If you stumbled among this site, "Evelyn’s Twigs, Thyme and Stranger Things Gardens" is a collection of journal entries that I have kept on my computer for years, and have now decided to post. The journal contains my successes and failures with my favorite selections of plants. I'm talking about more than 50 years of caring for and living with green things. Not everything is here. More of it is learned and store in my head. However, here I will share facts about each plants, my research, as well as my personal and gathered tips on their care.
I was not planning to post my houseplant and backyard journals online, so editing them for errors was not a priority to me. This being the case, perhaps, one day I will correct all the spelling and grammar errors in both of them. We would not want people to think I did not know better, when I was only being lazy. Again, no apologizes. It is what it is for now.
I have decided to try indoor vegetable gardening in mini half barrels as the vegetables I want to grow are of the small/mini varieties.
They are:
1.Korean Radishes – all year round
2.Scarlet Nantes carrots - all year round
3.Purple carrots – all year round
4.Purple Top White Globe Turnip Greens (for the root bulbs) – all year round
Since the Korean Radishes growing in one of the hydroponic towers have grown out stunted, I decided to add them as one of the vegetables for the mini half barrel garden.
To create my little soil based garden, I have set up three mini half barrels on the top of the white supply cabinet with two standing T8 grow light tubes, one placed on each end. These lights are supplements for the natural sunlight that comes in through the windows. I opened the curtains because it was about this time last year that I let the sunlight stream into the sunroom. Although, we are still suffering under the drought of the Indian Summer on the outside, maintaining the temperature in the sunroom has become easier.
My mini half barrels are cute and they were easy to set up. That is it for now, and I will keep you posted on the vegetables growth progress.
My post today is about how my hydroponic grown green beans are measuring up to the store bought green beans I got some time ago. As you can see, my homegrown hydroponic Contender Green Beans on the left are equal to the store bought green beans on the right in size, which is great news.
Although, I only picked a handful, because I was cleaning the beans’ hydroponic tower, these and the other I picked are now in the freezer. As for the store bought green beans, they always go into the freezer straight from the store, so I always have some around for cooking.
As I stated in a previous post, the vegetables I grow are supplements for when we are running out on a particular vegetable, or when the store is out of them. Moreover, I have learned succession planting is the key to growing and storing a good supply of them. Much like the collard greens (another post) I grew for eight months, now I have enough of them for the remainder of the year.
Anyway, I am pleased with the growth of these green beans, and I will write a future post on how their taste measures up to those of the store bought ones.
I was amazed and happy when my Contender and Tendergreen bush beans appeared. Now I am simply ecstatic that my Korean radishes have grown.
To tell the truth, I thought the seeds failed to germinate, and while I was cleansing all the hydroponic towers this morning, I briefly thought of them with a little remorseful sign. However, this afternoon, I discovered them when I was trimming the green onions, and lo and behold when I lifted some turnip greens leaves to trim the onions, I saw that there were at least four white Korean radishes in the pods beneath them.
As the package states, these radishes come from are Gaeas Blessing Seeds company and you can buy them at Amazon, Walmart as well as Gaeas Blessing Seeds. They are a member of the daikon radish family, and they are milder than the usual red radishes and less gas forming.
The next time we have salad, I will post a review on these radishes taste and texture. In addition, when I germinate more seeds, I will use the larger pre-moisten grow pods, because these radishes are out growing the normal grow sponges and the plastic pods.
It's amazing! I got baby green beans. Since I put the Contender Bush Beans and Tendergreen Bush Beans in the hydroponic tower, I don’t know which bean plant is which. However, I am pleased that their blooms have developed green beans. and it looks like there are more too comes, so stay tuned.
Some are larger than the others because I seeded the smaller ones on a later date, but they will catch up. In the absences of nature pollinators, like bees and butterflies in the sunroom, I use a small oscillating fan set on low 24/7.
Well as you know I have the habit of naming things, and so I named this plant Fred. Fred is an Indian Laurel tropical tree that is native to Taiwan, Australis and China. It made its first appearance in Florida in the early 20th century as an aesthetic landscape tree, and as you can see from Fred's rooftop beginnings, the tree is very adaptable and it grows well as an outdoor potted plant. I am stressing outdoor because Fred is very susceptible to thrips, which you do not want in your house with your normal houseplants. I found that Sevin is the good treatment to control the thrips.
As you know I separated the tall seedlings of Contender and Tendergreen bush beans, from the seeds yet to germinate. However, since these young seedlings have not developed their true leave yet, I still needed to put them in an environment similar to the germination tray. Failing to come up with a suitable solution, I left them alone. Then later this afternoon, a light bulb lit up above my head, while I was dozing.
The solution was too simple. Place the germination tray into a two-gallon zip lock baggie. Zip up all but a three inch area at the top for ventilation, and voilà! an instant germination tent.
If I had known I would have woken to this, I would have waited a day before posting yesterday's update.
Although my plan is to use photos to track the growth progress of these Contender and Tendergreen bush beans, it never crossed my mind that their germination would be so rapid.
These guys will produce their true leave soon, and then I will move them to the tower. As for the other seeds, they should sprout soon. However, the ones that have grown so tall have been placed in another germination tray because they were pushing up the tray's lid ,and I don't want air circulating around the ones that have not germinated yet.
Nevertheless, I am pleased with the beans progress so far.
Here is a photos of the Contender and Tendergreen Bush bean germination progress since my last post.
As you can see I am germinating them in organic grow pods that I can must move to the hydroponic tower once their true leaves have grown out. At the moment, they don't look pretty, but soon they grow out the look like the ones in the tower.
Today, I posted a small video on the progress of the vegetables under the light center. As you have probably already seen, the Parris Romaine lettuce have reached their maturity, the broadleaf chives are broadening and grown taller, the red scallion has grown as well. I need to plant more of them. In addition, and as stated in the video, I brought in the cherry tomatoes and brought out the two California Wonder pepper plants, which has grown so tall that they grew over the light hood of the countertop hydroponic system that I seeded them in on Saturday, April 04, 2026.
As you can see all those plants are doing well with some ready for harvest; so I have germinated some more seeds in a few germination trays and Thursday I moved them to the hydroponic tower systems. In the 50 pod tower I have mustard greens and they look ragged because I harvest my first batch yesterday. There is also Pak Cho, and a variety of slow growing herbs and mint.
In the 30 pod hydroponic tower to the right of the larger one, I am trying my hand at growing bush beans. I learned that there are two varieties of them recommended; Contender bush beans and Tendergreen bush beans. The Contender bush beans are in the tower with some other vegetables, and there is a tray of them germinating with some Tendergreen bush beans. Then in the two 30 pod hydroponic tower systems across the room, I have some herbs, mustard greens and mint growing in the one on the left. Of the herbs I am growing there is sweet Basil, Holy Basil, Thai Basil, Spearmint and Peppermint. However, the Thyme never germinated, so I bought some dried thyme instead. I grew up on thyme and after 75 years, I cannot imagine going without it. In the tower on the right there is more Pak Cho, Parris Romaine lettuce, mustard greens and some store bought scallions growing.
Of the vegetables not shown because they are in the house, there are Patio Baby Eggplants that flowers have just set with tiny eggplants, and more K2 golden cherry and Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes weighing down their vines.
As you can see I have become a fairly good indoor farmer. Fortunately for me, and after 50 years, my experience as a parent of houseplants, as well as my short lived time as an outdoor container gardener was very helpful to me in transitioning to indoor hydroponic gardening. In addition, as indoor hydroponic is being more widely done. There are more and more resources in the forms of books, videos and websites that caterer to the hydroponic beginners to the more ambitious experts.
Nevertheless, after nearly two years, I still se myself as a beginner, and the foods I grow now is the same or similar variety of foods that we would normally buy at the supermarket. However, like the beans, I do intend to master growing a new vegetable and perhaps some fruit once in a while.
