How to grow sunflower sprouts

I like to watch youtube videos on how to grow stuff, and about a week or so ago i was watching a particular video about how to sprout sunflower seeds, and so I decided to try it out.  I tried last year only to grow a bunch of mold and so I had given up, but this particular video gave me a new idea, and so I tried it out :) i'm glad I did.

I only currently have photos of my sprouts that are basically to the eating point (though they're a bit of work right now to pull of the shells I still am to impatient to wait).  I'll try and get photos of every step so you know what to expect day after day.

I used normal bird seed here, they're ridiculously cheap.  Since these are so good, i'm going with Raw Shelled Sunflower seeds from amazon so that I can start cutting them as soon as they start to get tall enough.

Note, I've hand picked this ad thing below it's the sprouter I use, and the one they mention on here. I've heard for several people that this is the best, and it's proven to be very very nice.  So i'd recommend getting it.  Amazon might be cheaper, but I highly recommend getting it.

Note on this video, skip to 24 minutes or 25 minutes in.  The growing your greens guy likes to ramble on.  I enjoyed the whole video, but the sunflower stuff starts at 24 minutes.

Stuff from the video that is extremely important:

• Soak the sunflower seeds overnight, 8 to 12 hours
• Use good garden soil, i got mine from lowes, $3 for 2 cubic feet which is probably 10+ trays worth
• Use a tray underneath, and a tray with dirt that has holes.  This was my main failing, the water absolutely must not sit in the dirt or you will get mold!!!
• at 29:00 on the video he mentions that Sunflowers like pressure, this was a big one for me, put another tray on top to push down on the seeds, I put a book inside. So this is 3 trays total, 1 to catch water, 1 to have the dirt and seeds, and 1 for pressure.
• Water it every day, and then just empty out the container below when the water has gone through.

So, it should take about 1 week for a complete set of sprouts.  at 33:00 minutes he talks about knowing when they're 100% done.  You can eat them before they're 100% done, but they shouldn't be allowed to go after the point he mentions at minute 33.

At 36 minutes he talks about how much light you need.  These aren't under grow lights or anything.  I've left mine just right in the kitchen and they've grown perfectly.

Here's my photos so far, i'll switch these out with daily photos.

 

These are pictures are about 6 (turns out it must have been more) days I think :) I don't remember exactly when i started them.  This next set is starting today.

Update - Just harvested the last 1/2 pound today.  A few started to get their second set of leaves so it was time to cut them down.  These things are awesome.

Daily Photos:

Day 1 - Starting Soaking, at 2pm

Day 2 - Put the seeds on the dirt

Day 2 (3 minutes later than the other picture) - Put
pressure on the seeds (the bottom 2 trays are this new set)

Day 3 - Look at all those little tails growing

Day 4 - Looks like the other one wasn't 6
days.  But these are growing pretty well.  I'm
also starting some seeds not in the seeds.

Day 5 - Starting to become something

Day 6 - :( sucky lighting, sorry

Day 7 - Almost time to cover these the other way

Day 8 - Covered the other way, and these
things are growing very quickly

Day 9 - Uncovered, and starting to turn green.
Moved to the dinner table, tomorrow I should
be eating these for lunch

Day 10 - Ate my first bowl full.  Everything
is green now, still lots of husks

Day 11 - Most of the husks are off, but the
ones underneath still have a lot

Day 12 - It's now a pretty easy job to
eat a bowl full (which i do right after this picture)
There are still a few husks on the plants that are
under, but it's not as often.

Day 13 - Final Day, look at how big they got.
Note, there are still husks on the ones below
most are gone, but not all.  This is why I
attempted the ones with the husks removed

Day 13 - same day as above, nice the 2nd leaves
starting inside.  Now it's time to be sure to eat them all.

Day 13 - THE END.  Notice how big of a salad you get.  I had
cut about 1/3 before I did this bowl.  This, with other veges,
what a major portion of my wife and I's dinner (the kids don't like it :))

UPDATE:
These lasted until Day 13, when they started to grow their second set of leaves, and I had a big salad :). Note, On my next batch I waited a few days and the second leaves got a bit bigger (not full sized) and they were still fine to eat.

I've also since grown another set out of deshelled raw seeds which I figured would make it much better because I wouldn't have to remove the black seeds all the time.  I WAS WRONG.  It's not better if you're using dirt like I do, and probably isn't either way.  The raw seeds have many broken ones, which won't sprout but will start to stink.  They also have dirt on the leaves as they grow making them harder to clean.  Also, for some reason they didn't grow as thickly meaning I ate through them faster.  All in all, i'll be eating my raw sunflower seeds, and growing ones with the shells still on.

I'm convinced enough at the quality of my salads with these that I will be starting a new batch of sunflower seeds every other day.  I throw in some cheese (usually feta or crumbled goat cheese), diced up onions (green onions would be good too), tomatoes, carrots, and whatever else sounds good at the time.  I've been using italian dressing, but some olive oil, basalmic vinager, and raw pressed garlic would make an awesome alternative (i'll update if this isn't the case :)), we just got our garlic press last night so hopefully I'll get to try this out when my next batch of sprouts are ready.

UPDATE (and probably final post):
Ok, the basalmic vinager with oil and raw garlic is AWESOME :).  If you're like me and enjoy all 3 of those ingredients, then you really need to try them together.  We've got 3 sets of sunflower sprouts, and 1 batch of wheat grass going on right now and have really started to integrate it into our normal meals.  It's cheap and healthy.  Wonderful stuff.

Help, i'm a noob where do I start?

I was talking to a friend yesterday about some of the more basic parts of gardening, and although many people have written on where to start, it's not always easy to find.  So the goal of this post is to go over some of the basic details if you're just looking to start already.

This is the kind of cool stuff you get to see with gardening.

Where do I start?
Step 1 - What kinds of plants do you want to grow?  Most people start with tomatoes, peas, squash, and beans.  These are all great, they're easy to find, and there's a lot of info about them.  But are there other things you want to grow?  Asparagus, onions, :) garlic :), that's fine too, i'll show you how to look up the needed info. START SMALL - pick 2 maybe 3 things.  For sure pick tomatoes :), and if it's fall pick garlic :).

Step 1a - If you know you're going to want strawberries, blueberries, grapes, asparagus, any fruit trees, or most other kinds of fruits, you'll need to get these in this year too, because they take years to get fruit from.

Step 2 - Now that you have your 3 things go to Gardenate.com's Zone finder.  Find your zone.  Your zone helps you know when you should plant things.  So you need to find your zone.  In gardenate, click the zone that works for you.  Missouri is 5b.

Step 3 - Click on your zone on gardenate.com, and then click on the veges and herbs tab at the top.  Find your 3 plants 1 at a time.  In zone 5b, peas should be planted in march, april, and/or may.  So now you know right when to plant your plant.  I would also recommend that you read through the info on the page, it's pretty nice.

Step 4 - Deside if you want to do a raised bed garden, or just til up some land and plant.  Either is fine just depends on how you want things to look (there are other reasons to do each, but this isn't the post for it).

Step 5 - Get as much compost as you can get your hands on :).  There are often places on craigslist that sell compost by the yard.  If you have a truck get a truck load or 5 :).  You can't put too much compost (depending on if it's manure or not, you don't want too much manure) into the ground, plants love love love compost.

Step 6 - Plant, and make sure you keep it watered.  You should water, in general, at least 2 or 3 times a week unless it rains.  Don't let things get dry.

Step 7 - Pick food :).  No really, pick the food.  With things like tomatoes and peas, you need to pick the food as soon as it's ready.  The plants whole point in life is making seeds, they make seeds and then die.  The pea pods are the seeds, the tomatoes are the seeds, if the parent plants think they got the job done, then they feel free to die to allow their kids to take the place.  We don't want that.  So as the tomatoes get red and juicy pick them, if they get beyond juicy the plant may stop fighting to make more tomatoes.  So pick your food.  With peas, make sure to check them every day when the pods start coming.  And don't feel bad getting early pea pods for your stir fries.

Other things to consider:
Write down what you do, when things happen, and what days plants die.  Write down when they first let fruit, when the lettuce leaves first become big enough to enjoy, etc.  You'll want to know in the future how long things take in your garden, and a journal helps you year after year.  And, during the winter :) on days like today :) read more and learn more for the next year.

Improving on the hoop house 2013

Well, it's winter time and i have to work on something, but can't really plant so what do I do?  I come up with new ways to work on the hoop house.  I'm hoping this year to find out how different plants do in the hoop house.  Some of which i'm planning on planting tonight to put outside early february.  Just to see how they do.  I'll plant a few every couple of weeks, and see which ones actually live :).  But that's not really what this post is about, i'm sure i'll post on that later :).

This post is on an idea that i had last summer to make the hoop house plastic much less painful to work with :).  And that is, i'm adding some weights to the sides of the plastic to hold it down.  Last year I put cement blocks on the plastic to hold it down, and it worked great, except the 1 night I had to take them off because it got so hot last year (it was 90 degrees inside the plastic like in early march) I never wanted to put the plastic back on, it was simply too much work taking it on and off.  As a result the plastic never got put away properly, and got cut up to be used as a super awesome slip and slide which the kids absolutely loved (our property is a big hill).

Stuff I had to buy (per 10ft raised bed)

• 1 package of grommets - like Brass Grommet Kit Size 4 (1/2 in.) (Google Affiliate Ad) (though lowes had it a bit cheaper, just make sure to get 24 grommets and a kit)
• 6 mil plastic (though I already had plenty :))
• 2x 3/4 inch electrical conduit pipes.  The metal ones, slightly larger than the ones i bought to build the hoophouse supports.

Other items to get

• 1 sheet of cardstock paper (normal sized sheet)
• some other large square measuring device (i used a cardboard box from christmas that was flattened, you could use anything that's got straight edges and is 2 ft or so tall.)
• a hammer to work with the grommets
• a piece of wood to go under the plastic so that you can cut out the holes

How to build half #1

This is "the finished product" of half 1

1. Cut off a piece of plastic roughly 16-18ft long, by 10ft wide.  That gives an extra 3-4 feet on each side of the raised bed.
2. Take your sheet of cardstock paper, and put 2 marks on the edge, at 1inch and 5.5inches.  This paper becomes your guide as to where to punch the holes, and it made things super nice.
   
3. Every 1.5 feet or so use the cardstock to mark the plastic.  So that there is a mark 1inch away from the edge, and then one at 5.5 inches.  Use the side of the sheet of paper on the side of the plastic so that you know your cuts are "square".  This helps make it so the plastic doesn't twist and pull funny, and it's why we used a piece of cardstock.  Use a perminent marker to mark the spots.
4. Use the hole punch that comes with the grommet set and punch out a hole where you have your marks, cut out every mark.  
5. Use the grommet tool to put in the grommets by folding the holes and matching them up.  This will make a pocket for the conduit pipe to fit into.  This is why the holes needed to line up, so you fold the plastic over, and put a grommet through both pieces at once.
6. fold the plastic in half length wise, and put a mark on each side 5ft from the middle.  This gives you the marks for where the pipe should go.
7. Slide your first conduit pipe into place
8. Done

How to build half #2 (requires you to have the hoops setup on the hoop house for steps 1-3)

1. The most annoying step :), go outside (for me it was tonight, which is about 20 degrees outside and snowy).
2. Put the plastic over the raised bed, put the side with the conduit on the ground, and pull the other side over the hoop house.  Make it nice and straight, and make sure again that the conduit is just barely on the ground, but that the plastic is nice and tight.  I hope someday to get a video of this to make it make more sense :).
3. Make a mark on the side that doesn't have the conduit right at the ground, this is where the other pipe needs to go to so that each pipe rests on the ground and there isn't any slack.
4. Go back inside with your plastic, whew.
5. Take your box, and put a mark 3.75 inches below that mark, and another one 2.75 inches below that mark.  Why 3.75 and 2.75?   That mark is the center point where your pipe will rest, and so you want that to lie right in the middle of the 1 inch and 5.5 inch.  If your box is long enough you should also make a mark at 2.75 inches above the mark, mine wasn't, and that's not too bad, i can always use my cardstock to make the other mark.
6. Use your box to make a bunch of marks on the plastic on the other end.  you should make all 3 marks on the box (using the cardstock if u were only able to make 2). 
7. Use a straight edge to make a line between the lower marks, you only need to do this if you're going to cut off the extra plastic like i'm going to.  If you're not going to do that, then don't worry about it.
8. Punch out your holes and install the grommets just like on side #1
9. Add the pipe to side number 2
10. Done

How to use

Now, each winter you can just stretch the plastic over the raised beds, and use the weight of the conduit to hold down the sides.  Ahh, much better.  Now, this whole thing is all theory, i'll tell you in later posts how this turns out :).

The finished product:

Notice how the poles fit nicely on the edge and there's no extra plastic all over the place.  Very nice :).  Also, It's snowy outside so I had to go put the plastic on by myself and it only took a few minutes.  So far i'm very happy with my upgraded hoop house.

Update 1/9/2013

I planted some of my extra garlic and onions out today (as a test to see how the hoop house works, and how much protection it adds, i'm planning on starting up some collards and lettuce as well to plant out next week, i'm hoping to get stuff in there early that dies, and plant more each week or so just to see which ones do the best). 

I add an update here because the pipe also makes it really easy to pull back the plastic to work in, it was extremely nice.

Building a raised bed

I've built 4 of these in the past, and so I decided these next 2 should be blogged about :).  The raised beds that I create are 10ft x 4ft and they are 10 inches tall.  I think that 6 inches would be plenty if you have decent soil, but if you're going to be composting a ton, or just adding new soil, then the 10 inches will be nice.  This article is explaining how I build them, and things that i've learned in the process of making these, and i'll have nice photos of you of my latest 2 i'm preparing up to go outside.

Materials Needed

• 2*  10inch x 10 ft boards - i'm using treated in this latest set, i've used just normal pine but i'm sure that will break down in a couple years (which was a great idea for me because my first few weren't very good)
• 1*  10inch x 8 ft board
• 1 box of screws that are 3 or so inches long
• 1 drill with a drill bit roughly the size of the screws you got

Price per box

Not counting the drill and what not the boards ended up costing me $35 per raised bed.  I always build them in sets of 2 because my garden is 20ft wide.

Things to consider

• Most importantly get boards that are straight.  Some of the ones i got were warped, and they still don't lay quite right, it's definitely worth the few minutes to go through and pick out the best boards you can find.
• Lowes, and I believe any other hardware store, will cut the boards for you, make sure that the 2 10ft boards are exactly the same length, and have the 8ft board cut down to 2 4ft pieces.  Just make sure that the 4ft pieces are exactly the same width.  The people at the store are happy to make the cuts for you, and they like making sure their work is good, it's why they work there.  Let them do it :)
• you may need to level out your ground, there are several ways to do this, look into an A frame level, or there's another one that uses hoses and what not which is probably easier to build I just don't remember the name right now :) when i build one to level out my land i'll make a post about it.
• Build the frame on a level surface, a living room works perfectly :).

How to build

This is harder to explain, and easier to come up with your own ways to do :).  The thing to pay really good attention to though is to make sure that you use a square on the corners to try and get as close to 90 degrees as possible.  I will often use one of the other boards because i don't have a square, but anything that you know is a perfect square (or close enough) can be used, just make sure that the edges line up nice and even.

Be sure to drill the holes in the side of the boards where you'll screw it to the other board.  When I didn't do this it made it extremely difficult to screw in, and worse split the wood several times.  Drilling the holes lets u line up things nicely and helps to keep everything even.  Make sure to only tighten the screws when you know everything is lined up nicely.  

My first time creating these I didn't follow any of these points, and my finished products were off by a few inches, which with boxes this large ends up meaning I can't get the boxes to be flat, and soil will often spil out the sides.

What does the finished product look like?

(insert photos here when i find my camera :))

Growing Green onions in a cup

A few weeks ago my wife bought some green onions from the store.  We cut off the green tops and usually throw away the bottoms with the short roots.  I read somewhere that you can simply put those in water and they'll grow another set of greens no problem.  So I decided to try it out.  That was about a month a go or less.  We've since harvested another full set of green tops, and today we're getting ready to cut them off again because they're so high.

Here's a picture of how they look today, they're about 1 ft tall again, any one can do this, it's super easy.  We just used the green onions we get from the store.  I'll take another picture when we get ready to cut them once again so you can see the timing.

Could be easier.  Here's harvest number 2. 12-22-2012

12-22-2012 right after the harvest, this is how much we cut back each time

Building a compost bin

Last night I decided to build a compost bin.  We have a large pile in the back yard that has tons of grass and leaves and all my dead plants from this years planting.  He's been kind of composting, but I decided I wanted to build a bin that would help it compost a little quicker.

I'll eventually find the youtube video, but I saw a video that talked about which compost bin works the best.  The one that won the whole thing ended up being a thick plastic hoop, and so I decided to build one just like it.

I started out with plastic garden fencing, this isn't the exact stuff i got but basically is :).  I also got some bailing wire.  Then I cut enough to make a 4 or 5 foot diameter cylender, and used the bailing wire to tie the ends together.  So now, in the end I have a roughly 4ft x 4ft cylendar, a little over a cubic yard.

I had a really hard time getting it to stand up at first, next time i'd likely use either posts, or metal fencing to make it work out better, live and learn i guess :).  However, I kept adding all the stuff in my composting pile and added it to the cylinder.  And found that I have lots of nice compost at the bottom of the pile :), lots of worms, and 1 pretty nasty looking spider.

I'll try and take weekly pictures of the compost pile just to record how things shrink and decompose.

Picture Log:

12-22-2012 (day 1)  The fork shows the height (the bin is 4ft tall)

Planting Egyptian Walking Onions

I can here my friends saying, but Joe you don't live in Egypt, why would you want onions that walk there? :) Cause they're cool that's why.

What is an egyptian walking onion?
It's basically an onion that grows tall, and then grows bulbils (see my posts on garlic, bulbils are nearly seeds, but not :)) on it's scape (that's a garlic term, hopefully it's right for these too).  These bulbils get pretty large, the size of small marbles is what the pictures make them look like.  As these bulbils start to grow, right on the top of the other onion, they get so heavy that the onion falls over allowing the bulbils to get roots.  So they travel by growing tall, falling over, and growing their own bulbils, and on and on.

What are they good for?
EWOs are extremely hardy, they'll often grow in the dead of winter, frozen ground, pushing up through the snow even.  They make a slightly strong green onion basically.  As they get big enough, you can pick the bulbs which sometimes become as big as a shallot.  Also the bulbils can be used like pearl onions in soups and what not.  So why have them?  Because the provide lots of hardy onions that continue to grow without your attention, rain or shine, snow or heat.

This post will be where I keep my log.  I started the small bulbils (i was surprised at how small they were, we'll how :)) indoors, and I'll keep a log here of their growth, with pictures.

I bought them on ebay, of course, and they arrived on 12-05-12 and were promptly planted :)

Log:
12-05-2012: Planted 54 walking onions
12-09-2012 (day 4): First tiny sprout
12-10-2012 (day 5): #2
12-11-2012 (day 6): #3
12-14-2012 (day 9): #4, 5 and 6

Pictures:

Taken 12-14-2012
This is #2 (and you can almost see #4 below it)