I am a terrible terrible gardener and I was easily able to get butter lettuce to grow outside in Santa Barbara. Other than the orange trees, it was the only food I was able to grow successfully. Unfortunately, the gophers figured out about my amazing lettuce and that was that. I bought mini starter plants rather that seed which probably costs a bit more. Yeah, I know it was outside but the point is if my incompetent ass can do it, you’ll have no problem.
I’ve grown lots of stuff outdoors. I’ve kinda given up because of the chimpmunks, squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons that eat everything. But I’m specifically interested in the issues with indoor growing. I remember being told to use a fan on tomato seedlings because they needed the stimulation or something, for instance. But this is getting to be a long digression, so maybe I should start a new thread…
Not hard, although I’d recommend actual “grow lights” and not just bright regular lights. I’ve done hydroponics a couple times and lettuce was one of the easier crops to grow (and no, I did not grow marijuana, just vegetables). No reason you can’t use old fashioned soil for growing, it’s definitely less complicated in some ways. Stuff grown indoors in still air tends to be less robust than outdoor crops, to counter that get an oscillating fan to generate a breeze, too. Especially if you do something like tomatoes, otherwise the stems won’t be strong enough to hold the plant up when it starts setting fruit.
And I’ll stop side-tracking now.
Just returned to work after a week’s vacation. Picked up a few items on my way out the door and noticed that some items have been entirely stripped, like granola bars (?) and a lot of the foil/plastic wrap/baggies.
Not sure what you mean here, but just digging up some garden soil and putting in a pot is unlikely to work. Most such soils will turn into a brick in a pot in fairly short order. Though this probably belongs in the other thread, really (see a couple of posts above.)
Grocery shopping the other day. There were plenty of eggs.
Regular cabbage, on the other hand, was nonexistent. Not even bagged cole slaw mix.
I went to a different store the next day and they had plenty. They even had cabbage QUARTERS, wrapped in plastic, which was perfect - we didn’t really need a whole head of it.
The FoodsCo I went to this evening had signs plastered on the egg fridge that they were limiting quantities (sort of). 2 cartons, regardless of size.
At Mariano’s, Kroger brand 5-lb bags of carrots have returned. Still nothing at Jewel.
Just curious; what do you do with five pounds of carrots?
I’m noticing a local shortage of packaged bologna. Oscar Mayer is nowhere to be seen.
Quite a few of us have mentioned trouble finding distilled water. It’s getting bad here - we checked 3 different grocery stores last week and NONE of them had any in stock.
I did some googling and apparently it is a real thing. Supply chain issues, labor shortages, and one article said that there weren’t enough BOTTLES being made.
We’ve seriously considered purchasing a home distiller - but they range from 80 to 280 bucks, and between that and the cost of electricity, it might be quite a while before it becomes cost effective.
We may resort to using tap water in our CPAPs - supposedly it’s not harmful, you just wind up with mineral deposits building up in the chamber.
In the distilled water thread, someone mentioned using water from a reverse osmosis filter. I’m thinking I might get one. There was also a link to a method of making distilled water at home, but I’m not ready to devote my entire life to the procurement of distilled water (they say it makes a cup and a half per very involved hour).
But if you think it’s hard getting distilled water, you should try getting a replacement CPAP! My daughter’s machine has been making an increasingly alarming noise for almost a year now, and she’s still on the waiting list.
The ones I can’t eat fast enough I run through my friend’s dehydrator. I use the “chips” for soups and stews, and give a few to my parrot. 'Cause I hate wasting food. I do the same for extra mushrooms, zucchini, etc.
We use carrots in stews, salads, and steamed as a side. If we don’t use them quickly enough, the horses get a treat.
A horse seems like an expensive way to make sure carrots don’t go to waste.
They help out when we over-purchase apples as well.
It is quite easy to distill water at home with equipment you already have in the house. It take time, but requires minimal tending once set up.
My husband snacks on carrots every day. We usually buy 2 pounds bags, but sometimes what they have is 5 pounds, and they get eaten.
Huh - I wonder if reverse osmosis filters are getting hard to come by :).
I’ve read the instructions for making distilled water at home - basically a large pot of boiling tap water, a small bowl floating in that to catch the drippage, and an inverted pot lid over it all with ice in the lid (to cool the steam); the low part of the pot lid acts as a focus for the steam to condense then drip down into the bowl. Sounds too involved for me.
I’m planning to try to get a new CPAP machine - I don’t like the one I have because its water tank does not last the entire night if I sleep more than about 6 hours, unless I turn the humidify setting down to zero (which sort of defeats the purpose). I’ll report back if there are delays with that.
Mine snacks on baby carrots. Much easier to deal with (no peeling). We buy 3 two-pound bags every week. Oftentimes those are the only ones we have in the house, and they get tossed into soups etc.
You don’t really need to peel carrots. When I was a kid, we’d raid the neighbor’s garden and eat carrots right out of the soil. We’d rub off what dirt we could and go for it </old fart>
That doesn’t sound right at all. I keep mine on a low(ish) setting and it lasts about 3 days. With that much moisture going through yours, it seems like the rainout would be terrible.