Ninja gardening is a garden technique that by-passes normal roadblocks, in a quest to grow something, anything, with the time and space you have.
When you begin gardening, you may be overwhelmed by the seed varieties, container options, gardening books, and how-to’s that abound. People talk about loamy soil, ideal lighting and sunlight amounts, garden zones, and more. It is easy to become overwhelmed by information overload.
Ninja Gardening is Different
Ninja gardening starts with three basic principles.
1. How much time do you have?
2. What do you have on hand?
3. How can you combine them to garden?
For example, you have five minutes, a pile of snow still on the ground, and a leftover, half dehydrated, sprouting potato that you found in the kitchen cupboard.
Grab a plastic cup, or used paper coffee cup. Grab 3-4 toothpicks.
Using the toothpicks, suspend the potato in the mouth of the cup. Fill the cup with water to partially immerse the potato. Set it aside in a low-light area.
This lets the potato begin growing. Over a few days the leaf stalk and roots will begin to change and grow. In your next piece of ninja gardening time, take a minimum 1 gallon planter pot and some potting soil and move the now-growing potato to a new dirt home.
Put dirt in the bottom of the pot, place the root-side of the potato down, and firm in dirt around the potato and partially up the growing stem. Water and set into a sunny spot to continue growing.
When your garden thaws in a few more weeks, you can carefully transfer that growing potato to a new home in you yard. If you don’t have a garden or garden space, get a 5 gallon pot, or a potato grow bag, and transfer the potato within the next month. Don’t let it over-grow it’s current home before transferring it to it’s final container home.
You can harvest new potatoes from that potato plant within 2 months. Let it grow the entire season for potatoes suitable for winter storage.
1 potato plant can produce 2-4 pounds of potatoes, or 1-3 pounds of new potatoes.
Ninja Gardening Brainstorm
You can follow the ninja gardening principles with nearly any plant and any moments of free time. Even if you have no garden supplies on hand, you can ninja garden.
Example: just bought fresh basil for cooking? Take most of the lower leaves off a few stems, leaving just the top 3-5 leaves and a long naked stem. Place in a glass of water, changing the water every three days. In a week, or sometimes less, you should see roots beginning to form on those basil stems. Then, when the stems are well rooted, get some potting soil and a few pots and pot up your new basil plants.
What do you have on hand today? Seeds from a pumpkin or winter squash? Sprouting carrot tops? An avocado seed? Citrus seeds? Think of something you can get started growing today. Seeds can be sprouted in a damp paper towel inside a ziploc bag. Worry about adding soil and pots once you see those seeds start growing.
Back to You
How will you ninja garden today? Leave a comment, I would love to hear from you!
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