Wow, that is awesome sauce on plant sterols! Thanks so much for that. Do you happen to know off-hand whether greens require FULL Sun? It has been my experience so far in the four apts. I've lived in since leaving home that I have never had a northern exposure. So I have never had full Sun to grow stuff properly. I have a few houseplants but they don't require that much light.

banana who Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you happen to know
> off-hand whether greens require FULL Sun? It has
> been my experience so far in the four apts. I've
> lived in since leaving home that I have never had
> a northern exposure. So I have never had full Sun
> to grow stuff properly.



Southern exposure gets full sun, not Northern - Northern exposure gets shade

[www.monrovia.com]

Northern exposure rarely receives direct sunlight and is ideal for shade-loving plants.

Southern exposure receives sun all day long and is the most ideal exposure for flowering plants.

Eastern exposure experiences morning sun while temperatures are still cool and damp.

Western exposure receives the hot afternoon sun – a spot ideal for full sun, and heat resistant plants.

For Northern exposure, search for shade plants; for Western and Southern exposures, search for full sun; and partial sun for Eastern exposure.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2014 05:59PM by KidRaw.

This is cool - I want to try this! My husband and I eat loads of romaine and it would be good to put the hearts/ends to some use. Thank you for posting this!

What a great idea - I Love It!!!

Thanks for sharing!

North and South sun are relative dependent on where you live on the Earth. If you are in the Southern hemisphere, your strong sun is in the north.

These plants do fine unless there is no light, but from my experience may not have long life unless nutrients like a little worm tea or the like is added to the water periodically and this can make the water smell a bit.

After Mid-winter (about Feb 10th) the northern hemisphere gets at least 10 hours of light a day and any plants will do better and be less leggy.

If one plants root crops like beet or carrots, harvest the greens. Do not eat potato greens!!! Also herbs with roots can keep growing.

I have done this before with ginger. It was a fun experiment and kids like it but little else was gained from it. It takes a very long time and is way more labor intensive than buying ginger at the store which is grown where it's meant to be grown quickly and cheaply.

In the photo that's a lot more of the romaine lettuce heads being thrown out than will probably ever grow back using that method, IMO. Another thing - the water is going to have to be changed everyday and the canning jar lid parts used will rust in days if they are not very carefully dried every day.

So, yes it's fun to experiment but it's not a better idea, and in most cases it's a much worse idea, for food growing, than any other methods. I've tasted a variety of veggies grown this way and the only ones that don't suck and actually taste fresh, IMO, are the green onion shoots that have grown from onions I mistakenly have left uneaten too long and have sprouted themselves. Still I would have been better off just eating the onions sooner.