Maize cuttings

I promised a blogpost on how to grow maize cuttings. It'll be a short one, since it isn't that complicated.

The first try with maize was to sprout them in the classical way (put them in a jar, rince them with water a few times a day and wait until the sprouts have become large enough to be tasty). Worked well, and the taste was moderately bitter with a curiously sweet aftertaste. The problem was the the most of the seeds were left, and they were hard as stones. Perhaps I could have boiled the sprouts in some sort of warm dish, but I chose to try out the next batch as cuttings instead.

Since cuttings are supposed to be watered from below I built four selfwatering containers out of IKEA plastic boxes (SAMLA). In this way I could use the space on the windowsill better, but any selfwatering container or system to water plants from the rootlevel will do. Then I put the maize seeds in water for in between six to twenty four hours (I don't remember the exact time) to speed up the growing process. This worked well, I could see tiny sprouts through the shells of the seeds when I sowed them in the containers. An advice in a swedish gardening magazine (Allt om Trädgård #6) made me cover them with sand instead of soil.

Twenty liters (~8 USgallons) of sand is heavy, btw. My fight to lift the leftover sandbag, leftover since I made balcony sandboxes for my son, should be written about in epic songs. Of course I didn't use all of it this time.

The seedlings were above soil withing fourtyeight hours. This may be because of me soaking them beforehand, but it may also be because I bought them as "popcorn" in the local mall. Commersial growers tend to favourise fast growing crops. Whatever the reason I could cut myself a healthy sallad within seven days. The bitterness as well as the sweet aftertaste was milder, all in all the cuttings were very much edible.

A weekly report of sorts

Yet another of those days. I should have known not to set up four sprouting boxes on a weekday evening! But it didn't take many minutes to drill some ventilation holes, and craft some watering tubes, and mix the soil, and fill the boxes with clay pebbles, soil and seedling soil...

When all those tidbits of chores added up they craved the entire evening. So now I'm sitting here, feeling wrung out. What I really want to do is eating bananacake and chocolate, but I can't abandon Indoor Gardener - especially since I missed an update this Monday. Besides, the quinoa is already peeking some sprouts above the surface! It's part of an experiment; I put the seeds in water overnight in the same way you soak beans and peas before sowing them. I mean, you can see the sprout in the quinoa seed even when it's dry, and it's possible to to sprout it in the same way you sprout mung beans, so soaking should work. Now I keep my fingers crossed that the experiment will continue to be successfull.

The gardens still drink fifteen liters of water every time I water them. Today I topped over fifteen for the first time, but that was because I didn't water the oilseed pumpkin in the Big pot. It needs five liters of its own, so I manipulated the statistics in a way.

The thrips are on the rise again and they are attacking in great numbers. My support in life, the Indoor Hubby, has promised to spray all plants with bokashi fluid while I'm away this weekend (creative writing meeting). After that I'll be thoroughly spraying my crops with water at least once a day. Thrips don't like it wet.

This Monday I visited Plantagen (swedish plant mall) and spent most of my gift certificate. I spent the journey home slightly stooped forward since I carried eighteen liters of soil in my backpack. Soil is heavy! In the big paperbag with handles I only had a small pluggbox, a cultivation gadget I've wanted to have ever since I first heard about it. During the journey home I pondered the fact that I've won two gift certificates in a short period of time, one from a big jewelry chain and one from a big plant mall, and while the jewelry one is gathering dust in my book shelf the plant mall certificate barley arrived before I took a day off to use it.

A look in the green book 090417

I haven't brought it out for a while now - at least not for the blog. The cold from Hell still lingers and my first enthusiasm have waned a bit so my writings tend to be short.

So.

I now know better how much water I use every time I water the gardens. This is what I wrote the 14ht of April
"Water needed 12.3 liters [3.25 US gallons]
Bokashifluid 20 milliliters [0.7 US ounces]"
"Soften 15 liters of water" [4 US gallons]"

12.3 liters of water is the smallest amount of water I''ve used while watering. A sunny day the plants craves up to 20 liters (5.2 US gallons). I start to ponder if I really need to soften all that water, but at the same time I remember those thick, yellowish crusts that developed on top of the soil when I didn't do this, so I press on. Those crust can harbour fungus and I have enough work with fungus gnats and thrips as it is.

The big need for water have made me upgrade my tools. Now I'm not only use the ten liter jam cauldron, I've added the five liter everyday kettle.

6th of April
"Popcorn sprouts ready! Bitter and a surprisingly sweet aftertaste. The seed is still hard - better to be used cooked or as babyleaf."
My quest for sprouts I can eat continues. I liked these popcornsprouts, but the hard corn made them difficult to eat so the can remains in the fridge. I'm planning a larger babyleafgarden with popcorn, sallads and peas. Will be fun!

16th of April
"Had two sugarsnap pods 10g harvest."
Yupp, the modest start of my harvest my friends. 10g (0.35 ounces) sugarsnaps, I'm not exactly calling BBC or CNN, but it is still pretty cool.

Something I will write about this evening is the letter I got in the mail today. I have a habit of attending every contest I can find when I'm visiting a fair, and it turns out I won a gift certificate at Plantagen (swedish plant mall) on Nordica Gardens. Jaaaaaay, I can shooooooooop!

More sprouting

Dang! I had to throw away the amaranth sprouts. Apparently I wait too long since I'm accustomed to alfalfa. (Those sprouts fills a half liter container on a deciliter of seeds.) At least I now know what to expect, so I'm putting some more quinoa on soak, and this time I'll harvest in time.

There are quite a few instructive movies on sprouts on YouTube. This one are closest to my own method. The size of the sprout varies with the seed. The alfalfa sprout is about five centimeter (two inches), which means that the volume doubbles five times or more. The beans we see here grow three times their volume, which seems to be the case with quinoa and amaranth too.

Quinoa sprouts!

The quinoa sprouts did fairly well, although not to the extent I'd expected. Perhaps I soaked them for a period too short, or perhaps this is the amount to expect. What you see in the picture is the result of 1dl (2/3 cup) quinoa, and I think the amount is about 3dl (2 cups). (Alfalfa would've filled the entire jar.)

Unfortunately I waited too long before I harvested, since I expected the sprouts to behave like alfalfa. Instead, they fermented. Fermented vegetables are not unknown, but I have to admit I only nibbled a bit before I threw the rest away. The taste was good, so I'll make a new batch. Right now though, I'm soaking a batch of amaranth seeds, a way to vary the food.

Wiggly things...

Here's a picture of my two new projects. The can contains spelt and water. Space for growing is limited in a flat, so sprouts should be a big part of any indoor gardener's produce. Unfortunately I can't eat anything from podded fruits, and most of the easily sprouted seeds are from podded fruits, this includes fenugreek and alfalfa. Since sprouting is kind of "low status" among gardeners, it isn't easy to find any good information about alternatives. Ever since I read that some sprouts are poisonous I haven't done any sprouting at all.

Common wheat (close relative of spelt), on the other hand, are considered safe, and I have finally come across a bag of seemingly whole seeds. (I've spent a summer doing occular seed analyses so I've had my share of seeds.) The outer shell is removed, something my greedy eyes didn't see at the store, so I'm not shure this batch will turn out ok - in the worst case scenario I've made a cold and chewy porridge.

The plastic set of drawers are my vermicompost (pdf-link) to be. The top drawer will become the active compost, the middle will catch the fluid (the compost tea) and the bottom one will be the 'changing box', ie. I start a new compost in it when the first drawer is full. In this way I'll be able to wash the compost boxes and will instantly have a place to put my worms when I empty the first one. With some yards of thick fabric, velcro and our trusty gluegun I'll provide the wigglers with the darkness they'll need to work.

The only thing I have to do now is to retrieve our drill from our neighbour, and order some worms...