RE: A Challenge: What are you doing to claim food sovereignty for yourself or your community, and why? My Response...
Yes, that indoor gardening project started off with an experiment bringing in plants from the garden and I was very happy with the results. We took it upon ourselves to invest in an LED grow light this year which covered a 4 x 4 table. We wanted to get maximum production out of that limited space, we're managing that with rectangle grow boxes and productive plants in them plus I've been doing some stacking of pots on those that came in from outside. We feel this grow has been successful and we are looking to expanding with another grow light.
What area are you gardening in? Sounds like the southern hemisphere if you are talking about the indoor season still approaching. We've been in it since October.
Martin Armstrong has had a big influence on our preparations for the future and I do so encourage folks to look him up for he is providing a tremendous service to society with his Socrates program and the information it is providing.
I'm in NE Oklahoma with average last frost about 15 April. Have a huge outdoor deep mulch garden that's coming up on 3-years old. Started with a 16x28 ft greenhouse soon after we built our place 5-years ago. Didn't expect heat management to be such a big challenge, even in the winter on sunny days. Had my propane heater in the greenhouse fail to light last week on a very cold might and might have lost my tomatoes :-(
We start the things that will stay in the greenhouse early and probably should be doing some planting now using racks inside the house by windows until they get sprouted. The seeds planted for outdoor plant starts is a bit over a month out. Good stuff.
I like being in my greenhouse on rainy days.
Sounds like you've got a good start to your food sovereignty with your gardening. I hear you about heat management! Before putting our sunroom as an addition to our house (with special venting window so it doesn't heat up the house) I played with different ideas and it always came back to - is it cost effective to be running heaters and light was always an issue too. I had a 16 x20 ft greenhouse with an
attached header house. The idea was that I was going to start my seedlings in there but there wasn't good enough light and I had to take them out into the greenhouse area in the day and put them back into the header house at night. Lots of work and it made me look at what I was growing and was it worth it. I decided to go with a simple light stand in our house and not bother heating the header house/greenhouse. The greenhouse just became our covered garden and it did extend the growing season.
We are fortunate to have trees around to supply afternoon shade so heat doesn't seem to be an issue and it is nice to be able to work in the covered garden when it's raining! We have to wait until after June the 7 for our last frost date so I hold off on starting our bedding plants for outside. Would love to see pictures of your garden and greenhouse.