Gutter-Planted Garden Greens

Reader Contribution by Lee Bentley
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I do know I’m supposed to eat greens…really I do. In the seventh grade, we were shown a movie about what happened to the British sailors who got scurvy because they didn’t eat their greens. But here’s the reality: At the time I was a single guy living solo; I’d go to the grocery store and dutifully buy a plastic container of greens. That evening, I’d have some and then the next time I looked, the lovely fresh greens would be on their way to compost. Lucky for the chickens — there was no danger of them coming down with scurvy!

It was in December. It was plenty cold outside. My garden was asleep under a blanket of snow. With no real plan in mind, I went to the local nursery and asked if I could grow greens in small plastic pots. I had read that Swiss chard and bok choy were two plants that did well with less-than-full sunlight. The salesperson was a bit taken aback at my question, but allowed that they should grow. So I left the shop with two seed packets and a dozen used one-quart plastic pots.

Later, I planted chard and bok choy in organic potting soil, putting the pots in a recycled kitty litter tray on

a bench in a sunny corner. Soon enough, there were green shoots, and then before I knew it there was a mass of green leaves, each struggling for a bit of the pale January sunlight. Another problem became evident: Watering a mass of leaves makes even watering impossible. Some were too wet, some too dry. But I was harvesting fresh greens! What was surprising to me was that chard grown indoors was unlike the chard I had gotten at the store. My plants produced tender, mild-flavored leaves, unlike what I remembered chard leaves to be (leathery with a strong flavor). But while I had found a solution to my scurvy concerns, my plants were increasingly over-crowded and light-starved.

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