I have been growing these greens for months now, and the carrots started getting so big we ended up harvesting them. The other leaves we have taken many cuttings from too. Such as the kale, brussel sprouts, and okra. We cook them fresh and they go well in many of the meals we make. At this point we have cut them back at least three times and they came back as long as we did not take too much at once.
Growing under some LED lights, they get 18 hours a day of light and 6 hours off. Originally I was going to use these lights to grow my cannabis plants, but I got some much more powerful ones to use on them for now. So these lights work great to grow vegetables.
We got at least 2 cuttings from the carrot leaves but the bulbs in the ground got so large we had to harvest them as they were sticking out of the thin tray.
The carrot leaves themselves have a nice taste. You need to cut the stalk off but the leafy parts are quite nice.
Though once you harvest the bulb in the ground no more leaves can be grown. So we decided to do this and eat the tasty bulb.
They would have grown bigger if the tray was deeper, but due to the height of the lights I had to go with something very thin to fit them under.
I was hoping to keep these around until next spring and transplant them. But they just got so big I will need to pull them out of the ground now.
Pulling them out of the ground we place them in a strainer to wash them well. Getting all the dirt off.
Now we just have some stalks, and the bulbs. I will keep the soil and recycle it in another project.
After taking them out of the tray, we washed them off. They are ready to eat.
Dipping the carrots in hummus they were very good, we ate them up in minutes.
The other greens are still doing well, I noticed some of the kale is trying to bolt over and over again. So that plant may be done, but the others keep producing leaves to harvest.
My pepper plants did not make it for whatever reason, I guess that is good as they would have got quite big. But the okra behind it is doing well.
The brussel sprout plants are getting quite leggy, with every cut they grow a node taller.
We can see an asian lady beetle hanging out in here, hopefully feeding on some insects that may be in the soil or getting on the plants.
It has been really fun growing these greens in my basement, hopefully I can keep them alive until next spring where I can transplant them and get a jump on the start of the growing season. The carrots and peppers are the only ones that did not make it all the way till next spring but I think many of these will survive and hopefully thrive outside. In the mean time we should get more harvests of the greens and make many more tasty meals with them.
