Two years ago, Elizabeth Millard discovered a way to put fresh produce into car food. No, she’s not the one who smuggled shredded lettuce into the Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch-Fiery, a 490-calorie, zero-noun snack from Taco Bell. Rather, Ms. Millard, a sustainable farmer outside the Twin Cities, did something even more unlikely: she grew a crop of microgreens on the passenger-side floor mat of her 2005 VW Beetle convertible.
两年前，伊丽莎白·米勒德(Elizabeth Millard)发现了一个方法，可以让新鲜的农产品成为车载食品。别多想，她可不是在Taco Bell快餐店出售的那种490卡路里、0营养的小食“多力多滋奶酪玉米片”(Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch-Fiery)里，偷偷放进碎生菜的人。不过，这位在双城市(Twin Cities)的市郊从事可持续农业生产的农夫，所做的事要离谱得多：在自己那辆2005年大众甲壳虫敞篷车的副驾座位地垫上，种出了一小块微型菜园(microgreen)。

“We were shuttling our box of seeds back and forth from our rented greenhouse space to our house,” she said the other day. “And I tripped and they fell all over the place.” Cress, mustards, a little purple mizuna.
“当时，我们正从租用的温室里来来回回往家搬运一箱箱的种子，”她那天说了起来，“然后我绊了一跤，把那些种子撒得满地都是。”其中有水芹、芥菜，和一点紫色日本色拉菜。
Ms. Millard added: “Being frustrated and lazy, I decided I would clean them up some time in my lifetime. Which means never.”
米勒德继续道：“我心烦意乱，也懒得收拾，就决定另外再找个时间把它们清理干净。其实就是再也不管了。”
It rained the next day. Ms. Millard, now 46, and Karla Pankow, her partner in life and in their C.S.A. business, called Bossy Acres, tracked mud into the car. After that, the June sun busted loose and they threw down the top. I think you can see where this is going.
第二天下起了雨。今年46岁的米勒德和她的人生伴侣兼C.S.A.生意伙伴、Bossy Acres公司的合伙人卡拉·潘科(Karla Pankow)，把满脚的泥带进了车里。再然后，六月里的炎炎烈日让他们放下了车顶棚。我想你能猜到后来发生了什么吧。
“About five days after the incident, I came out to my car in the morning and there was a beautiful flush carpet of microgreens on the passenger side,” Ms. Millard said. “It looked like a Chia Pet.”
“那次意外之后大约过了五天，我早上去开车门，发现副驾座位下面，有块整齐漂亮的微型蔬菜地毯，”米勒德说，“看起来就像芡欧鼠尾草娃娃(Chia Pet)。”
The accident fed the philosophy behind her new book “Indoor Kitchen Gardening: Turn Your Home Into a Year-Round Vegetable Garden” (Cool Springs Press). This is a how-to guide that describes Ms. Millard’s experiments raising crops — sun-loving outdoor plants like herbs, carrots, radishes, potatoes and tomatoes — in her Minneapolis bungalow.
这次意外事件充实了她的种植理念，成就了她的新书《室内厨房园艺：把你的家变成四季菜园》（Indoor Kitchen Gardening: Turn Your Home Into a Year-Round Vegetable Garden，由Cool Springs出版）。这是一本操作指南，描述了米勒德在自己那栋位于明尼阿波里斯市(Minneapolis)的平房里，是如何尝试在室内种植一些喜欢阳光的户外作物的，例如各种香草、胡萝卜、水萝卜、土豆和番茄。
I, for one, have daydreamed about owning a conservatory: a bright, climate-controlled growing space with windows, supplemental lights and a handy watering source. And here was Ms. Millard to tell me that I already possessed such a space, and it was called my condo.
其实我本人就幻想过拥有一间温室：一个明亮的、可控制气候影响的生长空间，有几扇窗户、有补充光源、还有方便取用的水源。但米勒德郑重其事地告诉我，我已经拥有一个这样的地方了，那就是我的共管公寓。
You don’t have to be a plant whisperer to enjoy success in this endeavor. Although, occasionally, you do have to be the bee. In a quest for bug-less indoor pollination, Ms. Millard stimulated the tomato’s reproductive parts with her electric toothbrush. (Talk about forbidden fruit.) But what she discovered, and what the book illustrates, is that it’s possible and even easy to cultivate shoots, greens and the odd root crop with almost no special equipment.
你不必成为一名花语者(plant whisperer)，也能在这一领域有所作为。不过有时候，你的确得充当一只蜜蜂。为了探索室内无虫授粉的问题，米勒德用她的电动牙刷来刺激番茄的生殖器（还谈起了禁果什么的）。但她在实践中发现——也在这本书中谈到，栽培芽类植物、绿叶植物和那些奇怪的块茎类作物，不但有可能、而且是很容易做到的，几乎无需特别的设备。
The VW microgreens did not become the stuff of a piquant salad. “I can’t imagine the carpet of your car is a food-safe environment,” Ms. Millard said. (What vinaigrette goes with road salt?) Instead, it became a proof of concept. “The lesson is: Don’t worry about it so much,” Ms. Millard said of her indoor garden. “If the conditions are right, it will happen.”
不过，她在甲壳虫车上栽培的那些微型植物，并没有成为一份鲜美色拉的配料。“我没法想象车上的地垫是食品安全级的环境，”米勒德说（谁能想象把香醋色拉汁和道路化冰盐搭配起来，会是什么味道呢？）。不过，这是一次理念的验证。“经验是：别想太多，”米勒德谈起她的室内种植工作，“只要条件合适，该发生的自然会发生。”
In many ways, the gardening conditions in the northland are best suited to ornamental berries, red-barked shrubs and alcoholism. The professional eschatologists (known elsewhere as meteorologists) were predicting scattered frosts for the night after Ms. Millard paid me a house call. It was early September.
从许多方面来看，北部地区的种植条件最适宜具有装饰性的浆果类植物、红皮灌木丛，以及酗酒。这天晚上，米勒德到我家上门服务后，那些专业的末世论者（在其它地方又称气象学家） 开始预测哪儿会有霜降了。这才刚刚九月初呢。
The parsley and sage in my backyard could hang on until Thanksgiving. But if I didn’t bring the basil inside now, I wouldn’t see it again until May or June.
我后院里种的欧芹与鼠尾草还可以坚持到感恩节；但我现在如果不把罗勒移到屋里来的话，到明年五、六月之前，我可就别想再看见它了。
While I was outside, I noticed a volunteer tomato seedling and a stray mint. What would be the harm in digging them up and converting them into house pets? (Ms. Millard recommends converting the garage or a three-season porch into a kind of halfway house where the plants can get acclimated.)
我在外面忙活的时候，注意到了一株跃跃欲试的番茄幼苗和一株流浪的薄荷。如果把它们都挖出来变成室内宠物，会有什么坏处吗？（米勒德建议我把车库或三季门廊[three-season porch，类似于玻璃阳光房的门廊——译注]改成临时的种植园，让这些植物有个适应过程。）
I asked Ms. Millard about what may still be growing at her house across town. But she had moved out soon after finishing a draft of the book. While she and Ms. Pankow shopped for farmland of their own, they were dwelling in a downscale version of that VW Microgreen: a 25-year-old Coachman fifth-wheel camper they bought from friends for $2,000. The quarters were homey; a previous owner had gone through the effort of painting the wallpaper.
我问米勒德，还有些什么植物仍然生长在她那位于小镇另一边的屋子里。但她把这本书的初稿写完不久，就搬了出来。她与潘科在购买她们自己的农场期间，就住在那辆甲壳虫微型植物基地的简约版里：一辆车龄25年的马车夫(Coachman)五轮野营车，是他们花2000美元（约合人民币12259元）从朋友手里买来的。车里舒服得像在家一样；一位前车主还劳心劳力地绘制了壁纸。
“It’s surprisingly spacious,” she said. “It’s like a New York apartment.”
“那辆车宽敞得惊人，”她说，“就像一套纽约公寓。”
Except, presumably, in New York it would have cost $2.65 million in an all-cash transaction and another $1 million for a parking spot.
只不过，在纽约购买这样一套公寓，大概得花265万美元（约合人民币1624万元），不仅是现金全款交易，还得再花100万美元（约合人民币613万元）去买个停车位。
Ms. Millard has good news for the yardless metropolitan. Much of the equipment you need for indoor kitchen gardening is already in the kitchen. Sprouts should grow in a Mason jar with a screen lid for air and drainage. Soak the seeds (Ms. Millard likes the flavor of broccoli). Then, after a day or two, turn the jar upside down and wait.
米勒德给那些没有院子的都市人带来了喜讯。这项室内厨房园艺所需的设备，多数都已经在厨房里了。幼苗应该生长在一只梅森罐（Mason jar——一种玻璃食品罐）里，罐子要有网盖，可以透气和排水。把选好的种子（米勒德喜欢西兰花的味道）浸湿，然后等上一、两天，把这只罐子倒转过来，再继续等待。
Are the white filaments edible food or some type of brassica thrush? Ms. Millard was noncommittal. “I will sprout things if people ask me to,” she said. “But I have not been a huge fan.”
这些白色的纤维到底是可以吃的食物，还是某种芸苔属的病态植物呢？米勒德含糊其辞地说，“反正我会让东西长出芽来，只要有人要我这样做，”她说，“但我也不会特别沉迷于这些事。”
Farther down in the cupboards, pie plates or baking sheets make satisfactory planters to grow microgreens or shoots. At the start, plastic wrap can keep the seeds humid. You may even have the shoot seeds in the bulk bin: say, dried peas, raw sunflower seeds or untreated popcorn.
橱柜的很下方有几只馅饼盘或烤盘，可供那些能干的种植者们种植一些嫩茎类或芽类的蔬菜。刚开始的时候，用塑料袋包裹，可以让这些种子保持湿润。你甚至可以用散粒储存箱来装这些嫩芽植物的种子：比如干豌豆、生的向日葵籽，或是没经处理的玉米粒。
Germination isn’t a sign of spoilage; it’s the goal here. Ms. Millard recommends soaking the seeds for a day or two beforehand, changing the water now and again. “If you leave them longer than that, they’ll give off a really vile smell,” she said, “like burning moldy feet.” At this point, you’re not raising food but developing a biological weapons program.
发芽并不是变质的标志，而恰是我们此时此刻的目标。米勒德建议大家把种子提前浸泡一、两天，不时换换水。“如果你浸泡的时间再长一点，它们就会发出相当难闻的气味，”她说，“就像在燃烧发霉的脚一样。”这样的话，你就不是在种植可食用的东西、而是在研发一种生化武器了。
The easiest indoor gardening projects look a lot like seed-starting. You don’t need much dirt: an inch and a half for sprouts, and maybe half an inch for microgreens (a regular lettuce mix, harvested early). “You can do that on a paper towel,” she said. “They’re not going to grow into their fullest expression of what they could be.” But then, who among us hasn’t thought about their own dirt nap and harbored the same self-doubt?
在室内栽培项目中，最简单的似乎就是让种子发芽了。你不需要太多土壤：铺上1.5英寸（约合38毫米）厚的土用来发芽，再铺半英寸（约合13毫米）用于那些嫩茎菜的生长（这是一种常见的混合生菜食材，很早就被采摘下来）。“这些活儿，你在一张纸巾上照样能做，”她说，“它们不会长成其成熟植株本来会是的样子。”但是仔细想想，我们当中有谁从没想过自己最终的结局，然后抱有同样的自我怀疑呢？
Ms. Millard had dragged a full bag of vermiculite as big as a pillowcase up the three flights of stairs. This, of course, was a bit of a sight gag: the white filler looks like Styrofoam and weighs no more. The idea was to mix it with a bagged organic compost she likes, called Cowsmo. But any indoor potting mix with a little fertilizer would do.
米勒德拖着枕头套那么大的一袋蛭石，爬了三段楼梯。这确实有点像滑稽表演：袋子里那些白色的东西看起来好像泡沫塑料，实际却沉重无比。她打算把这些“泡沫”和她喜欢的科兹摩(Cowsmo)袋装有机堆肥混在一起。不过任何室内盆栽混合土壤，只要含一点肥料，都是可以的。
“You want something that drains really well,” Ms. Millard said. “Dirt from your garden is too dense.” As a no-pesticide farmer, she welcomed the chance for a clean start. There’s a book to be written about how to breed common garden bugs in the house, but let’s leave that to the newspaper’s entomology expert.
“你要的是那种排水非常好的东西，”米勒德说，“从自己花园里挖来的土壤，密度太大。”她是一位不使用杀虫剂的农夫，喜欢从一开始就保持土壤的纯净。至于如何在屋里养殖常见的花园昆虫，这个话题可以写出一本书来，我们还是留给本报的那些昆虫学专家们吧。
Ms. Millard totes a stack of 20-inch black plastic planting flats almost everywhere she goes, the same way a real estate agent seems to bleed a trail of lawn signs. Get the ones with the bottom watering slits and the translucent lids. They are a masterful piece of industrial design, they cost about $1.50 each and they look just like garbage.
米勒德不管到哪儿，都拖着一堆20英寸（约51厘米）厚的黑色塑料种植板，就像一名房地产经纪人不管到哪儿都会竖起一连串草坪标牌那样。去购买这些底部裂口、带透明盖子的东西吧。它们是工业设计的杰作，每个大约1.5美元（约合人民币9元），看起来就像垃圾一样。
A Pyrex casserole dish makes a smarter display. “It may help with the drainage to put a low layer of gravel in the bottom,” Ms. Millard said, prepping the planter. A few handfuls of soil mix flew into the trays. She was no more delicate with the pea seeds and the popcorn kernels, scattering a single layer over the surface. Being housebound, they wouldn’t need a coat of dirt on top.
用派热克斯(Pyrex)烤盘则要气派得多。“在底部铺上薄薄一层碎石，可以帮助排水，”米勒德说，她正准备播种。几把混合土壤撒进了这些托盘里。她不再小心翼翼地处理这些豌豆种子和爆米花硬核，而是粗略地在土壤表面撒了薄薄一层。反正是在室内，它们不需要在顶上再铺一层土。
You’ll want to sow at the kind of density you would see in front of the stage at Bonnaroo. Once the sprouts come up, Ms. Millard said, “you could have someone crowd surf without falling in.”
你播撒种子的密度，要像你在波纳罗音乐节(Bonnaroo)舞台前方看到的人群密度一样。等这些幼苗长出来，米勒德说，“你都能让一个人在上面玩人体冲浪，也不会掉下去了。”
At this point, Ms. Millard mentioned a piece of look-for-it-in-the-basement gear: a box fan. A little airflow helps ward off disease and stiffens a plant’s resolve.
说到这，米勒德提起一件“要去地下室里找”的装置：一台箱式电扇。一点气流可以帮助植物避免疾病，并增强植株的抵抗力。
My summer corn crop in the yard had been a mixed success. By that I mean it was a success for the squirrels that stripped the stalks clean and a total failure for me, who waited 80 days and got nothing.
我夏天在院子里种的玉米算是成败参半吧。我的意思是，对于松鼠来说是成功的，它们把玉米杆子剥得一干二净；但对我而言则是彻头彻尾的失败，等待了80天，结果一无所获。
“Depending on your conditions in here, after about two weeks you should be able to harvest them,” Ms. Millard said. “Cut them like you’re giving them the worst haircut in the world.”
“这取决于你这里的天气状况，再过大约两周吧，你应该就能有收获了，”米勒德说，“收割玉米的样子，就像你要给它们剪全世界最难看的发型。”
I said, “I think I’ve given someone that haircut.”
我说，“我大概给人剪过那样的发型。”
Ms. Millard said, “I think I’ve had that haircut.”
米勒德说，“我大概被人剪过那样的发型。”
What about lights? This is the question that every lay agronomist seems to ask, Ms. Millard said. It’s as if she has proposed a suspect workaround: school without homework, say, or an affair without text messaging (I mean, sex).
那么光照呢？这似乎是每位外行的农学家都会提出的问题，米勒德说。那语气就好像她已经提出了一个可疑的变通方案：就像是，比方说不留家庭作业的学校，或是不发短信（我指的是，性）的外遇。
Ms. Millard dutifully runs through the options in the book. A window with southern exposure will get you somewhere. But the plant will need to be close to the pane, where conditions may be drafty. Incandescent bulbs give off more heat than light. Ms. Millard doesn’t spend too much time on specialty lighting systems: HID, LED or plasma. This kind of expertise and budget are the province of the marijuana cultivator. We have a lot to learn from them.
米勒德很负责地把书中的选项都浏览了一遍。一扇向南的窗户会对你有所助益，但是植物得靠近窗格，那里的环境可能比较通风。一些白炽灯泡会比自然光发出更多热量。米勒德没有在如何布置专门的光照系统上花太多时间：HID啦、LED啦，或者等离子什么的。这种光照系统的专业程度和预算花销，是大麻栽培者熟悉的范畴。我们有许多东西得向他们学习。
Ultimately, Ms. Millard recommends cheap shop lights, with full-spectrum bulbs (t5 or t8) and reflective hoods. The adjustable fixtures are better still: You can start them a couple of inches above the newly sprouted seeds and raise them as your plants grow.
最终，米勒德建议大家采用廉价的店铺照明，这种照明系统有全光谱的灯泡（光管直径t5或t8[t5直径约16mm，t8直径约25.4mm——译注]）和反光罩。最好让那些可调节灯具保持固定：你可以一开始把它们装在新发芽的种子上方几英寸的位置，然后随着植物的生长逐渐升高。
We’d moved on to planting herbs and root crops. Untreated potatoes from the farmers’ market would turn into suitable plants. Just wait for the eyes to form. Ms. Millard suggested putting five or six in a 15-gallon pot. “They should get some light during the day,” she said. But, “potatoes do well with the whole benign-neglect situation.” They’re like children that way.
我们又谈到了种植香草和根茎类作物。从农贸市场上买来的、未经处理的土豆，就会长成适合栽培的植株，只要等待芽眼形成就可以了。米勒德建议在每个15加仑大小的锅里，放五至六个土豆。“它们应该在白天得到一些光照，”她说。但是，“土豆很会适应被完全善意忽视的情境。”在这方面，它们就像孩子一样。
Rounded carrots and radishes wouldn’t outgrow their Procrustean beds. She mentioned French baby carrots (“carefully bred in France!”) and a favorite radish called Parisienne, which had the soul of a carrot. Alas, indoors, they would grow about as fast as the European economy. “Carrots take forever,” Ms. Millard said. “About two months, if you’re lucky.”
圆滚滚的胡萝卜和小萝卜，生长过程中都不会超出它们那张“普罗克汝斯忒斯之床”（Procrustean beds，源自希腊神话，形容强求一致的标准——译注）。她还提到了法国小胡萝卜(French baby carrots)（“在法国悉心栽培的！”），和一种叫做“巴黎女子”(Parisienne)、的讨人喜欢的小萝卜，它拥有一根胡萝卜的灵魂。唉，养在室内的话，它们的生长速度就能快得堪比欧洲经济了。“胡萝卜的生长周期很长，”米勒德说，“大约要两个月吧，如果你幸运的话。”
In the end, she harvested maybe 10 carrots — not the kind of bounty to run through a juicer. “When you spend that much time and love,” she said, “you slice them up and eat them raw like carpaccio.”
最后，她收获了大约十根胡萝卜——绝不舍得放进榨汁机里。“当你花了那么多的时间与爱心，”她说，“你只会把它们切成薄片，然后生吃，就像吃生牛肉片一样。”
She wouldn’t blame anyone who concluded that indoor kitchen gardening is impractical. “There’s something of the hobbyist to it,” she said.
如果有谁得出室内厨房园艺不切实际的结论，她也不会责怪他们。“这只是某种偏好。”她说。
Before I forget, then, here’s a reminder. In New York City, the outdoor planting date for carrots is only 150 days away.
以免我到时候忘了，先在这里提个醒。在纽约市，再过150天，就到了该在户外种植胡萝卜的日子了。