How to Get Your Gardening Fix in Winter

December: For Christmas, ask your husband for a book about deadly poisonous plants. (Be sure to insist that you have no plans to actually poison him using knowledge gained from said book. This is crucial.)




Decide to be kind to husband by not growing poisonous plants.

At least, not many.

Obsessively tend to the few indoor plants you have managed to cram into the very few spots of your home that feature decent winter sunlight exposure.

Research optimal local planting times for frost-hardy salad greens.

Read seed catalogs.

January: Pester owners of local garden shops and nurseries by repeatedly asking when their organic heirloom locally-grown seed shipments will arrive.

Create planting time spreadsheets and detailed hand-drawn garden plans which you know you will probably totally ignore at planting time.



Plot seed exchange parties with well-connected foodie gardener friends.

Buy sort-of-organic, NOT heirloom, NOT locally-grown seeds when they show up at the hardware store.

Feel slightly guilty.

Assuage guilt by planning an expansion of your herb garden for more plants, grown from locally-grown organic heirloom seeds, promise to husband to stop applying Moore's Law to garden plots notwithstanding.

Collect food-safe plastic containers to reuse as pots on your indoor light shelf (because yes, you have an indoor light shelf on which to start vegetable plants from seed, because yes, when it comes to tasty homegrown vegetables you are just that hardcore).

Cheapskate Chic Green Lifestyle Tip: Yogurt cups in #5 plastic convert
quickly to seedling-sized pots with the proper application of an ice pick.

During the last weekend of the month, plant your heartiest early greens indoors for later transplant.



February: Grow things! Green things! Edible things! In your basement! Because you are now officially The Type of Person Who Grows Things in Her Basement.

Mmmmm. Lettucey.

My Not-So-Secret Basement Garden Lab

Last year, I tried to grow tomatoes and herbs for my garden from seed by placing seedling pots on my sunniest windowsills.

It did not turn out well.

My tomatoes were leggy; my basil was floppy. Even though I kept nearby indoor lights on during the day, and turned the plants daily, my seedlings just weren't getting enough light.

Though fantasies of a greenhouse window in my kitchen (or an attached greenhouse installation over my patio that would also serve as a four-season sunroom and possess retractable blinds) have danced in my head ever since then, the more practical solution was of course to build a grow-shelf in my basement.

Where I will grow my precious mutant plant children.
It looks kind of spooky, doesn't it?

Anyway, it's not as complicated to build as it looks. The shelf itself is a simple pine storage contraption from Target with adjustable shelves. I've lined the shelves with styrofoam to protect the wood from moisture — the same styrofoam the shelf itself came packed in.

The lights are simple 2 ft fluorescent shop lights purchased from Home Depot; I paid a little extra to get super-efficient Energy Star models. My husband helped me wire the lights to a plug; some shop lights come with a plug wired already, though, so shop around for those if you're an electrophobic mad plant lab builder.

I've hung the lights on adjustable chains so that I can change their height as my plants grow, and I've made reflectors out of repurposed cardboard and aluminum foil to direct the light back toward the plants.

Then I put the whole thing on a power strip plugged into a ten dollar timer; this way I can have the lights come on at dawn without actually having to remember to go down and turn them on in the morning before I've had my caffeine.

Of course, you can buy yourself a fancy manufactured lighted plant stand on the internets if you want, but where's the fun in that?