🌱 Happy August!

eating what's provided

Having all the time we do in the garden now, we grow fewer sprouts - because we have so much else that needs eating.

THE MONTH THAT WAS

July was another month full of gardening. The garden gives and gives, so our diet is largely based on what is available on a daily basis. Salads are an everyday thing. We have 4 varieties of lettuce, so the base changes from Buttercrunch to Red Oak Leaf to Romaine (I, Gil make a great Caesar “gravy”) to Iceberg - which has The coolest growing habit I’ve ever logged. Given the problems with commercial lettuce - yet again, we and our neighbors - who share our bounty, are extremely happy that greens grow so well in our cool and oft foggy garden.

We had tremendous Broccoli this year. I pulled the plants just a few days ago and transplanted more lettuce in its stead. The bed gets less and less sun (when the fog allows any) as the Earth does its thing and the sun gets lower in the sky. Given all the tree trimming I’ve done, I think we’ll get enough to harvest those heads of lettuce in a couple months.

September and October are traditionally the loveliest months here in The Bay. Since the sun is significantly lower in the sky by then, it doesn’t allow miracles of growth - but it’s nice and it sure doesn’t hurt. Our decades of growing Sprouts, Microgreens, and Grass taught us that plants know where the sun is - - regardless of how warm and sunny it may be, they know autumn is coming and so act accordingly - often trying to produce seeds while they can. Despite their innate knowledge, I keep trying nonetheless.

This Cilantro is going to seed (Coriander) not because of the seasonal changes, but just because.

Wildflowers

The improved soil we have this year - thanks to our sheet mulching, has allowed for our first great carrot crop in years. I eat while working in the garden daily - these, blackberries, strawberries, peas…

My main goal is to produce a couple gallons of Basil Pesto. Next year I will start growing Basil in January - in hopes of another warm and sunny spring. I may be able to get all the Basil I need before the weather turns cool and foggy in June. This year I’m doing what I’ve done for the previous 12 years we’ve had this garden; growing it now - in the sunniest bed we have. The bed is next to our greenhouse, and was freed up when we harvested our Garlic - the other key ingredient for Pesto. I let it rest for several weeks and then transplanted basil in, and planted seeds. It’s too sparse to show you now - but I hope to next month.

Our Sweet Corn has ears now. Besides the screen guard, we enclosed each ear (I’d show you a picture but it isn’t aesthetically pleasing) in a paper bag to keep the varmints from getting at them.

Our greenhouse has produced more Tomatoes and Peppers (Poblanos, Serranos, and a few mystery varieties gifted by our friend Jason, who I helped build our greenhouse in February of 2020), than ever . Blight is a given here. With the foggy wetness the leaves don’t dry out, and though I tend the plants and remove the affected leaves and stems as soon as possible - the blight inevitably wins.

A regular foggy June-August foggy night. Maybe I’ll take a fog picture in the garden for next month.

Having so much time nowadays, I cleaned the algae off the inside greenhouse walls last week, in hopes of delaying the blight. I also have 3 more tomato plants outside - biding their time. I intend to replace the first 3 plants as they die off - or just finish their main production - and give the new tomatoes a shot at growing crazy in the greenhouse. We garden in a zany place - which requires thinking outside the box. I’ll let you know if my plan works.

Our hundreds of released praying mantids did well this year, after a complete fail last year. The last time we succeeded with these (they live in our greenhouse) we only had 2 survive - and we only ever saw one (Rex was in several 2023 (or was it 2022) newsletters). I have counted 5 as recently as last week, but while cleaning the algae off the walls I ended up with 2 seeing each other - which started an altercation (which is why so few ever remain, I believe). I convinced one to get on me and move to a pepper plant away from its relative. Such cool beings!

Being a seed freak (I’ve told you many times how much time I spent gathering up seeds that fell in the process of mixing and filling bins over our 32 Sproutpeople years) I am very hard pressed to terminate a plant. I will have to find a way to overcome my obsession with keeping plants going, or I’ll lose the plants waiting outside of the greenhouse to blight - which is even harder to avoid in the elements. We have warm (about 68°F) and sunny late afternoons often, but it’s usually too late to help much - and then the nights are profoundly foggy and often windy. All the outdoor plants are challenged by this. It doesn’t stop the greens (lettuce, collards, kale, cilantro, arugula, and other cool loving (or tolerant) plants like cabbage, radish, beets, and peas), but it seriously challenges those that want heat - like the basil, beans, potatoes (which blight always gets too) and cucumbers. I’m also growing parsnips and celeriac this year - which I believe want some cool/cold near the end of their growth. We’ll see how those do too.

We’re growing Black Krims this year because they were the first plants I saw this spring and I couldn’t wait to start. Tomatoes and peppers are the only plants I don’t usually grow from seed, but the 3 waiting plants include 2 seed grown Cherokee Purples - which are our favorite variety of all.

We grew tomatoes before we had a greenhouse - but in the several seasons we did - our total yield never exceeded 3 cherry tomatoes. Peppers and tomatoes NEED the greenhouse in our part of San Francisco. Really we should build another, but we don’t own the land we garden, and there’s always the possibility that we will get evicted. The value of land in this 49 square mile city is beyond ludicrous. We cannot buy this lot as we don’t have 1.25 million dollars to spare - and the owners will eventually want to cash that lot in - so as much fun as we have being there - there is always a level of concern, that today could be our last in there.

We continue to search for a property we can move to. We look all over - though Michigan has for years been the main place we look, as that’s where Lori was raised - and me being from Chicagoland - and us having spent 12 years - and made our kids in Wisconsin - it’s just kinda logical, but we left the midwest twice because that old winter just gets tiresome - so we look all over California too. If we were cash wealthy it wouldn’t be a problem, but like most working people here - our wealth is in our house - and it’s expensive almost everywhere in California. Ho well. We have a lovely life. We’d just prefer we owned the place we grew our food - largely so we could leave it to our kids, so they’d always have a safe and sustaining place in this crazier by the day mixed up world.

THE 4 LEGGED PEOPLE

Ira had his 6th birthday on July 26th. He had a great day - and in general it was another great month for all. they just love that we don’t go away to work anymore.

Ira and I go to the dog park directly from the garden. I’m often quite dirty, but we lay in the grass and play with all the dogs. They don’t mind my appearance at all.

We did a DNA test for Ira because he has always had so little hair/fur. Though the test returned chihuahua,rat terrier (his mom was very RT), and miniature pinscher - it also included american eskimo, and poodle - which was 2nd most. Lori thinks the poodle is in his lower lip. It sure isn’t in his coat - though truth be told - he adores poodles.

Ira enjoyed his monthly trip to our old Sproutpeople warehouse complex, where he visits his old buddy Wiley (who skipped work that day) and plays fetch with his beloved little squeaky ball.

On the way home - to the foggy part of town.

You have to zoom in on this one - to see the bank of fog rolling in over Twin Peaks. Sproutpeople was on the sunny side of town - and here, on our way home is where we’d see what the weather was going to be like when we got there. Fog is amazing. It looks like ocean waves. The fact that we cannot see the highest point in the city - Sutro Tower, is a sign of how dense this fog is.

I think all animals like warm clothes fresh from the dryer - but Django hardly ever misses an opportunity.

Gus and Django cat napping together.

Django loves playing hide-n-seek. He has so many places to be that he’ll make us look for 10 minutes - often.

Bully sticks are one of Ira’s favorite garden treats. He loves them so, that he barks at them when he gets one. He expresses his joy amazingly loudly for such a diminutive person.

Ira doing his platypus imitation in the garden.

Birthday boy.

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Essentials for those new to the world of Indoor Farming...

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPROUTS AND MICROGREENS

To us the difference is that with Sprouts we grow with nothing but water and we eat the entire crop (with the possible exception of hulls and roots that grow out the bottom of our Stainless Steel Sprouters) - and they are alive when we eat them. Microgreens are grown on a medium and we harvest them by cutting them just above that medium - at which point they move from alive to not. Raw, great, delicious - just not alive.

While I’m on this subject I need to explain why we have two different names for the same seed - like Broccoli Sprouts and Broccoli Microgreens. This is the same seed. The difference is that each crop has its own page - you go to the Broccoli Sprouts page to learn how to grow the seed into Sprouts and you go to the Broccoli Microgreens page to learn how to grow it into Micros.

This seed will also grow a full sized - which is like 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide - Broccoli plant in a garden - given the proper climate and encouragement.

SEED STORAGE

If you don’t yet know how to get the longest life for your seeds - and prevent pests - visit our Seed Storage page. The best way to store seeds is in the freezer, but do not use the refrigerator as its humidity fluctuations can harm seeds. There’s a bit more to it - so perhaps just visit the page =;-)

Grow to Live - Live to Grow.
Be well and happy.

Gil + Lori

Sproutpeople.org is an encyclopedic resource of our creation - for indoor farmers of Sprouts, Microgreens, and Grass. It is so enormous that it gives some the impression that we are a big business. The reality is that we are basically 2 people who eat and breath Sproutpeople - and 2 part-time helpers (one being our son). Our site has been online since 1996. It’s the employee that allows us to serve all of you.

In addition to a section that teaches the Basics of Sprouting and Growing, a goodly section of Recipes, a bunch of Videos, and a whole lot more -

Every Seed and Mix we offer has a profoundly detailed page devoted to it. Those pages feature two sets of Growing Instructions (Brief for the experienced and Detailed for the not yet experienced), a Video, Photos of the crop growing day-by-day, Recipes, Crop Specific Notes, Nutrition Info, and quite a bit more. Each of our Supplies also has a detailed page.

Our vast content is organized with Tabs (on computer) and Pull-Down Menus (on mobile devices). Click/Choose, for example Detailed Instructions on the page you go to when you click any of the pictures surrounding this text - and you will be presented Seriously Detailed Instructions. Click around. Growing Photos. Notes. Recipes. Please let us share what we know.

We survive by selling on the internet, but we live to educate anyone who wants to learn about growing sprouts and microgreens. Learning is what the internet was actually built for, so we’re really just doing our part.

Please enjoy sproutpeople.org

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