Thanksgiving Bounty in the Basement

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians and to anyone else in the world who also happened to be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend! We had nice turkey dinner (those pre-stuffed Butterball turkeys are the bee's knees!) followed by a mellow afternoon. Kona, our furry canine was allowed to clean up the giblets and turkey skin, making her a happy dog!

Lettuce and tomato plants under grow lights in the basement:

I purposely deformed this "Heat Wave" chili pepper to fit under my basement grow lights. The resulting shape inspired me to take this photo of the "Semi-cascade style chili pepper". Ha!

It bears fruit too! I realize now that it was unnecessary to have three plants, with each having dozens of blossoms. Maybe I'll try drying the peppers. I don't know what I'd do with all of them.

"Top Girl" orange peppers, not yet to blooming stage:

This is the basement-dwelling group of my ever-expanding collection of Dendrobium nobile "Angel Smile" orchids. My plants keep producing baby plants, which I repot and then give away. On the right is the thriving lemongrass, which is destined for ethnic cooking in my kitchen.

The wedding marigolds in bloom! We got some marigold seedlings as a guest favour at my brother-in-law's wedding in June. They are doing pretty well alongside the pepper plants.

One of my "Micro Tom" miniature tomato plants: this one germinated mid-September and is less than 4 cm tall. I am also trying "Red Robin" miniature tomato plants. Hopefully, I'll have tomatoes in a few months. These ones are growing in 4 inch pots. I'm not sure if I'll need to repot them.

This goes to show that with six shop lights and some shelves, you can eat fresh greens throughout the winter! One of the things I like best about this is that there are no beetles eating your vegetables and no worms crawling out of your salad! It's a pest-free environment.