Adam Dylan

Are you able to style your deer garden as more of a meadow/pasture/brush area? I seed an area each year to cover crops; buckwheat, crimson clover, alfalfa, dikon radish, sunflower, turnips, etc. Ive been doing that for the past couple years, though its starting to self seed which is great. I get 2 main benefits:
1. In the summer I can use it for free ranging chickens, harvest green mulch, and sometimes edible yields.
2. Rather than mow in fall, I leave it standing all winter and the deer have at it, then cut in early spring. I like to think of this area as a peace offering so the deer dont bother my food forest. Occasionally I will also transplant any extra fruit tree or blackberry suckers down in this area to serve as sacrificial decoys.

PS - if you care about the aesthetics, I generally mix in some wildflower seed but thats mainly for my enjoyment, not the deer

Totally agree. As Donna and Jay have mentioned, matching the growlight distance with the growth stage/ height of plants is a critical factor for indoor garden planning and it takes time to get it dialed in. Will probably make that mistake again but at least now I know!

Recently I started hanging the light fixtures via chain and S-hooks, so it is super quick and easy to lower or raise the S-hooks on the chain as needed.

Pete Podurgiel wrote: one item you might consider adding to your list is sunflower seeds. I've had mixed results with them though, mostly to do with the seed husks clinging to the sprouts  (along with some soil) and made for a difficult harvest.

Sunflower sprouts - never would have thought of that! I’ll definitely try some this season. I sometimes run a fan to help with husks. It's not perfect, but better than picking off 1x1.

Riona Abhainn wrote:How much does it scale up your electric bill?

RE: electricity cost... For me, zero, because of solar. But I calculated it is about $1 dollar a day depending on electricity rate to run the 8x42w LED lights for 16 hours a day. So even one big salad a week would break even which is more than doable.

James MacKenzie wrote:If you grow your peppers in pots you can bring them in and overwinter them quite successfully.
cheers!

Shoot - wish mine weren't already frozen haha!

Anne Miller wrote: You mentioned pea, did you get any peas to produce?

YES! I'll post a later picture of these same pea plants and pods. This was my favorite surprise from last year since it was the only non-leaf crop and will be dedicating more space for this in 2024. Highly recommend. I grew a dwarf early variety called Sugar Ann. You can also see I interplanted this box with spinach and some other things which was a bad idea because I had to keep raising the lights as the peas grew.

I live in cold climate New England and am always looking for ways to continue growing produce throughout the winter. Two years ago I refinished my workshop as a dedicated grow space. I thought I would post some updates on the project so far in case it helps anyone else or sparks ideas for any other crops I could try out. In winter here when the main garden is put-to-bed, I have plenty of extra time so there isn’t much downside risk to do trials or experiments.

Overview of my current growing conditions
- Basement setup: I refinished all workbench surfaces & invested in large plastic trays to help with any potential water damage. Painted walls white to reflect light, and stapled burlap over the ceiling (don’t want fiberglass insulation falling into my food!)
- Soil: have switched to sterile potting soil rather than my homemade compost as it was bringing in bugs
- Avg temperature: this hovers between 60-65 F during the coldest months
- Lighting: I use Barrina T8 LED full spectrum lights
- Humidity: low, generally under 35% thanks to furnace

Crops that seem to do well and produce useful yield:
- Green onions
- microgreen trays (cilantro, baby salad mix, radish, broccoli, baby kale)
- full-size crops for salad greens (lettuce, spinach, chard, spinach, & kale)
- Snap peas
- mint for fresh tea
- cooking herbs such as basil, dill, oregano, etc
- plant nursery & seed starting for spring/summer crops
- tree/shrub propagation - I started some willow and honeyberry cuttings last year over winter, but was way more work than my usual approach of just ‘sticking it in the ground’ lol

Poor results or needed a new approach:
- Root crops; anything like radish or carrots  just took too long and seemed to get water-logged. Perhaps some supplemental heat or better watering practices would help
- Potatoes - same issues as above and would take up too much space

I’m open to other ideas that I could try out, especially beyond just greens. I've dabbled with this project so far but I estimate if I got serious about this I could have about would have about 200 sq ft of growing space, maybe even 400 sq ft if I put in double decker racks. I'd love to try tomatoes if I could figure out an affordable low-maintenance heat source, or maybe some other fruit shrub or berry that would produce over winter?

I put a big deep layer down of arborist wood chips in the chicken yard and chicken run. I typically get them for free (or the cost of a small tip) from local tree services. The chickens love digging around in it and it turns into some wonderful compost. In the coop itself I will use fresh chips while they are dry, since I try to get them in before the wood chip pile gets rained on.

Raspberries! Not only are the fruits packed with antioxidants, easy to grow, and have an extremely wide picking window, but a 2nd additional use is the leaves make a delicious medicinal tea / extract. A 3rd use depending on how you manage your patch is a green mulch, at the end of the season we chop and drop anything above ground and they regrow from shoots the next year and produce in fall.

Your post really resonated with me. I too have been working tirelessly to cultivate gardens from ground zero, doing everything I can to grow food without harming the environment. Have also had my fair share of both inspiration and discouragement. It's a labor of love, but so rewarding to see the fruits (and veggies!) of my labor. While I don’t think I have the perfect property either, at 40 y.o. I realize I just need to START and do what’s best for my health, nutrition, and living sustainably.

Why not call yourself a permie? I believe actions speak louder than labels anyhow. Best of luck to you on your permaculture journey and keep up the great work!

PS - I also disliked my residential front lawn and am in the process of converting all lawns to food forest, meadows, and gardens. I'll try and post a pic with this year’s progress update; what was once a grass monoculture is now a beautiful chicken pasture and pollination nation!

Here it all goes in the compost pile, then eventually into garden beds. Or I keep a little pile handy in the garden to sprinkle as a fine moisture-retaining layer whenever I sow something like carrots.

Hi - just want to give a shout for the Geobin, which is a 'manufactured' bin that's lasted me 3 seasons so far. Cost is maybe a little more than what you outlined but probably not much once you add up the chicken wire, posts, fasteners, labor. My favorite feature is being able to simply unwrap the pile, reset the Geobin off to the side, and flip the compost back in to turn it. https://yardfullyproducts.com/product/geobin-composter/

Anne Miller wrote:

We mix the composted cow manure directly into the soil for 6 to 8 inches.

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Thanks for the reply - I think I will try mixing the soil this fall. This garden started this as a 'no dig' style prep due to the rocky New England soil here, but it should have softened a bit after a season with more roots and compost on top.

May Lotito wrote:For the peas and beans, do you apply some inoculant of nitrogen fixing bacteria? They can take a while to develop relationship with legumes if the composted manure has little in it.

Great idea! Never would have thought of that but now that you mention it, I had noticed the compost was very sterile. Originally I thought a heavy dedication to legumes in the first year would help enrich the soil but they actually did the worst. Having zero weeds in the garden was nice but on the flipside there isn't a lot of 'life' in it.