Growing Salad Greens Indoors? Advice Needed

I am interested in growing salad greens indoors. After growing them this spring, I miss having fresh greens and would like to try growing them indoors. We live in the deep south so our greens bolted about 6 weeks ago. If I could figure out the indoor thing, we could have greens in the summer and winter from indoors and spring and fall from outdoors. I'd like to plant mesclun and spinach to use as baby greens.

I have a south facing window with a nice big ledge, so I was thinking of using a window box style planter and setting it in that window. My only concern is that it might get too warm there for them to grow properly. I also have a north facing window with a nice ledge. Which one would be best? Anyone with experience, I'd love your advice. Thanks in advance :o)

Menu Plan Monday - July 7, 2008

If you are a gardener, I am looking for advice on growing greens indoors. :o)

This week, our Menu theme will be "simple" as I am so exhausted from our travels this weekend. Why is it called vacation when its so much work? Oh well, here's the menu plan (remember, bold type signifies locally grown food):

Breakfast:

Eggs and biscuits (with homemade jam)
Baked Oatmeal (in freezer)
Oat and nut Pancakes (in the freezer)
Yogurt with fruit
(these will be repeated as needed)

Lunch (all accompanied by a fruit and vegetable):

Peanut Butter and honey (or jam) sandwiches
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Broccoli Cheese Soup
any available leftovers from supper

Snacks:
Homemade bread with honey butter
Homemade biscuits with butter and jam or honey
peaches
plums
watermelon
pecans or walnuts (my kiddos love to munch on a handful of pecans or walnuts)
chips and homemade salsa
Hummus and pita
Carrots and cucumbers with dip

Supper:
Chicken teriyaki stir fry (veggies) over rice (this is my "I'm too tired to cook and want to get take out" meal - so easy and only one pot to clean!)
Chicken and salsa quesadillas with sour cream, refried beans and rice and fruit for desert
BBQ chicken Pizza (with onions) for the grown ups and plain cheese for the kiddos
Burgers on a dressed(onions, tomatoes, etc) bun with roasted new potatoes and pan roasted squash (yum! This will be for later on in the week when I'm not quite so tired)
Grilled Veggie Panini with black beans and brown rice and fresh fruit

I am hoping that by the end of the week, I will feel "caught up" and can try to get my hands on some locally grown figs to make fig preserves. We love figs here and they are so readily grown in our area that they are usually very easy to come by. Most of our preserves will be used to make fig cobbler which is very similar to fig newtons, except that fig cobbler is more of a "bar" cookie and it tastes sooooooo much better.

Check out Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas :o)

Canning Local Fruit and Berries

Here's what I did this afternoon. The blueberries were picked just this morning when the boys and I went to a U-Pick blueberry farm. The peaches were grown by a local farmer :o) All in all a really fun day :o)

Fair Trade Coffee at Walmart for $2.75

I made a (rare) trip to Walmart today for a few staples that I cannot find at Kroger (my favorite grocery store) and I found a display of coffee like the one pictured, except that instead of saying Rainforest Alliance, it says Fair Trade and it has a certified fair trade seal. I decided to try it (I also bought our regular coffee - Community Coffee). There was no price listed, but it rang up $2.75 and the receipt said the regular price was $5.88. We're going to try it in the morning, and if its good, I'll head back tomorrow to stock up.

Check out Comical Coupon Sense for more Thrifty Thursday :o)

Making Yogurt

My friend Erin called this morning while we were making yogurt. She asked me to post a picture tutorial on my blog. I figure, since there are already many really good one's out there, I would just link to one of those. Here is my favorite. I pretty much make it the same way she does. :o) Please post a comment if you make your own - I'd love to know what you use (kind of milk and starter - we use Horizon's organic whole milk and Stoneyfield plain for starter), how you do it and how you use the yogurt (ours goes in smoothies, mostly).

Farmer's Market Find

I put this box of granola bars in the picture to give a little perspective. This is one huge cantaloupe. Its actually the size of a small watermelon. Before I cut it up, I weighed it! 10 lbs, 8 oz.

The farmer who grows these is at the market each week with both cantaloupe and watermelons and his are the best we've ever had! As soon as they are in season in your area, I highly recommend locally grown, organic watermelon and cantaloupe - you will not believe the difference.

They're Back!

Look what we got to play with yesterday :o) It flew off before we really got to hold it, but the boys did get to touch it. Yay for cicadas! Can you believe that big green thing came out of that little brown shell? Amazing!