Operation Grow the House Down is ON

Monday evening

Now, don't let the title confuse you. I'm not ACTUALLY trying to grow so much plant matter in my house that it pulls the thing down. It was just a catching sounding title in my head. For ages I've been repeating the "if only I had a garden at home...I've only got a very shady yard". And yet I've a GAZILLION window ledges, and generally lots of Space. It's not the same as outside - but it's definitely space to grow! I'm continuing to try some outside pots in different spaces (sadly the biggest space I have is currently prone to destructive behaviour from person or persons unknown - but I'm contemplating options for there as well. Spiky type options which are less appealing from an interference perspective) but am now on a mission to have every window ledge and light-enough-space occupied by edibles at various stages of growing.

At the moment, as I've mentioned previously, I'm churning through various packets of annual seeds to get things moving but I'm also, slowly slowly catchy monkey, getting closer to planning what perennial plants I want to get started with. I'm anticipating many of these (including the asparagus I've already started) will remain on my window ledges for a while as they get established, even if they will ultimately end up in one of the outside spaces I have access to - and I look forward to having to solve the problem of how to fit all my pots and plants in! I've already started thinking about window-shelving (although I'm aware that'll impact light getting into the rooms) and options for hanging plants. Today I was inside for most of the day on a curtain creating mission (which was entirely successful - even to the point of discovering that the top of the Sewing Chest is a much better location for using my sewing machine from AND finishing off by packing everything away again so my bedroom became my bedroom again!) but I kept noticing all the places in my house which DO get direct sunshine - even if it's only for an hour or two. Many possibilities...

I'm also getting more and more fond of my Garage-Basement. I have a massive luxury space-wise in this house and my basement is basically just an expansive garage without level access but with a lot more nooks and crannies! I'm currently aspiring to go through the last few corners of the basement to check for some drainage pipe (which I don't think I'll find, but can guarantee will be hiding somewhere if I DON'T hunt for it, and will appear just after I've bought and made unreturnable identical new bits) but the mood hasn't yet taken me. Although my desire to maximise use of my water-butt is increasing...

And the existing growings are already proving invaluable - today I was completely lacking in veg so ended up scavenging parsley, chives and a couple of spinach leaves. Nowhere near the quantity of veg I ideally wanted to have with my pasta, but a significant increase on the Zero I had in otherwise!