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| my lettuce, rosemary and some odd weed sprouting up -- just noticed that! |
I like experiments. My summer experiment continues -- growing my own stevia in a pot. I moved "Steve" indoors from the deck over the weekend. The nights are just now dipping into the 40s F around here, and I want to overwinter my "guy", so I can try growing it through next summer. We'll see how it does.
I've taken 2 cuttings off of the plant, and dried it all. I pulverized it in my coffee grinder. The 2 cutting made just over 1 1/2 tablespoons of finely ground stevia. It has a fake-y taste just plain, which I don't care for. But I blended it with about 2 tablespoons superfine sugar (regular sugar pulverized in the coffee grinder). That's a good blend.
I tried a bit in my tea this morning. I used about a rounded 1/4 teaspoon of the stevia-sugar blend. That sweetened my tea almost too much. I would normally use about 3/4 teaspoon of sugar for this tea. The sweetening continued to develop as the tea sat, probably because these are real leaves, not an extract.
Next time I'll add the stevia to the tea while brewing, and use less, crossing my fingers that I get it right. Does it taste exactly like sugar? No. It tastes a lot like the artificial sweeteners on the market. But this one is all natural. It won't spike my blood sugar. And it has antioxidants which may help prevent cancer. (Worth a shot, right?)
And now, I introduce my winter experiment -- an indoor veggie garden. I have a grow-light that I use to start my seedlings indoors. On tomato plants alone, I save about $15 per year by using the grow-light. In our area, because the last frost date is in May, it's best to plant out larger plants. The small seedlings that sell for $1 each are too far behind, by the time I can plant out, in my perpetually cool garden. So, by starting tomato seeds indoors, I have a good-sized tomato plants, ready by early May.
In all honesty, the grow lights are a functional "toy". They will take me 6-7 years in payback time, with flower and vegetable seedlings. But we all like to play with toys, right?
And since I have it, and I have to keep it somewhere in the off-season, I thought I'd plant some leaf lettuce under the lights this fall. I started them about a month ago. My hope is to start picking salad greens in early November, and to continue to harvest up until Christmas. (I've actually had one small salad from the thinnings already.)
I also have a rosemary seedling under there. And as soon as the lettuce plants become tall enough, I'll raise the lights and add my potted basil. I started the basil mid-summer, and kept it on the deck until September. It sits in the window right now, but will probably benefit from more light soon.
So, I don't really know how any of this will work out. It's just an experiment. But it's fun and it may reward me with salad greens and basil for pesto, when it's cold outside and not a green thing growing.
