Basil

The Tower Garden has been planted for over a month now and is growing like crazy. The lettuce is nearly at its end and new seeds have been started to replace them this week. The cucumbers are all full of flowers and baby cucumbers which is super exciting (yeah my life is pretty dull). When you grow flowering plants that need pollination indoors you don't have all the bees, moths and butterflies that normally do the pollination for you. So each morning I get up and take my small paint brush and brush the male flowers and then brush the female flowers. I had to watch a YouTube video showing me the difference between the two flowers but now have the hang of it. I'm excited to have fresh cucumbers to eat.

The four little chambers of basil I planted produced a ton of basil leaves. Far more than I use fresh in my cooking so I was trying to figure out ways to preserve the crop so it didn't go to waste. It dawned on me that I have a dehydrator sitting unused in the cabinet so, once again, I went to YouTube to learn how to dehydrate basil. It looked simple enough, put the basil leaves on the dehydrator trays and let it run at the lowest heat (95 degrees) for 12-24 hours.

I filled all 6 trays, cramming all the leaves in there. Twelve hours went by and they were just limp little leaves. So I left it going over night, the next morning still limp leaves. That next evening I checked it and it was still the same, limp not crispy. At this point it had been 36 hours and I was about to give up. I got online and found a site that said to just pop it in an over at the lowest temperature (which on ours is 170 degrees). I put them all on a cookie sheet and popped them in the oven for 20 minutes. They came out nice and crispy and beautifully green. I crunched all of them up and put them in an empty spice container. This is what a big mixing bowl of fresh basil produced.

I do have a newfound respect for the price of organic spices. :)

El Sicky

Last week was a long week. Friday morning Wesley looked a bit off. It seemed to come out of no where as he was fine eating his breakfast and then when we were leaving for school he looked tired and said his head hurt. I should have kept him home in retrospect but sent him anyway. The school called at 2 to say he had a fever, so I went and picked him up. The school nurse said to go have him swabbed for strep throat as it was going around the school. He was swabbed for both strep and for the flu and the test came back positive for Influenza A.

Since it was caught early the nurse practitioner prescribed him Tamaflu. I was a little uneasy about the Tamaflu but still went and had it filled at the pharmacy. $116 later I was home with a packet of pills. Then I remembered Wesley had never taken pills before. Yep, there was no way he was going to swallow pills. So we just decided to skip the Tamaflu.

He was pretty miserable for two days, Saturday and Sunday. Then Monday morning he comes bounding down the stairs declaring he feels great. No fever, no congestion, nothing. We watched movies Monday and Tuesday. Congestion started up Tuesday night which produced gallons of yuck but for the most part it was extremely mild in the world of flu symptoms. I'm very grateful. Plus nobody else in the house got it. Woo hoo!

Fudge

The kids and I were getting into my car and my drivers door handle just fell off. I let out some choice words which consisted of "Oh FUDGE!" (my kid appropriate F word). Both kids let out an audible gasp and looked at each other with their mouths open. I looked at them incredulously and asked why the gasp, stating that I didn't say the "F" word I just said fudge. Greta looked at me and in her quite little voice said "I thought fudge WAS the F word".

Tower Garden

I've become pretty obsessed with tower gardens. What is a tower garden you ask? Well, it's a hydroponic tower that circulates water around while growing tasty vegetables. I was intrigued the first time I saw the gardens at our church (they have three) and then the gal that tends to them asked me to help. I was hooked. Once a week we would meet at the church and add water, plant seeds or harvest goodies. It was fun!

I started researching them and after running the numbers decided we needed one at the house. It will take about a year of growing my own greens (and not buying them from the grocery store) to pay for the unit. It is a large investment up front ($525 for the unit plus $250 for the grow lights) but growing your own food is so satisfying.

Right before Thanksgiving we arrived home to a giant pile of boxes on the porch.

It was like Christmas! That is all the components to the tower garden including the base, LED lighting, extension unit, minerals and rock wool.

Thanksgiving day my parents were over and helped us put it together. It went together a lot quicker than we all thought it would. There isn't much to it.

 Here is the unit built but without the lighting. I did opt for the extension which makes it two rows taller (an extra $70). I waited to order mine until the new LED lighting was released. I didn't expect the lighting to be so bright! It was blinding! Should grow some great food.

We pushed it over where we wanted it and ordered a hot water heater pan to put it in (in case of drips or leakages). I filled it up and added the mineral blend and let it run for a week. I started seeds after a week. I started them in their own rock wool in a tray and once they were coming up I popped them into their own little chamber on the tower. I planted the top two rows with kale, then a row of romaine, a row of basil, two rows of black seeded lettuce and the bottom row is cucumbers.

It's been growing for a month now and I've harvested lettuce for the first time this weekend. I made lettuce wraps and used these big old lettuce leaves for the wrap. Growing food in your own home in the middle of winter is very cool. I really love it!