Hey everyone!

 We decided to plant miners lettuce again this winter... Super elegant and tasty!

Miners lettuce is native to mountainous areas in the northeast. It is very cold hardy like most lettuces, but has a very unique growing structure and diamond shaped leaves. The leaves have a very light flavor and succulent texture and can be eaten just like other lettuces. 

We thought it would be fun to let them go through their full life cycle, and we ended up with beautiful tiny white flowers

...that eventually self pollinated and started dropping seeds like crazy!!

We saved some of the tiny black seeds and are going to try our hand at producing our first ever grow room produced, second generation crop! 

Things are growing like crazy in here!

 We have some more exciting news for our next blog post, so keep an eye out!

🌿 The Green Team 🌿

Our last big harvest was just that- BIG!

As the semester ends, we harvested our largest amount of produce this year. 

Coming into the room, we saw this beautiful jungle:

 

Our harvest included chervil, Parsley, cilantro, dill, red Malabar spinach, Swiss chard, and basil. The largest proportions our our harvest were from the 25 ounces of Shiso, 82 ounces of kale, and 56 ounces of lettuce.

In total, we harvested 14 pounds of produce!

Take a look at all of the gorgeous greens!

This semester was a blast, and we are looking forward to the next one!

🌿The Green Team 🌿

Hello all! 

Things are starting to slow down in the grow room as we prepare for the summer. We still have a couple of harvests left, but we aren’t starting anymore seeds. 

We also just had an amazing kale harvest! We harvested almost 4 pounds of black magic kale alone! We also have a second variety of kale that we are just trying out, a hybrid cutflower kale variety. It looks like moose antlers!

We are having a lot of fun in the grow room! 

🌿The Green Team 🌿

Excited from my head Tomatoes!

Hello everyone!🙋🏼

We have some very exciting news....!

                                                        

                              Our tomatoes are finally big enough they need a little help supporting themselves, so we are tying them to rods attached to some piping on the ceiling!

       

                                               

If you look hard enough we have some flowers blooming as well, which means we should be expecting some fruit formation in the next couple weeks!🍅🍅🌱 

🌿🌿🌿. 

The Green Team 

Hello Everyone!

We had a great harvest this week! Coming back from spring break and the room was thriving, and we had to harvest the first day back. This might be one of the biggest hauls that we have seen so far in the semester.

We ended up with 

- 31 oz of Shiso 

- 8.5 oz of Basil

- 22.5 oz of Parsley 

- 1 oz of Cilantro 

- 5 oz of Dill 

- 79 oz of Lettuce 

That’s a total of 10 pounds of produce, which we were very excited about!  

We harvested nearly 30 heads of lettuce that totaled up to 5 pounds! Some of the lettuce heads were bigger than our heads, as evidenced below: 

🌿 The Green Team 🌿

Exciting news!

Hey everyone!

The Green Team with some updates: 

We are super excited about our special project, and it’s finally starting! A few weeks ago we planted our seeds, and now our sprouts are finally big enough to move to the towers. 

Any guesses as to what it is?

🍅🍅🍅

We are starting tomatoes! Once they are too heavy to support their own weight in the towers, we are going to trellis them to ropes suspended from the ceiling. Another thing about tomatoes is that they will need to be pollinated. Unfortunately, bringing bees into the grow room isn’t very feasible, so hand pollination it is. Hopefully we can get some fruit off of them before the semester ends! 

We are so excited about this tomato growing project, it’s never been done in the grow room, and we can’t wait to see how it goes. We will be posting updates as they grow!

 👩🏼‍🌾🌿👩🏼‍🌾

Hey everyone!

We’re the new members of the Green Team, Hannah and Katy. We’re so excited to be granted this opportunity of working in the grow room. 

Hi, I’m Hannah! 🙋🏻

I’m an Environmental Plant Science Horticulture major in my first year here at MSU! I have always loved plants and the hydroponic systems here really interested me.  I am so excited to be working in the grow room and can’t wait to get GROWING! 🌱💚

Hey, I’m Katy!👩🏼‍🌾

 I am also a freshman and a Environmental Plant Science Horticulture major at MSU🐻. Hannah and I have some new ideas on how to stretch the limits of the grow towers. We have some great ideas, and I’m super pumped to learn about hydroponically growing plants!

🌿

Harvest from Last Week

Hello 🙋🏼

This was our beautiful harvest from last week that went to Blair and Garst💚

Been a busy busy semester 

This Week’s Goodies

Good morning everyone,

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful fall weather! Just a quick note on this week’s equally beautiful harvest. 🌱😁🥗

Fino Verde Basil - 2lb

Purple Basil - 4 lb

Pesto Basil - 3lb

Dill - 4 lb

Marrow Stem Kale - 14 oz

Olympic Red Kale - 3 lb

Have a wonderful rest of your week! 💚

-Rachel 👩🏼‍🌾

Harvest Update

Good Thursday morning everyone!

Rachel here, and may I just say how excited I am to be back in the Grow Room!

Jennifer harvested our basil yesterday, and I wanted to share these awesome pictures and the weight totals with you guys... Extra freshness brought straight to your dining hall plate courtesy of the Green Team!

Fino Verde Basil - 3lb 1.7oz.    Purple Basil - 2lb 8.1oz.    Pesto Basil - 1lb 4.1oz

Have a wonderful day!

Rachel 💚

🍁Fall 2018 Semester🍁

Hello🙋🏼

Jennifer here

Hooray for the start of a new semester😃

and Rachel is back!

I got the system cleaned and put back together💚

Plants are growing well🌱

We got 2 varieties of basil🌱

Summer crisp lettuce, dill, and 2 varieties of kale here🥗

Butter head lettuce, more kale, chervil, radicchio, and sage growing💚

Gonna be a great semester🌱🌿🥗🌮

Hope all you wonderful people have an awesome semester as well

6th and Final Summer Harvest

Howdy🙋🏼

Just harvested a ton of basil for Blair-Shannon👨‍🍳

Over 10 lbs of it!!!💚

And a tiny bit of kale🥗

The next few days I’ll be breaking the system down for cleaning.

Getting everything ready for the fall semester😃

5th Summer Harvest

Hello🙋🏼

Kind of a late post but I harvested Tuesday and Wednesday of last week💚

I was able to send about 12 lbs of basil to Blair-Shannon!!!!

Pesto, purple, and fine verde basil...oh my

Wowzers.....that’s a bunch of basil!!!

As you can see the plants are growing very good...well...except the cilantro

With the rising temp in the grow room the cilantro started to bolt. 

With no way to control the temp or humidity in the grow room these kind of things happen😞

Even with hydroponic growing if you can’t control these things you’re limited on what you can grow and I highly recommend being able to control these very important aspects if you’re thinking about investing in this system.

Fall Planting

Hello🙋🏼

Jennifer here

🌱I got all the fall seeds planted yesterday💚

Grow my littles

Soon it will be time to break down and clean the system here at Kentwood for the fall semester!!!

Where has the summer gone?

Baby come back....lol😂

4th Summer Harvest

Hello😃 Jennifer here

The plants are growing so well in the grow room that I harvested close to 7 lbs of basil yesterday!!!!!!

HOLY BASIL!!!!!! That’s a lot of goodness right there💚

Ready for delivery to Blair-Shannon and Garst💚

3rd Summer Harvest

Hello Everyone😃

Jennifer here👩🏼‍🌾

Another great harvest today for Blair-Shannon

Over a pound of cilantro 🌮

And over 2 pounds of basil💚

💚Ready for delivery😃

Yum yum

2nd Summer Harvest

Howdy👩🏼‍🌾 Jennifer here

Today was harvest day for Blair-Shannon and it smells wonderful in the grow room 🌮

Wanted to share some pictures of the harvest💚

From top to bottom: tray of cilantro-which makes me want some homemade salsa😉

1 tray of purple basil, 2 trays of fine verde basil, and a tray of pesto basil

Tray of cilantro on the left and a tray of purple basil on the right!!!

It’s so purdy😂

2 trays of fine verde basil on the left and a tray of pesto basil on the left💚

All packed up and ready for delivery!!

Over 3 lbs of basil and 1 lb of cilantro😃🥗🌮

Now that’s a good harvest for growing half the plants we normally do💚

Until next time 🙋🏼

Summer Update

Hello🙋🏼 Jennifer here

Just wanted to give an update on the grow-room

Everything is growing really well and looks like Monday will be a harvest day😃

I’ll be taking a couple different basil varieties and some cilantro to Blair-Shannon 💚🥗

I also got some new baby plants in the towers here at Kentwood🌱

💚Love my job👩🏼‍🌾

Hope y’all have a wonderful weekend

☀️First Summer Harvest☀️

Hello Everyone🙋🏼

Jennifer here. Today was our first harvest of the summer🥗

It smells so wonderful in the grow room💚🌱

Wanted to share some harvest pictures with y’all

Holy Basil!!!!! Now that’s a lot of goodness right there💚

I harvested over a pound of the fine verde basil...the one on the left!

Loaded up on 3 different basils and cilantro

Packed up and ready for delivery to Blair-Shannon🌱🥗🌮💚

Love my job💚👩🏼‍🌾

☀️Summer☀️

Hello All You Wonderful People🙋🏼

🌱Progress in the grow room 🌿

💚Our little baby plants are growing up🥗

It amazes me how fast plants grow in a hydroponic setting.

Being able to control the environmental conditions such as light, temperature, nutrient availability, and humidity sure make up for an easy summer of growing!

I don’t have to pull weeds out around the plants or combat pests in the 

summer elements❌☀️🐛🦗🐿🐇🌧❌ and that’s a huge plus!

Work smarter...not harder👩🏼‍🌾

🥗Before long it will be time to harvest a couple different varieties of basils and cilantro for 

Blair-Shannon🌮

GreenTeam-Jennifer