Weeks have passed since my last Herbal Homestead update. And although I have been going out to collect nearly each day, my baskets haven't been as varied as I would like. Life has taken me into many different directions from house building to video making and left less time for collecting a photogenic basket of goodies to share here.
These days I simply rush out to the garden once or twice a day and collect whatever is needed for the meal in question. For the most par this would be a bowl full of greens from my micro-garden.
The micro greens are grown in a variety of recipients. Some are low, shallow pots of ceramic or plastic, others are are 3 piece trays designed for growing micro greens, but mostly I use recycled plastic bottles that I cut up myself and poked holes in for drainage.
In these trays I grow all kinds of greens. Arrugula, cilantro, baby radish, kale, spinach, alfalfa, micro-squash, and most abundantly mustard greens. About once a year I am able to stock up on micro-green seeds from an organic provider but, that won't happen again until May and my supply is running low.
So, I am back to using the seeds I find at the bulk food store, namely mustard seeds as well as any seeds I am able to salvage like squash.
For years and years I worked at a bulk food store in town where I still visit from time to time to drop off my herbal goods that are sold there. For the most part the sale of my dried herbs and potions are able to cover my basic needs and a main thing I buy there are these mustard seeds which cost about a dollar a bag.
It is truly amazing to me how easy they are to grow. All I do is fill a tray with compost and soil, sprinkle over a generous amount of seeds, sprinkle over a bit of compost, then water daily.
I am really looking forward to when I will have more seeds at my disposal and can get more diversity of flavors back into our meals. But, for now, I am grateful that there is nearly always fresh food to be harvested even when I have very little time to tend to my mini-garden. I probably spend about 15 minutes there a day and also sprinkle more seeds over the trays that I have harvested from. About once a month I do a huge over hall, emptying all the trays and giving them fresh soil and seeds. It really is that easy!
Growing alongside the section dedicated to mico-greens is a bed full of basil, calendula, and sunflowers. Very often I go out in the morning to collect a bit of all of them. Sunflower and calendula petals are also edible but, keep in mind that the center of the flowers are not. I added the petals and flowers to the solar dyer with the rest of the herbs and the greens (baby basil, cilantro, and mustard leaves) were added to an omelette that was our lunch today:
Baby mustard greens are slightly spicy, just like mustard sauce which is made with the seeds. The kick of the mustard and the freshness of the greens adds a lot of flavor, and of course, nutrition, to our meals. Although they do require a lot of seeds, they are so quick and easy to grow that I doubt micro-greens will ever be absent from my homesteading chores, no matter how busy life gets.