The easiest way to start indoor farming is with ‘container gardening’.  And, voila, here most of us already have some experience, even if only growing herbs in small containers on the kitchen window sill…  So, let’s take it from there, and grow!

As an aside, and contrary to my original intention with this project, I spent the whole month of May first building and filling, then planting and tending a raised bed in the field behind the little country house I recently rented.  In addition to my indoor farming project, originally planned for a large, sunny apartment 8 kms away, in town, I unexpectedly found myself with an outdoor piece of land the size of a high school football field, to do with pretty much as I please…  So, even if a classic kitchen garden is not my project, I couldn’t resist a symbolic outdoor gesture, at least.  Anything less would have been wasting a golden opportunity that just fell, like a gift from providence, into my lap…

So, my little raised bed (approximately three meters by five meters) went in, in record time.  First, 3 by 5 meters of cardboard spread in a rectangle over the wild grasses and weeds and wildflowers in the chosen spot, to deprive the wild growth of sunlight and space, eventually eliminating it without the labor of digging out roots.  Then, I stood wooden slats sidewise, to form a frame around the cardboard and hold in the soil, buttressing the slats with short, sturdy branches poked into the ground all around, like spikes, to also discourage the dogs and the cat from going inside…  And I supplemented this area with beds cleared out and rustically planted in circles at the feet of four of the eight centuries-old olive trees scattered around the field…  trees that keep graceful company with two grand, gnarled and also venerable black figs at the far end of the property, all of them standing at least 30 feet tall and forming parasols, giving cool shade below on even the hottest days, when the only walks the dogs get, until the cool of evening, are to the end of the field and back, through oven-hot air. 

As no one had been exploiting this field for decades, the olives and their leaves had just been left to fall and rot at the foot of the trees, biodegrading back into deep, rich, fertile soil. Once cleared of the superficial weeds growing there, and some of the soil finger-sifted out by pails to fill the raised bed, here is where I planted seeds I had saved from store-bought organic butternut and potimarron squash (the latter called hokkaido in Portugal).  I used only organic vegetables to harvest seeds due to last year’s crop, from ordinary, supermarket squashes bought in France and planted in the flowerbed outside the apartment in town, which produced flowers and rare budding squashes that had just turned yellow and dropped off the vines, without ever maturing…  the telltale sign of GMO produce…

Now, in mid-July, my squshes and zuchinis are blooming and budding.  And I’m already feasting (for more than three weeks) on lettuce from the raised bed, specifically lactuca sativa, a variety that stands up well to heat (last week, mid-July in Central Portugal, the temperature got up to almost 47 degrees C, even though the nights still dip to cold, as we’re only about a 45-minute drive from the Atlantic Ocean).  Now, I’m also getting the first harvests of French green beans, to complement our summer ragouts…  

In summer, I cook only once a day, in the morning, early, so that the food has cooled by lunchtime, and even been chilled if there’s time to put whatever the grain-of-the-day is, cooked with vegetables, into the fridge…  I make enough for the evening, too, when it’s served with different accompanying garnishes : sliced tomatoes, avocados, cold grilled bell peppers, grated carrots and zuchini (delicious raw!), my home-pickled cucumbers and sliced onions (neither of these last are for the dogs), and, always, some diced garlic and chopped parsley…  You can even top it all off with a few spoonfuls of red or white beans, for a little added protein and bulk…  There is nothing as refreshing on a hot day as eating chilled food, cooling you from within!  Even the cat and the dogs get this treat!

So, now the raised bed and the olive-tree beds are ‘done’, and I just do daily watering and a little minimal weeding, essentially a little puttering, while I lug my watering can around after the heat of the day.  Next year I’ll undoubtedly install a drip system, but for this year I make the rounds (it takes about an hour and a half) at the beginning of the evening…  I do take the drizzle spout off the bucket, having determined that both decorative, flowering plants and vegetable-producing plants prefer to keep their leaves dry.  It’s a little more trouble, but I indulge my plants, since I expect them to do their best to produce, and to keep my kitchen stocked!  

In fact, my kitchen is always well-stocked as all my village neighbors (rural people have quite a different mentality from town-folk) are always proudly offering me a prize or two from their own gardens… Tomatoes, squash, beans, zuchinis, red bell peppers, as well as lettuce and the best red-jacket potatoes you’ve ever tasted…

But back to container gardening…  I ordered, along with my indoor grow beds, a large plastic container (from the hydroponics shop in Coimbra),  just one, to try out…  This is the kind of barrel-like container which can be used to grow potatoes and sweet potatoes year-round indoors, as a root vegetable (not by the no-dig method I used for the potatoes in my outdoor raised bed).  If this container works out, I will need at least another 3 or 4 more, to plant potatoes and sweet potatoes to give staggered harvests, to keep my family supplied with the denser carbohydrates that keep one feeling full and satisfied…   We don’t want to eat rice everyday, and it is likely a good idea not to rely on the future availability of other (for the Portuguese), more ‘exotic’ grains.  For the moment, I need to do a little more reflecting on how I want to set these large containers up, in relation to my semi-permanent, irrigated grow-bed installation, so while I reflect about that, I have, in the meantime, started off by concentrating on my smaller containers: translucent plastic buckets (food-safe, of course…  check the reference number, usually printed in a pyramid on the bottom of the object), with a 10 liter capacity, for beans and peas and squashes,  and a 4 liter capacity for herbs.  The buckets can be set up each with an independent, integrated water reserve system… 

I chose to join (already a year ago) the grow team mentored by James Fry, who promises incredibly large-sized and rapid harvests using his ‘Tiny Green Monster Machine’.  I am just adapting his installation to grow indoors.,,  The guide to container gardening that I have used comes as a supplement to his package, and as I have not seen the same formula touted by anyone else, I will respect James’s pay-wall and not divulge the exact formula for setting up and feeding the plants in the ‘Bountiful Buckets’ system…  But anyway, there is a lot of advice on container gardening on YouTube (and elsewhere), so I will just report on how well my Bountiful Bucket containers do indoors, along with James’s grow beds, specially irrigated with the nutrient-dense formula he has developped, for the benefit of anyone interested by his innovations…  

I have reserved an area on the side of my house that gets morning sun only, a large entry space with its own door that I can leave open, if I want, onto the morning sun and the cool afternoon shade, when the seasons allow.  This is important for the first crop I’m planting :  peas.  A notoriously cool-weather vegetable, I had to forego planting a row outside in my raised bed at the end of May, when all my neighbors were just finishing their pea-harvests for the season.  So, this will be an interesting challenge for my indoor, year-round, independent-of-the-season farm.  My house stays cool in the heat of summer, but we will have to see if heating the grow-area will be necessary in fall and winter, as well as adding grow lights to supplement the sun in winter, to keep the plant developing and delivering…  

Each of my larger (10 liter, plus a margin) containers will house four spaced pea plants, with a little lettuce or rocket, or basil, or thyme, or parsley tucked in for good measure.  And one of my Buckets is reserved for a physalis sprout that is rooting, as the central attraction, instead of peas…  This Japanese-lanterne-style berry was a new one on me, discovered for the first time here in Portugal, and although I’m not a big fruit eater, on this berry I am hooked!  Try one, to see why…

So, after a couple of hours of work yesterday afternoon, my Buckets are now filled, planted, ‘fed’ and watered.  All that remains is for occasionally checking and topping up the water reserve in each bucket…  Let’s see how long it takes to get the plants off and running, to provide me with the harvests I am already anticipating, at, hopefully, ten or so weeks down the line…  with new plantings planned, to be staggered later, to keep the peas coming, all year round…   

Next up, the more daunting grow-bed installation…  Until then, cheers!