Which foods do you grow indoors?

RetiredMatthebrute said:

yeah like i said im not really interested in getting fruit, just want the tree. once i get some of my own property i will order seedlings that will produce good fruit. or i will just go to a local orchard and ask permission to take a few cuttings. most places wont mind as long as you dont harm the tree..

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yeah but don't let your fruit on this apple tree go to waste...make hard cider with it! you can sweeten it up if you need to, but the apples will be usable for this!
be easy,
BTW: charlestons, blue dwarf kale, pasillo bajio, mulato isleno, san marzano tomatoes, glacier tomatoes, siberian red tomatoes, rainbow cherry tomatoes, sage, english thyme, lime basil, and fresnos are all going nicely under my quantum badboy with zoomed florasuns and two grow bulbs from spectralux. loving it! though i'm not going to grow all of these under lights, just going to take them through seedling stage and then harden them off and put em in the raised beds...anything in the list not specified is a hot pepper (e.g. fresnos, charlestons).
be easy friends

itinkitook2much said:

siiiiiiiiiiiick dude!! I don't know much about hydro but isn't feeding chemicals to your food hazardous for your health? Please don't be offended I just always heard that you couldn't go 100% organic with hydro but never really looked into it.

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you can look into stuff like earth juice liquid organic nutrients but theres deffinitely mixed reviews on them. I like to use their stuff for making teas which has made me wonder about brewing teas for hydro systems. I just was under the impression that the great results from org soil come from the foodweb so i'm not sure in something like an ebb n flow, flood/drain, or aeroponic system would work that well. Maybe dwc with dilute teas in the res, but i'd imagine it would quickly become a nightmare trying to keep temps in check, and prevent your airstones from growing forests of algae. might pop over with the question to the hydro section and see what the water folks can tell me about this--i'm sure i'm not the first to think of it
be easy,

There are more chemicals in your grocery food than will be in mine. Synthetic or organic...a plant needs nutrients to grow.

Balke Buds said:

There are more chemicals in your grocery food than will be in mine. Synthetic or organic...a plant needs nutrients to grow.

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I'm not worried about what the plant needs. I'm worried about what you're/we're ingesting.

Yeah, my point is that if you walk out into the woods and grab a wild onion and eat it you are ingesting the same stuff that you would ingest if you grabbed an onion out of my hydroponic system. The plant takes the NPK and other trace elements and uses them for growth...whether it is from the forest floor or from a bottle the plant is uptaking the nutes and using them.

It is the stuff that gets deposited on the foliage that is of concern to me. In the commercial operations they are using pesticides and herbicides to ensure a profitable crop...those pollutants are transfered to your dinner plate. In the forest that plant gets anything that is on the wind or in the rain deposited on the foliage and transfered to your dinner plate.

I guess I am less concerned with what the plant uptakes from my system be it from chemical nutrients or organic nutrients. The air I breathe is more harmful, IMO.

eh, but the stuff in the grocery store, were it produced organically, would mean no harmful pesticides, herbicides, salt based nutrients leaching out into the groundwater and up into that air that you recognize is probably more harmful than your closed hydro system. I guess the point isn't that the food your producing doesn't have a chemical structure, but rather the way its grown has less impact on the environment en toto. to each his own, for sure, but it'd be really nice if we could start reversing the tragedy of the commons...
be easy

say word

Word!!!!!!

yeah but don't let your fruit on this apple tree go to waste...make hard cider with it! you can sweeten it up if you need to, but the apples will be usable for this!
be easy,

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im on the wagon lol. plenty of animals around that will eat crab apples if not the will decomp into the soil and keep the tree fed no hard cider for me

RetiredMatthebrute said:

im on the wagon lol. plenty of animals around that will eat crab apples if not the will decomp into the soil and keep the tree fed no hard cider for me

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Good on you!
and yeah, plenty of critters and soil to be fed,
be easy my friend,

RetiredMatthebrute said:

im on the wagon lol. no hard cider for me

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yeah congrats on the sobriety!
How is apple cider made anyway? :B

itinkitook2much said:

siiiiiiiiiiiick dude!! I don't know much about hydro but isn't feeding chemicals to your food hazardous for your health? Please don't be offended I just always heard that you couldn't go 100% organic with hydro but never really looked into it.

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This is the way I look at it, organic is such a subjective term because it has two or three meanings, lol....

Plants uptake inorganic minerals to begin with, so even if you are an organic grower, you go thru the process of breaking down the organic matter [mainly carbon] and releasing or converting inorganic minerals thru micro-life, roots etc etc. in soil, for instance....

The problem in hydro is that interaction doesn't happen instantly for the most part and there is your bottleneck that coupled with the mainly aerobic/sometimes though anearobic condition changes as well.......however.....


I do believe that you can ferment biomass and produce quality fertilizer that is water soluble. I have worked hard over the last 3 years categorizing certain plants that grow weedy and native in my area. However, since lab equipment is very expensive, while I have done some chemical testing, a GC or MS would make my day. Fermentation as a byproduct produces amazing sources of inorganic available forms of nutrients...

I have done some hempy grows with various formulations of fermented mixtures mainly vegetables. But this clicked, I usually use these measures as an organic SOIL gardener, but the chemistry is there......

My list:
[just a start, not everthing by any means.....]
Urtica Dioica - Stinging Nettle
Borage Family - [Comfrey is here][Forget me knot][HOundstongue]
Mint Family [Creeping Charlie, Lemon Balm, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sage, Lavender, Yerba Buena
Aster Family [Dandelions, Nipplewort, Milkthistle, True Thistles]

itinkitook2much said:

yeah congrats on the sobriety!
How is apple cider made anyway? :B

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very similar to beer making...but easier: take your apples and press the cider out of them. Take some of that juice and add some brewer's yeast to it to make a starter*. a day later you can either simmer your fresh cider and then add your starter, or just add your starter. for stronger cider add some brown sugar or honey. pour this mixture into your fermentation bucket, stir it up, and put on your lid with air lock. about 3 weeks later--hard cider; bottle it up and enjoy!

*you don't necessarily have to make a starter but it does proof your yeast (makes sure its alive and ready to start fermenting). To make a starter you add some of your yeast to a separate portion of soft cider in a jug and shake it up. let it sit for 6 hours, release the pressure, re-seal, and refrigerate for 18hrs. easy as that.

pm me for measures if you're that interested and i can point out some popular recipes.

be easy,

dr.j20 said:

very similar to beer making...but easier: Take your apples and press the cider out of them. Take some of that juice and add some brewer's yeast to it to make a starter*. A day later you can either simmer your fresh cider and then add your starter, or just add your starter. For stronger cider add some brown sugar or honey. Pour this mixture into your fermentation bucket, stir it up, and put on your lid with air lock. About 3 weeks later--hard cider; bottle it up and enjoy!

*you don't necessarily have to make a starter but it does proof your yeast (makes sure its alive and ready to start fermenting). To make a starter you add some of your yeast to a separate portion of soft cider in a jug and shake it up. Let it sit for 6 hours, release the pressure, re-seal, and refrigerate for 18hrs. Easy as that.

Pm me for measures if you're that interested and i can point out some popular recipes.

Be easy,

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thanks ! Yes please point out as much as you got

RetiredMatthebrute said:

im on the wagon lol. plenty of animals around that will eat crab apples if not the will decomp into the soil and keep the tree fed no hard cider for me

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If your into canning crab apples are a great source of pectin

Dr.J20 said:

eh, but the stuff in the grocery store, were it produced organically, would mean no harmful pesticides, herbicides, salt based nutrients leaching out into the groundwater and up into that air that you recognize is probably more harmful than your closed hydro system. I guess the point isn't that the food your producing doesn't have a chemical structure, but rather the way its grown has less impact on the environment en toto. to each his own, for sure, but it'd be really nice if we could start reversing the tragedy of the commons...
be easy

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Organic gardners dont use harmful pesticides, herbicides, salt based nutrients ................. Ha ha

They use all that stuff legaly , and then theirs the other 364 days that they are not being inspected

LIBERTYCHICKEN said:

Organic gardners dont use harmful pesticides, herbicides, salt based nutrients ................. Ha ha

They use all that stuff legaly , and then theirs the other 364 days that they are not being inspected

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lol I guess we could really only trust our homegrown eh

Dr.J20 said:

Good on you!
and yeah, plenty of critters and soil to be fed,
be easy my friend,

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thanks man, you too

itinkitook2much said:

yeah congrats on the sobriety!
How is apple cider made anyway? :B

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thanks, like stated above making hard cider is quite simple. just need some brewers yeast or champain yeast. then you juice your apples and add the yeast (in a nutshell) there are plenty of places online to get some airlocks (let air out but none in) which are necesary for making drinkable alchol without it the final product can be lethal..(i think)

cider is actually pretty fool proof to make since aqpples just have a really strong flavor your pretty hard pressed (no pun i swear to screw it up to where it tastes just awefull...but it will take a good learning curve to perfect it to where its great!! i liked adding nutmeg and cinimon to my hard cider for that seasonal taste (we usually always made it in the fall when we could pick our own at local orchards)

anyways theres alot of tweaking that can be done to a cider recipe to make it a perfect fit for you. you can buy most of the stuff you will need to get started for 300 bucks and that includes air locks, yeast, strainers and bottles to put the final product in.

a really great apple wine or hard cider will only get better with age as with any wine..the longer it sits the less bitter it will be. i made some watermellon wine and it was horrible at first, a year later it was about drinkable, i think if i let it sit for 4-5 years it would have been pretty good.

LIBERTYCHICKEN said:

If your into canning crab apples are a great source of pectin

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not into canning right now but its something i want to get into, in 10 years from now i hope to be at least 75% self sufficient...growing and canning in the summer for winter months. also plan on raising my own livestock for meats and fertilizer...kinda a everlasting cycle. my livestock will provide fertilizer for my crops and my crops will provide food for my livestock...i really hate the fact that my family relies on the grocery store so much, because lets face it this country is going to hell in a handbasket and i dont think it will be long before most of our worlds as we know it are turned upside down.

I'm a garlic freak, just love that stuff.....I grow that, chile peppers, cilantro and onions indoors year round. I grow tomatoes outdoors in the summer, what I don't eat I can.....fresh salsa year round at my house.