What, you may ask, is a badge bit? It is a step towards earning a badge from the permaculture forum I have been hanging out in lately. They have a list of skills you need to demonstrate(pictures or videos) to earn different badges at different levels. Many requirements are designed for folks actually living on acreage but they recently started a new badge track for folks living in apartments. Their PEA track has given me goals to work towards.
So I want to get some badge bits for the PEA gardening sand level badge (ie the first level) Some of them are simple like grow sprouts, or grow micro greens. Others take a bit more planning like grow a polyculture of 5 plants (3 different species) in a pot/container that is NOT plastic, cement, porous terracotta or Styrofoam pots/containers.
This same restriction on pots/containers extends to all their seed starting/ plant growing which makes it a bit harder. All my seed starters are plastic or they are plastic trays with peat pellets in them. So I am hoping putting my peat pellets in a metal or glass tray will be acceptable. Edit: I asked in the forum and was told this was acceptable for my badge bits.
I want some herbs so my first badge bit will be Grow a table herb garden from seeds So remembering the constraint above on pot material...
I must start my garden from seed
It must include 4 different Herbs and they can be in different pots.
To qualify my plants must at least 2 inches tall or showing true leaves.
I picked Greek Oregano, Greek Dwarf Basil, Summer Savory, and Thyme for the project but I will also plant some Rosemary and hope it grows. Rosemary is notorious for not growing well from seeds which is why I didn't include it in my set of four for the badge bit.
Other bits are Grow a vegetable(this is easy it will be a micro tomato), Grow a fruit (thinking strawberries but... ) Grow a vegetable protein (thinking tom thumb peas), Grow a tuber (this can be flowers or vegetables, and I have lots of potatoes) Grow a grain (I can use my Einkorn to grow "wheat grass" for this one)
After looking at those badge bits I pulled out seed packets for the herbs, micro tomato, and Tom Thumb peas for the badge bit and set them aside.
However I do have many garden plants I need to start that don't have to meet badge bit requirements. Those seed packets have also been pulled and my regular seed starters have been gotten ready for planting. For this week I have 2 kinds of onions (one eating & one storage), leeks, Diverse Shallots (swap seeds), 2 kinds of sweet peppers and an eggplant. Those will go in my regular seed starter either today or tomorrow.
More seeds will get started next week and then again the week after. Even with close to 30 inches of snow on the ground I am starting to feel like spring is here.
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