Grow your own on your window sill

Over the years we have grown  some of our own food in our window sills. We  grew some cress and bean sprouts. (we used mung beans, dried green peas, chickpeas) from the corner shop.  Sunflower seeds  and shop bought veg.

 This lady has a lovely video on how she makes her sprouts, I feel she uses too much for our needs, but the principle is good.

As this does not involve any soil, I wonder if it might be an idea now, as many of us cannot go out?
There are some exceptions where soil is concerned, but most can be grown without soil.
A lovely activity to do with the children too.

Last week I bought some leeks and only chopped the top  of the leeks for a vegetable soup and then put them in water to continue to grow. Nice for in stir fries the coming week. The same can be done with spring onions, little gem lettuces, celery to name but a few.
 Amazing how much it has grown in one day.

We planted the cress on paper too but the sunflower seeds were left soaking in a jar of water.

Asako sowing seeds in cream cheese boxes lined with kitchen paper

     
The Sunflower shoots and pea shoots that we sowed 2 weeks ago are ready for harvesting so we will make a Sunflower shoot salad . The lemon vinegrette was delicious, a bit too much, so we kept the other half for another day.

sunflower (left) and pea shoots (right)

Sayaka harvesting the first sunflower shoots

Cortney harvesting the pea shoots

Brussels Sprouts with peanut sauce and Butternut Tai Soup

Today we started by sowing our first seeds. Some to eat as sprouts and some for transplanting and harvesting later in the year.

We sprouted Sunflower seeds and Cress for use in salads in the weeks to come.
During the year we harvested seeds from a variety of  tomatoes and  peppers,  dried the seeds and today we planted mini mini red and mini mini yellow tomatoes (bottom right) as well as the orange mini pear tomatoes. We are pre-germinating them to make sure the seeds are viable. Once they germinate, they will be transferred to soil. For now they will stay on a damp paper towel, in the little cream cheese container.
  

We planted the cress on paper too but the sunflower seeds were left soaking in a jar of water.


        

After the sowing we made some peanut butter to use for the peanut sauce that we were going to use with the brussles sprouts.  Asako and Sayaka had never had Brussels Sprouts before, but Asako's children had encountered them at a play day. They were not impressed with this 'new' vegetable and begged her never to buy it.  Well.... the plan has changed. After eating these fried brussels with cranberries and peanut sauce, the vegetables are on next week's shopping list. They went down very well with all of us.



We also made a tasty and hearty Butternut Thai  soup perfect for this cold but lovely day which we shared with `Mark and Sorrel.

       

Sowing beans sprouts and cress

The ground is still too cold but if we have a space on the window sill we can start sowing cress and bean sprouts.

I also notice how much the leek has grown, I cut the tops off yesterday for in a soup, I then put the stem in some water. Amazing how much it has grown in one day.

Today we will grow and make a beansprout stir fry with noodles

I am using the sprouting in a bottle technique for the mung beans and sprouting in a colander for the mixed beans

As a starter we made a Five Spice Sweet Potato Soup.
This recipe is extremely simple as it is just chopped up Sweet potatoes boiled in vegetable stock and five spice added for taste. This is a hearty winter soup.