plastic pots that landscapers get trees in. Ask around, and they will probably give them to you. It is hard to recycle them these days, and they won’t have to take up precious space in their dumpster. In about 70 days, you will have fully mature plants that will weather the winter and provide greens until the heat of summer makes them bolt.

Spinach (Giant Noble)

This spinach packet is one I picked up for 99 cents. Spinach is accredited for giving Popeye his super strength and for good reason. It is packed with vitamins. It is also versatile for cooking as it can be incorporated into soups, hot dishes, smoothies, or even pizza. It freezes, freeze-dries, dehydrates, and cans well so it is a superstar of preservation if you are trying to build up your prepper pantry. it will produce all through the winter and you can start harvesting leaves as soon as it has 10-12 leaves. Just pinch them off.

Sow it 1/2″ in the soil. Final spacing should be 1-2 ft if you will be letting it grow to maturity at 45 days. You can space them tighter if you are a fan of baby spinach and eat them young. You can get several waves of plantings each year.

All of these only need about an inch of water per week. To be honest, I rarely supplement natural rain. If we have a severe drought, I will drip irrigate, but I tend to let plants get a bit dry and “work” for there dinner. That way, they get stronger and put down strong roots that will carry them through. We are in the coastal zone 8a; you will have to adjust your watering based on your unique climate tendencies.

Soil

I’m not fussy about soil. It needs to be as organic as possible, meet the needs of the plants, and not cost a lot. We rotate 15 composters and use mulches, spent composted straw, and worm castings (we raise our own). If the nutrients need to be adjusted, I lean toward powdered eggshells for calcium, bloodmeal, or composted manure for nitrogen, and leaf mold. Since we compost, we are always collecting anything that can be layered into the bins or put into the tumblers. Three are designated organic, but the other 12 are regularly filled with shredded magazines and cardboard when brown material isn’t available. Go ahead and drag home as many of those bagged leaves your neighbor just put by the curb!

The Math

Fresh veggies cost a lot to transport, store, and sell fresh. Add to that the massive safety recalls we have seen in recent years, and you certainly can see how just replacing part of your diet with homegrown veggies can lead to big savings. A package of baby spinach hoes for about $5 here, a bag of lettuce $3, and a bag of chopped kale is $4. It starts to add up even if you only have a single serving a day. When you grow your own, you know it is clean. And you don’t buy a bag only to have it go bad in the fridge because you didn’t eat it fast enough. You step outside your door and pick what you need. If you have a daily salad and grow the veggies, you could easily save $2 a day. That is $730 a year from planting a few seeds and letting the earth do what it does. I used to think, “What could I do with $730?” During the 2020 pandemic, I’m more likely to be thankful I can cut expenses because we don’t have the money to buy salads.

I’m counting on coming into my next big outdoor greens harvest will begin around Thanksgiving. It is only the beginning of our fall garden, and our hedge against the financial arrows 2020 has shot at us.